Good logo design – its never wrong

I came across this interesting post reviewing the new Design Museum Shop identity. The new logo and rollout is slick and sophisticated, pared down simplicity which neatly ties in with the overall brand identity. It contrasts hugely with the previous design which was full of character and fun, loved by visitors. Neither is wrong, both are great. Comparing them shows perfectly how a change in brand identity design can alter the mood, personality and tone of a business.

Sometimes when we are approached by new clients to look at their logo or brand identity, we might be asked “Have you ever designed for a business like ours before?” My answer is always the same. Design is design, our role is to make the design, great design. Its always personal. It should always be specifically for that client, match their business, reflect their people and work to appeal to their clients. A brand identity can and often does require change as the business grows and sometimes shifts direction. Our role as designers is to monitor this and design appropriately.

The Design Museum story demonstrates perfectly how a business can redefine its market positioning with a change in identity. The shop now seems changed, its role more serious. Both identities are well designed, yet hugely different. Shopping here is a lot more serious now, I know I’ll get good design here but alas no more colouring books I’m guessing… G.

Visit the museum here. Read more about this story here on Creative Review

Make a Reindeer this Christmas, from Penhouse

This Christmas we are sending our Christmas wishes digitally, so we’re sending you a Penhouse Reindeer which can be downloaded on our website. We’re inviting you to print it and make it, pop it in a good position and if you like…. sure why not send us a picture too? We’ll display the herd we receive on our Facebook page, with your very own reindeer looking good!! Have fun…

We’d like to thank all our clients and friends, through more difficult times who have chosen us for their design and marketing services and helped us make this year a special one. 2011 gave us a great range of different projects as we celebrated our 15th year in the design business, from exciting web designs & open exhibitions, to brochures & brand identities with lots of social media and inventive marketing fun thrown in too.

We were delighted to win another IDI award this year, some new national tenders and celebrate more published logos. We also had two Penhouse babies which was our favourite news of all!

Read more here and see some of our most recent work produced here

We look forward to starting all over again in 2012. The studio will close up this year on Thursday of Christmas week, December 22nd and return on Wednesday January 4th. We’d like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from all of us here, Gill leonie, Fiona, Gemma and Annette

The Unofficial London Logo

Loving this proposed logo for the City of London by venturethree

Institute of Designers in Ireland – Design Awards 2011 – Highly commended!

We’re delighted we have just won a ‘highly commended’ award by the Institute of Designers Ireland 2011!!

This is a prestigious Irish design industry award, judged by a panel of International jurors which this year included:

• Don Wilson
• John Jenkins
• Jonathan Barnbrook
• Jos Buivenga
• Kees Spanjers
• Nic Benns & Miki Kato, MOMOCO
• Stephen Conlon (jury chairperson)

The 13th Annual IDI Design Awards ceremony took place on Thursday 27 October 2011 at the Sugar Club, Lesson Street, Dublin 2, where the winners were announced. Our design won a highly commended award in the Visual Communications sector under the Annual Reports category, one of only 7 awarded pieces.

The IDI Irish Design Awards are an occasion to celebrate the excellent standard of design achieved by designers on the island of Ireland for 2010/2011. It is also an opportunity for the IDI to promote this standard to a commercial audience. We’re very proud to have been previous recipients of the institute awards and always enjoy the excitement of the event.

The IDI suggest ‘Exceptional achievements are worth communicating, which is why all winning entries will be promoted to local, national and international press and trade publications and through its affiliations with international bodies, such as the International Federation of Interior Designers, the Bureau of European Design Associations, the International Council of Graphic Design Associations, the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design and the European Council of Interior Architects. All finalists will also be profiled in both the IDI members’ directory and the 2010/2011 IDI ‘Best of Irish Design’ book, to be made available to all members, the general public and commercial enterprise.’

The presentation of ‘outstanding design entries’ will be exhibited at the awards ceremony. Here’s a brief glimpse of some pages from the Penhouse winning piece…

Papernomad stylish cover for ipad

You know the feeling, browsing online and you suddenly get inspired. Immediately you want to sketch, to draw, to doodle, to jot, to paint, to scribble, bursting to get a pen to paper to put the creative idea in print. But you’ve traveled light, you’re online, and the nearest back of an envelope will be long lost tomorrow. Now we found an ideal solution from Vienna by Papernomad and we just love it!

It is designed from beautifully stitched tear-resistant brown paper – my favourite to draw on – made into an earth friendly stylish case for your favourite digital viewers. Your ipad, iphone, or laptop is wrapped in sheep’s wool lining to provide the cotton cushioning, and is sealed magnetically with a hemp strip. It can remain clean or be personalised however you choose. Write, draw, paint, design as you wish.

What an absolutely beautiful website and film too. The only hard part is where do you start with your doodling? What if you make a terrible mistake? Oh the pressure, but what fun!! I want one. So how would you decorate yours? G

Culture Night 2011 in Laois

Crop Marks – The Ratheniska Project exhibition opened in full for Culture Night 2011 and will remain on display until October 21st in Dunamaise Arts Centre, Portlaoise, in the upstairs ‘Drawing Room’ gallery.

Thanks to the brilliant contributions by the Ratheniska National School children, we had a diverse and fun range of 15 themed pieces from each class, making it a really enjoyable interactive exhibition for children and adults alike.

The pieces included a film (from junior infants and 6th class) shown on the big screen; future portraits from senior infants; a collection of favourite things from 1st; 15 favourite movies from 2nd; random 15 inspired creations from 3rd; ‘Step Back in Time’ history project from 4th and a group illustrated ’15′ poem from 5th.

The ‘junior’ collection is a follow up to the original expo, organised earlier this year by Penhouse (and made special by the many creative contributions) marking our 15 years in the design business.

15 goes junior… creatively

This year (as you may know) Penhouse celebrates 15 years as a professional graphic design studio and we already ran an online exhibit earlier this year inviting entries from far and near, which was great fun. Thanks to all who took part, we really enjoyed your interactions and brilliant creations. Now we are expanding on this and talking to our younger fans…

We have enrolled the creative talents of the children from our local school here in Ratheniska to create a collection for Culture night 2011. The exhibition will feature a range of creative pieces developed by the full spectrum of students in Ratheniska N.S. in association with their teachers. The theme remains the same: “What does 15 mean to you?” but we think it will have a different feel when embraced creatively by these young artists.

The exhibition will run for a month on display in the children’s gallery (The Drawing Room) at Dunamaise Arts Centre, Portlaoise who have kindly come on board to help facilitate our project.

We’re getting excited now and looking forward to seeing the results! We’ll most likely post the creativity progress on our Facebook and Twitter feeds (without giving too much away before Culture night opening) so follow the story there to see how it develops…

Barley Bales at Penhouse

It’s that time of year again… the sun is shining (a bit each day), harvest is cut and the sweet smell of straw is filling the air. The fields are collecting the bales, so we have some added outdoor seating, which is nice! But the reason we like this time of year especially is the dramatic changes in colour. Our surrounds have always influenced our colour palette choices when working on designs here and this time of year you’ll be sure to see a few ‘ochre’ colours used – courtesy of our harvesting surrounds keep an eye out for them…

Snow in August!

We know its been a cold summer, but let’s be thankful we haven’t snow yet in August in Ireland! Meanwhile in New Zealand it snowed this week for the first time in 30 years and for many it was their first snow experience.We watched this film and felt goosebumps.

Filmed & edited by Ro Tierney (an Irish filmaker), this beautiful piece captures some of the best expresssions and genuine emotions, with perfect musical accompaniment in Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy. Watch it here, we know you’ll smile

http://www.facebook.com/rotierneyfilms
http://twitter.com/#!/rotierney
http://www.rotierney.com

We love pencils, but *super* love these…

We’re hearing… ‘how?’ ‘What the?’, ‘Is that…?” Yes it is.. The pencil’s wood and graphite have been beautifully sculpted to make this beauty by DALTON GHETTI“At school I would carve a friend’s name into the wood of a pencil and then give it to them as a present. Later, when I got into sculpture, I would make these huge pieces from things like wood, but decided I wanted to challenge myself by trying to make things as small as possible.”
— DALTON GHETTI

Read and see more about this great artist on David Airey’s here