Easy As ABC
Graphic Design USA's Weekly Design Briefing
Happy Friday! This is the September 13-17, 2021 edition of Graphic Design USA Weekly Design Briefing - this week’s round up of our most popular design stories from GDUSA magazine. If you like it and want more in your inbox, consider subscribing.
GDUSA’s 2021 American Graphic Design Awards™
Best Designs Of The Year!
Sponsored by Verso Corporation
The American Graphic Design Awards™ is our flagship contest open to everyone in the community: design firms, ad agencies, in-house departments, institutions, associations, freelancers, students and more. It honors outstanding work of all kinds — the best designs of the year — in print, packaging, p-o-p, internet, interactive, video and more. Winners receive an engraved and embossed Certificate of Excellence for each winning piece and are eligible for reproduction in the 58th Anniversary GDUSA Awards Annual in print, online, digital and mobile – seen by over 100,000 colleagues and clients each year.
Absolut Vodka new bottle design marks the biggest refresh for the brand since its launch in the USA in 1979. A tribute to the vodka’s credentials provenance, heritage and authenticity, the new look aims to upgrade the design of the iconic clear glass packaging. Influenced by the community surrounding its production and distillation in and around Åhus, Sweden, the changes nod to the craftsmanship and rigor behind the renowned vodka. These design updates include bringing to life Absolut’s “One Source” philosophy by including text alongside an illustration of the original distillery noting “One Source. One Community. One Small Village In The South of Sweden.” Led by studio Brand Union Stockholm with assistance from agency Destrito and glassmaker Ardagh, Absolut retained the now-famous 18th-century apothecary bottle shape while adding new features like “Made In Sweden” embossed on the bottle. The designers also added a paper label for the first time, and refined the typography for better legibility. The new label specifies Absolut’s hometown and the medallion on the neck is redesigned to include founder Lars Olsson Smith’s name in homage to his legacy. “We were keen to capture our rich, quality story and make that clearer on the bottle, signposting to what makes our vodka unique,” said Elin Furelid, global head of product portfolio and design, Absolut. “We have, of course, kept the most important design elements that make Absolut, Absolut.”
AIGA has announced a series of Hispanic Heritage Talks for 2021. The events will be hosted throughout Hispanic Heritage Month by AIGA Unidos, a multi-chapter collaboration creating a space to empower and celebrate the lives, work, stories, and needs of creatives with a Latinx and Hispanic cultural heritage. From September 15 through October 15, Latinx and Hispanic creatives from different backgrounds and disciplines will convene to share their stories, their work, and celebrate their culture. The talks are free and open to everyone, and will feature creatives from different backgrounds and disciplines via Instagram Live and Zoom webinars. AIGA Unidos organizer and AIGA Atlanta chapter co-President, Dio Jensen says: “We are excited to share this year’s lineup for Hispanic Heritage Talks and to offer a platform for Hispanic and Latinx creatives to share their stories and practices with the world. Our group was created because we believe in representation. When young creatives see our amazing Hispanic and Latinx speakers, we hope that they will be inspired and affirmed in their careers and aspirations.” Jensen was honored by GDUSA last year as a leading Socially Responsible Designer. The full schedule includes speakers come from diverse creative disciplines, including type designers, illustrators, marketers, educators, and ideators. “It’s critical to actively acknowledge and invest in diverse designers who are the future of the design community, and are moving the profession forward,” comments AIGA Executive Director, Bennie F. Johnson. “We’re excited to have AIGA’s chapters working together to celebrate and highlight designers from within our community for Hispanic Heritage Month.”
ABC is rolling out an updated logo along with an on-air branding package this fall that it describes as a “brand evolution.” The current logo dates back to a design by Paul Rand in 1962, though modifications and embellishments have been made over the last six decades. The network worked with branding agency Trollbäck to come up the refresh, and is rolling it out across its various divisions – and is also working with affiliates to transition their logos to include the updated ABC look. According to the high-profile branding firm: “Honoring the iconic nature of Paul Rand’s original design, we rebuilt the logo from scratch, beginning with three perfect circles and culminating in an incredibly flexible, emotionally compelling, cross-platform system…” Adds Shannon Ryan, president, content marketing, Hulu and Disney General Entertainment (which includes ABC): “We felt it was time to evolve the overall look of the network to make it more vibrant, modern and fresh.” The most noticeable change is the return to a traditional flat logo from a more 3D iteration. The size of the letters have been reduced slightly and circles within the letters are now the basis for the network’s ID animation system. Ryan says the revised logo is more flexible graphically, which is particularly important in this digital age, where depth doesn’t translate well on small screens such as streamer program menus or social media apps. And for the past 18 years, ABC has used red, white and black as its color palette, and that will continue – but it will also be modernized with gradients and a slew of secondary color palettes. Heldane and GT America fonts are the primary fonts chosen, say the designers, for their versatility.
For further reading…
A New Way To Evaluate Branding and Package Design by Richard Shear, a professor at New York’s School of Visual Arts and Chief Creative Officer at invok brands.