Work & Co. is a digital product design agency with offices in New York, Portland, and Rio de Janeiro. Recently its most famous project was the redesign of Virgin America. Both Akzidenz-Grotesk and Adobe Garamond are served through Typekit. The Didone bits are embedded as svgs and appear to be in Domani CP, a digital version of ITC Didi.

The website also features a zoom navigation, in which the present page shrinks down to a block thumbnail, surrounded by block thumbnails of other pages.

Postcard advertising the book

In 2011, a French edition was published by Pyramyd, titled Psychologie Pour Les Créatifs / Survivre Au Travail. It uses the same basic design.

The Market Kitchen is a food, tourism and education hub for people interested in high quality South Australian foods. I was approached as a freelancer to design the branding for the kitchen and subsequent events.

Collateral included labels, packaging tape, poster and flyers. Primary design considerations included easily distinguishable branding and economic production. These challenges were overcome by using a single tone black imagery and type on green colour paper to keep printing costs to a minimum.

The photocopied look on coloured paper combined with the busy, multiple font approach is a homage to the posters usually adorning local market walls, with an additional contemporary twist.

From the Graphic Means documentary Kickstarter campaign:

Graphic Means explores the history of graphic design production, before the advent of the desktop computer.

Imagine designing and printing a brochure—without a computer. How would you set the type—making sure it fit your layout? How would you crop the images? How would you place those images alongside your text? And what would you hand over to the offset printer when you were done? 

Up until just 30 years ago when the desktop computer debuted, this whole process would have been primarily done by hand, and with the aide of fascinating machines that used a variety of ways to get type and image on to the printed page. 

Mad Men gives us viewers small glimpses into this detail-oriented, time-consuming process—but working as a commercial/graphic artist in the pre-desktop computer era entailed a lot more than marker comps for client meetings. Graphic Means will explore these methods and the skilled people who used them.  

The 1994 launch of Tazo set the standard for mid-range tea.

UK based All About Tea is a wholesaler, not a retail brand like Tazo, but their product appears in restaurants and cafes just like Tazo appears at Starbucks. The difference in the two looks is stark. Tasked with creating a new identity that would stand out in a “sea of sameness”, Moving Brands went to the other end of the visual spectrum. They paired a pure black-and-white color scheme with a minimal mark and mechanical typography to maintain a warehouse feel while appealing to an upper crust audience.

The primary typeface is the monospaced Orator. The designers articulate their choice nicely:

This reflects the uniform spacing of the mark as well as referencing the utilitarian infographics associated with import and export. The typeface strengthens the ideas behind the metronomic process of the company’s offer.

Bits of Monotype Garamond soften the tone. Its loose, wandering italic lends a classical, human touch to put older and more conservative customers at ease. It says this is a sophisticated, established brand that knows their product well.

The packaging, paperline, and signage are all impeccably executed. Unfortunately the website doesn’t meet the same standard, substituting Times for Garamond and generally lacking the deliberate control of the printed material. Still, overall, it’s a powerful identity that would certainly stand out on a store shelf when it ends up there.

Thanks to Alessandro Mingione, who recommended this item via our Facebook Page. Join us there and/or on Twitter. Your submissions are welcome.