We are proud to announce our design of the latest John Foxx and the Maths Album: The Shape of Things.

The Shape of Things is the follow up album to Interplay and we wanted to keep the same strong graphic style. Influenced by 1960s paperback novels and infographics from the 1970s, with a modern twist. Instead of cold statistical analysis though, the diagram on the cover presents a positive human emotion in a simple graphic way: optimism for the future. This is a statement in relation to the album which is much darker in tone than Interplay.

The inside is based on early manuals from analogue synthesisers which were used for the making of the music. These were based directly on photographs taken in Benge’s studio where the album was created. Other parts of it use photos of 1950s supercomputers, speculating that ‘the Maths’ might not be a group of people at all but a machine somewhere that is calculating all of the music and the emotion in it.

The album is available exclusively through John Foxx’s online store.

Happy new year to you dear readers. We at Barnbrook are pleased to announce that we are working on a number of exciting projects due to be printed, published or realised during 2012.

Projects in the works include books for Four Corners Books, Thames and Hudson and Rizzoli, exhibition design for the Design Museum, marketing and book design for the Victoria and Albert Museum, and branding for Shiseido. As those projects are released we will publish more information and images about them throughout this year (in addition to those projects from 2011 we are yet to showcase).

The image is above is from the publicity material for the V&A’s upcoming exhibition, British Design 1948–2012: Innovation in the Modern Age.

We are pleased to announce that Jonathan has designed the new identity for the Occupy London movement. Occupy London were previously using a logo similar to the London transport roundel, but had been ordered to stop using it by TFL’s lawyers. As an open movement Occupy London decided to hold a competition to find a new identity. 18 designs were shortlisted and Jonathan’s design was chosen in an anonymous online vote.

The design shows the initials of Occupy London, OL, transformed into a target intersected by an arrow. The wordmark features our typeface Patriot and alludes to the direct nature of the movement.

Barnbrook are pleased to announce our latest work: two cover designs for the paperback version of Simon Garfield’s bestselling book, Just My Type. Not just a font book, but a book of stories about how Helvetica and Comic Sans took over the world, Just My Type is a throughly enjoyable read for anyone interested in or enthusiastic about typography.

Following our previous work for Profile books and our screen-print to publicise the hardback edition of JMT, Barnbrook were approached to update the cover for the paperback version. We loved the design of the original hard back cover but publishers Profile wanted to give it a more contemporary twist. We scoured numerous font libraries for the perfect combination of typefaces and produced one design printed in two colour versions: fluorescent inks on a black or metallic silver background.

For more information in Just My Type, visit Simon’s website or read this review in the Guardian.

Having previously designed the website for s[edition] co-founder Harry Blain’s Blain Southern Gallery, Barnbrook were approached by s[edition] to design their identity and oversee the design of their online presence.

s[edition] is a revolutionary new way to collect art by the world’s leading contemporary artists in digital format. Their goal is to make fine art collectable, affordable, social and enjoyable.

The s[edition] logo – originally inspired by typographic marques drawn for traditional British art handlers and auction houses – was designed to be dynamic, elegant and contemporary. Simultaneously acknowledging both the tangible nature and digital potential of fine art in this transitionary time. The website was designed in collaboration with s[edition]‘s in house team.

Read more about s[edition] on the the BBC and The Art Newspaper.

Barnbrook have contributed to I-Jusi Portfolio, a limited edition print series released by the experimental South African magazine I-Jusi. First published during the vibrant period following South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994, I-Jusi magazine posed questions about African identity and visual culture. The portfolio series was launched in 2010 to ensure the survival of the magazine.

The I-Jusi Portfolio 2 explores concepts surrounding lettering and typography that are integral to the image in the context of the ‘African Experience’ and features work by a selection of South Africa’s leading artists, designers and photographers, as well as two international graphic designers.

As a European studio commenting on African identity, it was important for us to acknowledge the role that Europe and the west has played in the history of the continent. We wanted to explore postcolonial theory with specific reference to language and in doing so, chose a quote from Simon During’s Postcolonial Reader: “For the post-colonial to speak or write in the imperial tongue is to call forth a problem of identity, to be thrown into mimicry and ambivalence”.

The portfolio consists of 10 works each signed by the artist in an edition of 50. All lithographs in the portfolio are 325 x 500mm printed on 250g Rives BFK. The printing process used is offset lithography using UV stable inks. The portfolio boxes are hand made and covered with Egyptian linen book cloth.
Contact Rooke Gallery for more information about purchase.

You can read more about the history of I-Jusi magazine in this article by Margaret Richardson.

Barnbrook have contributed a limited edition artwork to CASE study, a fundraising event, opening this Thursday at The Conran Shop, Marunouchi, Tokyo. CASE study have invited designers such as Ron Arad, Ronan Erwan Bouroullec and House Industries to contribute a unique object to be sold, with the proceeds going to the Japanese earthquake relief fund.

This piece is based on the famous greek myth of ‘Pandora’s box’: when all of the ills of the world were released by Pandora – the first woman on earth – from a box given to her by Zeus.

The story usually has negative connotations; when somebody opens ‘Pandora’s box’ they do something bad that cannot be stopped. What is less well known, is that there was something left in the box: letters which make up the word hope.

This work shows pandora’s box opened with hope left inside. It is a symbol that humanity can overcome adversity and create a better, more positive world. Therefore a fitting symbol for a project about the tsunami and earthquake.

The box is produced in a signed and numbered edition of five, and is available from The Conran Shop, Marunouchi, Tokyo.

We are proud to announce the release of the latest Little Book; designed by Barnbrook and published by Fiell.

The Little Book of Shocking Eco Facts is the third in the series and the second designed by Barnbook. Compiled by respected scientists Mark Crundwell and Cameron Dunn, …Eco Facts is packed with interesting facts and figures about the ecological state of our planet. Our aim was to create an engaging book that subverted conventional ideas about ‘ecological design’.

Eco facts also gave us the opportunity to showcase the open source movement by setting the intro section and backmatter in an open-source typeface – DejaVu Mono – and creating graphics using the open-source programming language and development environment Processing.

Of course the production of the book had to be as environmentally friendly as possible, so we printed using soy ink (an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional petroleum-based ink) on FSC accredited paper. A portion of the profits were donated to the Rainforest Alliance.

Barnbrook is proud to announce our latest digital work: the online presence for Blain|Southern, an international gallery representing some of the world’s leading contemporary artists. Launched by the influential founders of Haunch of Venison, Harry Blain and Graham Southern, the gallery represents artists such as Mat Collishaw, Anton Henning, Bill Viola and Rachel Howard.

Intended to be the ultimate resource for artists represented by Blain|Southern, the site is clean, simple and easy to navigate. Based on a flexible grid/column system and characterised by the use large images, the design brings the artwork to the fore.

The home page and artist pages draw content and related information from elsewhere in the site, giving the site an ever changing feel.

As well as viewing information about artists, you can peruse an archive of exhibitions held by Blain|Southern in any of their locations.

A slideshow viewer simulates the uncluttered viewing experience of a gallery space.

To see more visit the Blain|Southern site.

Programming by Raffi Jacobs.

If you haven’t had a chance to visit the Information is Currency exhibition, you can our poster The Right To Freedom here.

The idea behind our poster, The Right To Freedom:

The right to freedom of opinion and expression. The right to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media. Article 19 of the universal declaration of Human Rights is a powerful starting point that informs and inspires the work of wikileaks. Here — denied his right of freedom — Bradley Manning is censored out by that statement. Referencing digital data encryption, the ‘pixels’ of the digital typeface are in fact QR codes, each of which links to a different scandal exposed by wikileaks.

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You can see the other artwork and buy prints included in the exhibition on the Information is Currency website.