John Gall, art director for Vintage International, was gifted the “most daunting project of [his] entire life”: redesigning all 21 book covers in the Vladimir Nabokov literary canon. Not an easy task. Gall rounded up an ace group of graphic designers to contribute to the project, from Pentagram partner Michael Beirut to Knopf heavy hitters Chip Kidd and Barbara de Wilde.
Because Nabokov was an avid butterfly collector, Gall assigned a design brief that proposed all the covers should resemble specimen boxes. Vintage and Anchor Books are currently hosting a giveaway of these art-meets-literature re-imaginings; we’ve listed our five favorites after the jump. Read More »
We’ve already chatted about the America Online rebranding, in which the online media conglomerate went hip with a sans-serif font, lowercase letters, and punctuation. (Aol. > AOL?) It got us thinking about the efficacy of that one small dot, and what brands are trying to convey by punctuating their logos. From greater-than symbols to obnoxious exclamation points to a growing number of quotation marks, we have to wonder if punctuation is the new emoticon.
Take a design director from the most emotionally-charged political campaign in recent history, add an innovative online fundraising platform, sprinkle liberally with design from across the land, and what do you get? Why, Designing Obama, a hardcover look at the artwork and graphic design inspired by and supporting the 2008 Barack Obama campaign. Read More »
