Summer 2008 Roundup
Monday October 20, 2008 - 23 months ago
Posted by James Ellis / Filed under Design, Random
Summer 2008 was busy. At this point it’s all a bit of a blur. Between work, travel and an obsession with political punditry, it’s slightly difficult to remember what all happened. So, before we forget, a roundup of projects completed this summer…
U.N. Icons Suite
We worked with OCHA, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, to develop a standard symbol set for all OCHA maps. We created roughly 120 icons communicating a wide variety of subjects: security, relief materials, infrastructure, sanitation, etc. The symbol set was made into a typeface that OCHA cartographers will use worldwide.
The project was a serious graphic challenge. Some concepts are extremely difficult to represent using simple graphics. Consider a subject like security. How does one design distinct graphics for things like arrest, detention, abduction, assault, attack, forced entry, harassment/intimidation and hijacking?
Fortunately we were given enough time to get the set right. We’re pretty happy with the results. And attending meetings at the U.N. was a bit of an adventure.
Design by Matt Owens with significant assistance from Dylan Mulvaney, one of our summer interns.
Good
We worked with Good on The Hidden Cost of War, a 2-minute video feature examining the hidden costs of the Iraq war for the Transparency section of the new Good website. The research behind the piece comes from Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilme’s book, The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict.
Design and animation by Matt Owens and Jason Bishop. Opening intro sequence by Mark Owens.
The piece has been getting some attention, and we were psyched to see it discussed, among other new Good video pieces, on Brian Lehrer Live:
(Skip to the 3:50 mark)
If you’re not familiar with Brian Lehrer, you should check out his regular 10am program on 93.9FM WNYC here in New York. You can listen on the web. He has the best opening theme music.
After the video piece turned out well, Good asked us to design the Transparency section of the November/December Good Magazine, now on newsstands. The Transparency section covered 5 topics: the hidden cost of war; the amount of energy burned by the average car vs. the average human; a glance at refugees worldwide; smokers by state; and taxi queues in the United States.
Some spreads:
You can see more from this project here.
Sesame Street
David’s spent the summer regressing back to his childhood. He was asked to direct four short spots for newest season of Sesame Street, season 39.
A Boy and his Robot: Lunchtime:
King Tuff, The Weight
In addition to Wes’ summer as The Rambler, he created two LP packages, one of which features a staggering coupling of complimentary spot colors, the second is more photo-driven, but equally ridiculous.
Nevikov
Athletics’ Jason Gnewikow has been busy with his fashion line under his phonetically spelled name: Jason Nevikov. Spring/Summer 2009 is currently in production, with some pieces already available via Oak:
http://www.oaknyc.com/product/jason-nevikov-1984
http://www.oaknyc.com/product/jason-nevikov-outdoor-min
http://www.oaknyc.com/product/jason-nevkov-brooklyn-har
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And that’s only half the summer. More coming…