A few weeks ago I joined the online #TDC68 Best in Show Panel with Michael Bierut and Jonny Sikov of Pentagram. The event was organized by The One Club for Creativity on February 9th and was a great opportunity to learn more about the winner of the 69th typography competition that the Type Directors Club runs every year. As the name of the event anticipates, the winner was the amazing ICP (International Center of Photography) rebranding of Michael Bierut and Jonny Sikov of Pentagram. Bierut and Sikov explained in a really exhaustive way the entire progress behind the redesign of the ICP logo and brand identity of the museum, which is also a school and archive located in NYC. Bierut established from the beginning who is behind such an important institution. It is a family of monumental photojournalists who shot during WWII and the civil war and who shaped the impact of photojournalism in the present. Analyzing the visual problems of the most recent logo mark created by Siegel and Gale for ICP, Bierut, and Jonny decided to focus on the acronym ICP creating nothing new but rather going back to the logo designed by Arnold Sachs in 1974. This logo was used for many years by the institution. They kept the geometry of Sachs’ letters but gave them a modern vibe. The innovative element of the entire project was the creation of a logo generator. A sort of software that allows the designer to create a logo for different contexts. A logo that can adapt to different formats. In fact the new logo would stretch all the way out to the border of the website page or shrink to fit a bottom pin without losing the counter space or any other details of the logo. Another innovative element of their rebranding was the use of the logo on posters and billboards as part of the title or of the text on it. The logo is not at the very bottom corner of the poster but it is a dynamic and bold element in the design. As important as the photographs displayed.
The event lasted a little bit more than an hour and was followed by a series of questions by the moderator TDC Managing Director Ksenya Samarskaya taken from the chat which was populated by designers from all over the world. The questions were more about the other logos they presented to ICP and what visual directions the client gave to them about the new logo.
The modest and genuinely thankful (for the award) Bierut in this event is one of the leading American graphic designers, design critic and educator. He is an active member of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) and Pentagram, as well. While reading his biography it was interesting to find out what drove him to graphic designer at an early age. His love for music and fine art brought him to look for any book associated with those two topics and ended up finding only two books in the entire library of Cleveland where he grew up. Both books were about graphic design. It is interesting for me because all my personal graphic projects are music based and I think I have an ok eye for graphic design thanks to my love for any form of art.
The event was recorded and it is still up on Youtube. Here is the link.
