I met Stephen in a rammed pub in Hampstead last weekend over the din of vuvuzelas heralding England’s exit from the World Cup. Still, you lose some, you win some. Stephen Layfield heads Sydney-based Layfield Design; a multi-disciplinary studio specialising in brand identity and design for print. Absolutely fantastic, clever and excruciatingly precise graphic design, just the way it should be.

Take a look.

I am very pleased to announce we have updated our Profission portfolio site. The original has site lasted us well for five long years whilst we we’ve been too busy to think about something new, but now that PR has kicked off on some of our larger productions we knew we had to address it as a matter of urgency. The new site aims to make case studies out of our more recent projects and the whole site seems to have acquired a rather unique eighteenth-century twang to it. Ahh; the fun of being your own client means nobody can stop you, but that’s okay, it’s been a lot of fun to create.

Please do take a look.

Fever Ray shot by Tom Oxley

Grace Woodward is a stylist and creative director. She works regularly works with the Sunday & Saturday Times Magazines, Elle, Flaunt, Harpers Bazaar, Intersection, Numero, Nylon, Tank, 125, and in recent years has worked with Duffy, Emilia Fox, Immodesty Blaize, Fever Ray, Florence and the Machine and Noemi Lenoir. Men include Pharrell Williams for the cover of Giant, Green Day the cover of Rolling Stone, a special Yves Saint Laurent issue for GQ as well as the esteemed GQ Men of the Year cover and nominees. Her catalogue is considered and beautifully realised.

Take a look at her work on her site and on her blog.

After a winter of web projects its time to unveil a new brand for this small financial reporting consultancy. Using a custom version of Didot to float two words together the logotype aims to show simplicity and balance. Negative space is cut into the last letter of the first word, and first letter of the second word to marry them together and speed the pronunciation. A contrasting slash is added to the negative space when the logotype is used in isolation.

Rendered in silver foil against monochrome the logotype is strong and simple and is complimented with the use of a strong green-blue or purple gradient that creates a very original and distinctive brand within its sector.

More photos in my Flickr Artwork set.

As we get ready to launch the beta version of the BuyGB site i found a moment to photograph the stationery we produced in the run-up to the initial PR campaign. The brand itself is starting to mature now and is standing well on its own. There will be more about BuyGB in the near future and we’re very excited about the scope of the project and what will happen with it over the coming summer months.

More photos in my Flickr Artwork set

 
Some lovely Vexel work from Natalie Sklobovskaya featured on Behance, the Ayumi Hamasaki portrait is fantastic, and some brilliant Sci-Fi landscapes from Alex Andreyev on Cretique that brilliantly capture the style and grand vision of some of my favourite paperbacks from the Sixties and Seventies.

Oh and in a more photo-real vein this Star Wars series (collected here for easy viewing) from Cédric Delsaux simply can’t go without a mention.

We are very excited about the prospects for this venture and more will be revealed when the public beta goes live soon.

Wow, its been one hell of a summer so far. We have three large projects running at the moment that are all as exciting as they are big! The first of which; a brand new site for Unicorn Darts has just gone live with the first of two phases. We believe we have some incredible functionality up our sleeves that will transform this simple offering into the most important site in its sport, but more on that later. To co-incide with their brand new 2010 product range launch, and to celebrate a phenomenal year for their World Champions and new signings we hope we’ve put together a platform competent enough to see them through.

A perfect recession-friendly sport. darts is gaining hugely in popularity and Unicorn are way ahead of the pack. We’ll do our part to keep them there…

View the site

 
I’m all but finished on Mischa’s new Zyotism ident. I’ve got a small exercise to complete in producing the logotype and then working the identity into his new site conceptual but its all looking good. The iconic has been designed to be very simple to recolour using a couple of soft gradients for inside and outside faces. The iconic also allows for a sort of pearlescent finish by running gradients over the top of each other. More on this soon…

 
Quantum Mortgages stationery is included in this years Design And Design Book of the Year. The book documents a different piece for every day of the year, weighing in at well over 750 pages – its a great collection. Available through Index Books.

More at Design And Design
Quantum Mortgages Corporate Identity case study

My ffffound.

 
An identity for Jan and Hilde’s new fashion photography blog Porn & Beauty. As Jan writes in summary; “It’s a place for us to present photography we adore, respect or just plain find interesting. Contrary to what the name suggests, we will not post a whole lot of porn here, so put it back in your pants” the logo is a playful and equally contrary take on the two keywords. The identity, though, revolves around the all-important ampersand.

Finding the right one for this identity was crucial – it holds both words together and forms the foundation for how the identity is to be read. Emigre’s Missionary face (Miles Newlin 1991) was perfect for this; the flowing, whimsical flourishes collect into an elegant and playful open face that perfectly toys with legibility, avant-garde enough to compliment the strong, stark forms of Linotype’s Alternate Gothic No.2, which is currently enjoying something of a renaissance. The blog features a simpler non-textured version. This one was just for fun.

Take a look

 
In 2006 we successfully rebranded mortgage broker Quantum. Since then they have had a great ride, winning awards year on year and gaining recognition in their industry. Work has now started on a slight evolution to that original exercise to promote a wider spectrum of services. The new umbrella offering; Quantum Money will come into being after April with a new website and stationery.

Quantum Identity Case Study