St. Thomas Aquinas once said (not that we go around quoting him often), “beware of the person of one book.” To him, this statement was almost certainly intended as an inditement of the closed-minded followers of one rigid doctrine. We could also take it to mean that a wise person takes knowledge from many sources. For graphic designers who create covers for books and magazines, the lesson is clear: insistence on a singular visual and metaphorical style serves neither the content nor the reader.
Inculte Publishing, France
Inculte is a French independent publisher created by a group of up-and-coming young writers. Since 2004, the company has published a quarterly review, a collection of monographs, and many hardcover novels and essays. Our latest work for Inculte includes book covers within the series “Afterpop” and “Temps Réel.”
Cover for “Big Fan,” a tragic fiction about the life of an obsessed fan of the band Radiohead.
Book cover for “Les Soniques,” by Niccolo Ricardo & Caïus Locus
Cover designs for “Lost Album” by Stéphan Legrand and Sebastian Le Pajolec, and “The Cannibal Keys,” by Claro
Covers from the Inculte series of philosophy books, “Reédition Arc.” Each cover is an embossed letterform construction, which represents the initial of the author (e.g. Lyotard, Joyce, Freud, etc.).
Observatoire du Samu Social de Paris
Founded in 2003 by Dr. Xavier Emmanuelli, with the support of the Mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac, Samusocial was created to help address the immediate and urgent needs of citizens on the streets of Paris. The Samusocial report, “Mental health & the addictions of the homeless” (2010), has a cover designed by Yann Legendre.
The New York Times
The last December issue of 2008 for The New York Times featured this cover design for the Arts & Leisure section, entitled “The Year in Culture.” This illustration assignment represents a core capability of Legendre+Rutter not found with many traditional graphic design studios—the ability to merge art and meaning as a strategy for great communication.
Amnesty International
This book, published by Amnesty International in Paris, features posters that express a theme of free expression.
The New Yorker
The original “Eustace Tilley” cover of The New Yorker from 1925 appears to the left. At right, Yann Legendre’s “Deconstructed Tilley” was one of 12 winning covers from the annual competition, curated by The New Yorker’s art editor, Françoise Mouley.
International Interior Design Association
IIDA worked with us to create not only a new cover for their design journal, Perspective, but also to launch a fresh approach to the journal’s visual attitude. This first issue expressed the seductive magnetism that designed artifacts wield.
While the adage that one cannot judge a book by its cover is certainly true, we want to believe that a well-designed cover gives the reader a vision of the journey within. It is not a reflection of the narrative but a window into it.
Throughout its history, France has been shaped and influenced by the migration of diverse cultural groups. Over time, government policies regarding migration into France have also varied widely, from the open, American-like policies to encourage the development of a larger workforce after World War II, to the more restrictive policies of the 1970’s, when the oil embargo slowed the country’s economy and spurred higher unemployment. The complex social and political issues of immigration in France have become even more so with expanding global population, access to transportation, lurking xenophobia, and consideration of the politics of the larger European Union. Today, France has been forced to acknowledge that it has become a transit country for asylum seekers and illegal migrants trying to make their way, not only to a home in France but to places all over Europe.
In order to help people understand the historical forces of human migration that were vital to shaping France—and to inform the public about the important immigration issues of today—the French government created La Cité Nationale de l’Histoire de l’Immigration, a museum dedicated to educating the public on the history of immigration in France.
The formation of the institution itself was not without a good amount of political controversy, since it was created with public funds and established during a time of serious debate in France on laws related to immigration. But three years since its opening, the museum has a robust season schedule of exhibitions and events, a visible presence on the streets of Paris, and serves an ever-growing role in promoting understanding and dialogue about French immigration.
Legendre+Rutter serves as the primary graphic design partner of La Cité, helping to promote the museum and inform the public through printed publications, posters, and other designed objects. The logotype for Cité was developed to take the shape of a human form, and this form has been extended and manipulated in both playful and serious ways in the design of the museum’s graphical identity and marketing materials. The purpose of this flexible identity is to keep the image of the institution alive and contemporary, as well as personal and accessible.
Subway billboard to promote the new season of events at La Cité
Poster informing visitors about the recently completed renovation of a portion of the museum
Annual and seasonal program posters
Exhibition posters
Poster announcing an exhibition for children
La Cité Homepage, including an animation promoting the opening of the new Mediatheque (at right)
This poster for “The Night of the Museums,” promoted La Cité’s participation in the citywide event, when all of Paris’s museums are open, free-of-charge, for the entire night.
Website home page featuring “La Nuit” banner
Back of the “La Nuit” poster, folded to form a “coin-coin”
Promotional materials and banner for the opening of the Mediatheque, a library / technology center in the museum
Front and back of a poster announcing “Fête de la Musique”
Pop-up New Year’s card
Three-frame lenticular postcard announcing the new season of events
The new Centre Pompidou in the French city of Metz is scheduled to open its doors in May, 2010. Designed by Japanese architect, Shigeru Ban, along with Jean de Gastine of France and Philip Gumuchdjian of the UK, this extraordinary building has been in development for more than 5 years. While awaiting its opening, the Centre Pompidou-Metz presented (May 15 to October 4) an exhibition entitled “Constellation,” a sneak preview aimed at discovering major works from the Centre Pompidou collection. These works were displayed in key heritage and cultural sites throughout the Metz Metropolitan area and the Grande Région. Alongside these works, internationally renowned artists designed special projects especially for this event.
Legendre+Rutter were invited to submit a proposition for this citywide exhibition, which we are happy to share with you here. The proposal centered on the idea of assembling a new “celestial body,” formed of abstracted contemporary masterworks from the Pompidou’s collection. This new object would form the basis of the identity of the “Constellation” exhibition.
The individual components would be printed in sequence, with a portion of exhibition posters printed in one color, a portion in two colors, and so on, until the final seven-color object was built.
To push this idea to its extreme, but logical conclusion, we also proposed that the orb would appear as a lone icon of the exhibition during the day. Throughout the city of Metz, these large orbs of various colors and construction would act as personal constellations for the citizens, with each person making their own connection from one to the next, based on his or her own path.
Because the posters would be placed in backlight kiosks, we took advantage of the opportunity to have the poster transform from daytime to night. In darkness, the light from behind the poster would reveal the title, location, and date of the exhibition.
Poster during the day vs. poster displayed at night
Both the orb and the typographic composition could be used as core components of the identity.
The idea of bringing together various components to form the whole was to be extended to all of the promotional and communication materials associated with the exhibition, including brochures, invitations, and merchandising. For the invitation, we conceived a system of cards, all cut from larger press sheets containing the whole orb. Upon entry to the event, the attendee’s card would be positioned within a matrix drawn on the wall. Ultimately, the full, large image would take shape.
Being able to design an identity for “Constellation” that has meaning both through its visualization, as well as through the shared civic experience created by the system and implementation of the program, made this proposal a very satisfying effort for us. Although the Centre Pompidou ultimately did not produce our proposed solution, we look back on it as some of our best work of 2009.
© 2009, Legendre+Rutter
An old adage in business and marketing describes how someone in the sea shell business can succeed: put the sea shell store right on the beach… and right next to another store just like it. The rationale of this strategy—that the best way to sell something is to do it where everyone is already shopping for what you have to offer—is sound. And while it may certainly still be true in some commodity product businesses today, the nature of intellectual property, broad product and service offerings, internet trading, and global competition makes the adage much less true now than even 20 years ago. Today, companies must compete with great design… in their offerings, strategies, and communication.
This is not to say that a graphic designer’s primary objective is to help clients look and sound different. As Malcolm Grear, Professor Emeritus of Graphic Design at RISD, used to say: “The goal of design is not to be different, only good. Then it is different.” A case in point is the French epidemiology company, EpiConcept, whose visual identity and positioning is so unlike that of any of their competitors, they have carved a solid niche in this specialty medical services industry.
The core driver of EpiConcept’s visual identity and communication is a belief in the inseparable relationship between man and nature. The logotype, an iconic, geometric representation of humankind, has become the foundation of all EpiConcept’s marketing materials. The figure is always shown either residing within the natural world, or making sentient connections with nature. Expressing this balance is crucial for a company who works to protect mankind from epidemic diseases, while respecting the higher goal of protecting the delicate balance of nature.
The logotype for EpiConcept, along with the identity developed as an international symbol for communicating information related to flu viruses.
New Year poster entitled “One for All and All for One.”
A special set of pictographs designed for EpiConcept software products
When hospitals across France were all using different forms for recording mammogram data, this form was designed for EpiConcept and is now used as the standard.
Two-sided poster: “Tomorrow is less to be discovered... than to be invented”
EpiConcept website
© 2009, Legendre+Rutter
