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.

It’s that time of year again. Time to review the tunes gracing the studio jukebox over the last twelve months. Hastily cobbled together… rejoice! It’s the Barnbrook team’s top albums of 2011.

In Alphabetical order by surname:

Abbott:
1. Radiohead – The King Of Limbs
2. Kode9 & The Spaceape – Black Sun
3. Gil Scott-Heron And Jamie XX – We’re New Here
4. Nicolas Jaar – Space Is Only Noise
5. Little Dragon – Ritual Union
6. PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
7. Modeselektor – Monkeytown
8. SBTRKT – SBTRKT
9. Martyn – Ghost People
10. Machinedrum – Room(s)

Barnbrook:
1. Silvio Berlusconi – True Love
2. John Foxx & The Maths – Interplay
3. PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
4. Massive Attack – Occupy London Mix
5. Various – The Minimal Wave Tapes Vol. 1
6. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
7. Deliah Derbyshire – A Retrospective
8. RJDJ – Music Generation app.
9. LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening
10. Wolfgang Riechmann – Wunderbar

Streat:
1. Nicolas Jaar – Space is Only Noise
2. Radiohead – King of Limbs
3. Gang Gang Dance – Eye Contact
4. James Blake – James Blake
5. tUnE-YarDs – W H O K I L L
6. Little Dragon – Ritual Union
7. Zomby – Dedication
8. Grouper – A I A
9. Bon Iver – Bon Iver
10. Dark Dark Dark – Wild Go

The latest intern to join the studio – and the first of 2012 – is James Lunn. Following stints at karlssonwilker in New York and Universal in London, James will be working with us on a variety of projects, some of which were announced on this post. If you are interested in applying for an internship, please read our edu site first.

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.

Opening tomorrow at The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Australia is an exhibition of the work of Belgian artist Wim Delvoye. We are pleased to announce that we have designed the book published to accompany the exhibition, details of which will be revealed soon.

MONA, located in Hobart, Tasmania, is the brainchild of maverick art collector David Walsh and features everything from African art to multimedia installations. Delvoye’s pieces in the MONA collection provoked such a reaction that Walsh decided to hold a larger exhibition of his work. Delvoye’s diverse work ranges from machines that digest food (the Cloaca series) to a tattooed man who has been sold as an artwork (Tim).

We worked in close collaboration with Wim’s studio to produce a book which will be available from the MONA bookshop.

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.

It has been a few weeks since we first shared news of the Occupied Times launch and since then much has happened to the global Occupy movement and the London Occupied Times. In New York, there have been clashes with police and mass arrests after protesters marched in support of Occupy Wall Street. In London, the Corporation of London has begun formal legal proceedings and have served eviction notices to the remaining protesters outside St Paul’s Cathedral. This morning, protesters have taken over an empty office block in Hackney belonging to the bank UBS.

It is with this backdrop that the Occupied Times have been working to give an unofficial printed voice to Occupy London. Issue three was launched to coincide with the student tuition fees march on November 9, which was accompanied by some friendly policing. The fourth issue, launched this Wednesday, was printed on ‘salmon’ pink paper with obvious reference to the Financial Times.

Four issues in and the paper is gaining publicity and provoking debate about the nature of protest graphics. Our original post was which was shared on the Creative Review blog and since then OT has received much coverage, including Dazed and Confused, the Huffington Post and in an interview with Jamie Reid.

We think that The Occupied Times team are doing a great job of producing a weekly paper in difficult conditions by striking a good balance between radical protest graphics and the visual language of news media. With interesting, opinionated content, The Occupied Times is a great forum for ideas and debate and we wish it every success. You can download the latest edition on the Occupied Times website.

All images courtesy of Tzortzis Rallis.

He’s been with us for over a month now but we have yet to mention our latest intern, Joonho Kwon. He’s an RCA graduate who’s work includes installation, motion graphics and film making. Joonho also exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery and Channel 4′s New Sensations exhibition. He is working with us on a range of projects from book design to experimental typography.