Great name and identity designed by Character. Playground is a unique combination of a venture fund and a start-up studio. The identity represents the firm’s grounded expertise and their belief that play should be part of the process. Clever, beautifully crafted and supported by a lovely animation that you can enjoy here.
A giant vinyl roundabout situated in the town of Lyss, Switzerland in an area known for its club life.
From an early age, my local library was a sanctuary for me. It was more about looking than reading. During visits in my teens, I acquired the guilty pleasure of 'liberating' book jackets from their hardcovers. In 1963, age nineteen, I was thumbing through some new arrivals on the shelves and pulled out this book. I was overwhelmed by the stark simplicity of its cover, just two colour line and an idea. What it taught me was that being limited expands the imagination. Styles fade, ideas endure. The cover was designed by Keith Cunningham (1929-2014). Fifty-eight years on, this little gem still gives me a thrill.
Frahm is a small, family run business dedicated to making beautiful, technical and detailed jackets. Directly opposed to fast fashion, they operate a pre-order only model, avoiding waste and lowering the environmental impact of their products and processes. Supple Studio was invited to design packaging for these robust, weather-ready jackets. The studio's solution was to fully embrace Frahm's 'Tough Beautiful' mantra, designing a gorgeous range of outer boxes, each featuring a naturally resilient British insect, photographed at macro scale. Supple also designed a full icon set, as well as detailed inner packaging elements and a bespoke outer tape, playfully referencing Frahm's commitment to support mental health charity Mind.
Think Packaging are a design-led structural packaging agency based in New Zealand. Fellow Kiwis Seachange have given them a new identity that takes the humble cardboard box and elevates it to hero status. It’s artfully done, both playful and slick – with pitch perfect art direction and photography that’s beautifully simple. Topped with great copy and endless details; such as a cutting matt inspired backdrop to website menu and typography that’s as sharp as a Swann Morton. Top marks (and folds).
This is such a simple, elegant idea, crafted to perfection. The juxtaposition in the name is beautifully dramatised by the colour blocks – forming, of course, an L shape. The way it shrinks and grows – from little to more and little again – is so pleasing to watch. Chic, smart, unfussy but distinctive. Gorgeous.
Such a brilliant, piercingly truthful concept, beautifully realised. And incredibly important in the midst of a mental health crisis for young people. It's scooping up awards right now and quite right too.
Clever, reductive animal illustrations created by Helga Stentzel using items you'd find on a washing line.
In 2020 D&AD decided not to do a printed annual, a yearly book of some of the best advertising and design that year, adored and collected by many. Rhys Hughes and Barret Helander took this opportunity to create a bootleg annual, manually sourcing all the content themselves and giving the people what they wanted.
