JKR

The new design for the UK passport will be issued from October. When the current passport moved to a floppy burgundy cover from the previous hardback black version we presumably saved money but lost a little dignity. These designs redress that a tad, I think. The inner pages are currently a rather generic and repetitive bank note pattern. These are changing to feature complex “engravings” which celebrate our weather, landscape, flora and fauna in a bucolic Betjeman-like manner.

One can anticipate some carping that this approach is anachronistic and twee – that we should use our passport as a canvas for the most progressive design we can produce. Personally, when it comes to something which represents my national identity, I want a solidly old fashioned document rather than a shrill “Cool Britannia” alternative (or one with an image of the Gherkin).

It’s uncommon to find contemporary official documents with soul, and a joy to find ones that make an effort – the craft and care invested here is presumably a pre belt-tightening exercise, and to my eyes give us something we can proudly brandish at foreign borders. Sometimes a traditional approach is appropriate, and I think the choice of images here will do a good job of making weary travellers think of home with affection. Some half-remembered lines by Wordsworth came to mind when I saw the designs…

I travell’d among unknown men,
In lands beyond the sea;
Nor, England! did I know till then
What love I bore to thee.

‘Tis past, that melancholy dream!
Nor will I quit thy shore
A second time; for still I seem
To love thee more and more.

This story and images via the Creative Review blog (which interestingly saw something prog rock in the blue cottages etc.)

Mother have put on a fashion show for Target as a huge live event with models filling the huge windows of New York’s Standard hotel (the footage reminded me of Elvis and dancers in Jailhouse Rock). Meanwhile, a huge billboard campaign for Sky Arts takes up the length of Tottenham Court Road and other locations with Rankin photographs creating a “street gallery”.

Both are examples of designing advertising as “events”. It sounds pretty obvious that if a bit of free PR can be generated by an ad, then it works the budget harder. But both are also good examples of design which reflects the brand’s proposition or equities. In Sky Arts case, the “gallery” approach is obviously fitting and in Target’s, the building was turned into a vast light show which chimes with the brand’s bold graphics. As branding continues to be applied in a 360 way, the equities at a brand’s core become ever more important to define in order to support such stretches of communication.

There is a brilliant new book of antique London photographs (Lost London, 1870-1945) which I would highly recommend. The surprise for me in the pin sharp images of the streets was the sheer volume of painted advertising and signage. We flatter ourselves today that we are at information overload, but the commercial areas of the capital portrayed here are eye-popping decorated in claim above claim (in a way that makes many of today’s equivalent spaces appear demure by comparison). Seemingly the only restriction on how gilded the shop and restaurant frontages could become was how tall the sign painter’s ladder reached.

There are still traces of this era as one moves about London. The fine frontage of James Smith’s Umbrella shop remains a treat. And ghostsigns is just one site which catalogues the old beauties before they are gone forever.

One thing to admire in old signage is the craft and ability that went into the typography, most of it the work of humble tradesmen one imagines. Perhaps the quality goes hand in hand with the time and effort it took to get the stuff up there. Coming bang up to date, film maker Don Letts commented in this weekend’s Observer “The downside of affordable technology is mediocrity. Back in the 70’s every three minutes film cost £20. Now you can get a 90-minute digital tape for a fiver. The price used to weed out the people who were fucking about”. Perhaps a similar comparison can be made in the difference between paint and pixels?

“Never underestimate the potency of cheap music” quipped Noel Coward. He might as easily have been talking about the design vitality to be found in comic books, for so long patronised as “low art.”

These days Frank Miller keeps good company. He has been given star billing in his campaign for Gucci Guilty, which sees Millers now trademark noir styling co-opted to sell high end fragrance. It’s part of a mini trend which sees the promotion for Channel’s new scent set up as a “new film by Martin Scorsese”, to be premiered on TV next week.

It wasn’t always so glitzy. Frank Miller began his career at Marvel drawing and writing Daredevil. As a kid I bought his first and many subsequent issues – 12p a copy then, about £15 on eBay now – better than most stocks perform I guess. The real Daredevil was Miller, who relentlessly innovated storytelling techniques from panel to panel. Alongside Will Eisner he’s been massively influential in the way we have collectively learned to read images and words as integrated design. Design that is unencumbered by the good manners required at the top table has a better chance of re-writing the rules.

From “penny dreadfuls” (as pulp and comics were once branded) to “graphic novels” such as Miller’s Sin City, from men in tights to a luxury apparel brand. We all grow up – these days I find Miller’s style (or at least the content) a bit adolescent. The Gucci tie-in feels like a clash rather than a marriage of brand styles. But perhaps that’s my problem for being past it, and getting all snooty.

Nevertheless I would observe that if one is looking for the next influential design style, it’s more likely to be found printed on cheap paper (and dismissed as kids stuff) than it is being browsed by “thought leaders” in a glossy style magazine.

Newsnight did a great piece last week about the rise and ubiquity of beautiful information graphics as the number crunching trend du jour. It ended with David McCandless and Neville Brody debating the merits of the approach.

One imagines that outside design circles the debate was an unedifying display of airy statements and designer bitchiness “your work’s very pretty, well done” sniped Brody patronisingly. Given that Brody is still saddled with the reputation he made in the ’80s designing uber trendy magazine The Face, this seemed a little rich.

Designer luvvies aside, it’s significant that the trend warrants Newsnight airtime. In fairness, McCandless is probably one of the most influential graphical communicators today. It’s his work illustrating this post. With two billion computers worldwide filling our heads with over-information we are clearly looking for ways to make all those facts and figures both easily digestible and (crucially ignored in the debate) not dreary. If the facts also work as eye candy, there is a chance we might engage with them.

What I am wondering is why no mainstream brand has adopted the approach yet to dramatise its nutritional or sustainable claims online or on pack. A small prize to the first reader who sends in a good example proving otherwise.