Eddie Opara Named to Ebony Magazine’s Power 100 List

Pentagram is thrilled to announce our partner Eddie Opara has been named to Ebony Magazine’s Power 100, the annual list that celebrates “innovators, movers and shakers…who are shaping the world in new and different ways.” The list, published in Ebony’s December 2011/January 2012 issue (print only), recognizes influential leaders in politics, sports, entertainment and the arts. Eddie is honored alongside President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Jay-Z, Oprah Winfrey, Lil Wayne, Viola Davis, Cory Booker, Kanye West and Marcus Samuelsson, among many others.

Congratulations Eddie!

Awards: AIGA 50 Books/50 Covers

The AIGA’s annual “50 Books/50 Covers” competition showcases the best-designed books of the year, Kindles be damned. Pentagram is pleased to announce three of our books made the cut in the “50 Books” half of this year’s competition: Water Matters: A Design Manual for Water Conservation in Buildings, designed by Eddie Opara and team for the New York City Department of Design and Construction; Team Michael Bierut’s Design Research: The Store That Brought Modern Living to American Homes; and Mah Jongg: Krak Bam Dot!, designed by Abbott Miller to accompany the exhibition “Project Mah Jongg at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York.

The winning selections can be seen online in the AIGA Design Archives, and at an exhibition that opens today at the AIGA National Design Center in New York. (Check out the accompanying survey, What the Book.) The winning books will join the AIGA archives at the Denver Art Museum and Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Collection at the Butler Library.

Congratulations to our designers, teams and clients for all the great work!

Awards: Print’s Regional Design Annual 2011

Pentagram is honored to have several of our projects featured in Print’s 31st Regional Design Annual, on newsstands now. Work from our New York and Austin offices has been recognized in the awards, which is the only comprehensive U.S. design competition organized by geography.

Eight projects from our New York office placed in the annual’s New York City section: Team Michael Bierut’s mark for the Fashion Law Institute; Michael Gericke and Luke Hayman’s graphics program for the US bid to host the FIFA World Cup in 2018 or 2022 ; Luke Hayman’s “HELLO” invite for an event welcoming Eddie Opara to Pentagram; Abbott Miller’s design for Mah Jongg: Krak Bam Dot, the book accompanying the “Project Mah Jongg” exhibition; Paula Scher’s Shakespeare in the Park 2010 campaign, map murals for Queens Metropolitan Campus, and environmental graphics for parking garage at 13-17 East 54th Street; and the website for Ennead Architects, designed by Lisa Strausfeld while she was at Pentagram. We are also happy to note current Pentagram New York intern Aron Fay is honored for his design of the catalog for the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s 2010 Next Wave Festival.

In the Southwest section, DJ Stout and his team at Pentagram Austin are represented by three projects: the “Building Hope” movie poster and book designs for The Gernsheim Collection and Uchi: The Cookbook.

Thanks to all our designers, teams and clients for the great work!

Paula Scher Honored at Stars of Design Awards

Quick Link: Paula Scher Honored at Stars of Design Awards

Lorenzo Apicella’s Jimlar Showroom Wins International Architecture Award

Quick Link: Lorenzo Apicella’s Jimlar Showroom Wins International Architecture Award

Awards: Society for Environmental Graphic Design 2011

Supergraphics won big in this year’s SEGD Design Awards, recently announced. Two New York projects by Pentagram’s Paula Scher and team were honored in the awards: Achievement First Endeavor Middle School in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, and the parking garage at 13-17 East 54th St. in Midtown Manhattan. Both projects use large-scale typography to create unique environments that integrate graphics and architecture.

Abbott Miller’s Ink Collection Wins at NeoCon

Abbott Miller’s Ink Collection of wallcoverings for KnollTextiles has been honored with a Best of NeoCon® award, presented at this year’s NeoCon® at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago. The collection won a silver in the wall treatments category of the competition. NeoCon® is North America’s largest design exposition and conference for commercial interiors.

The Ink Collection uses liquid movement as a point of departure for three highly graphic wall covering patterns, Drip, Drop and Run. The series was inspired by Miller’s experimentation with a single drop of ink that yielded drops, branch-like forms, and loosely formed letters. Ink is designed for commercial and institutional applications, like hotels and schools, but may also be used in crossover applications like private residences.

The Ink Collection is one of 72 contract furnishing products to be honored in The Best of NeoCon®, selected from a field of 325 entries submitted in 40 categories of the competition. The awards are sponsored by Contract magazine, Merchandise Mart Properties, the International Interior Design Association (IIDA), the International Facility Management Association (IFMA) and McMorrowReport.com. The Best of NeoCon® jury is composed of 45 corporate, government and institutional facilities management executives, interior designers and architects.

Introduced earlier this year, Ink is Miller’s second collection for KnollTextiles, following the highly successful Grammar wallcovering series he designed in 2006.

Michael Gericke Receives Distinguished Alumni Award from His Alma Mater

Quick Link: Michael Gericke Receives Distinguished Alumni Award from His Alma Mater

Awards: Creative Review Annual 2011

Paula Scher’s murals for Queens Metropolitan Campus depict the borough of Queens, from Long Island City to New Hyde Park, in a pair of colorful wall-to-wall paintings for the local community of a New York City public school. This month the project’s reach extends all the way across the pond, where the murals have been selected for the Creative Review Annual, honoring the world’s best in advertising and design. The awards are featured in the UK magazine’s May issue, on newsstands now.

The murals have also been honored by the Type Directors Club, previously announced.

Texas Institute of Letters Award for Gernsheim Book Sets Record

Pentagram Partner DJ Stout and Associate Julie Savasky were awarded the Fred Whitehead Award for Best Book Design at the Texas Institute of Letters (TIL) 75th anniversary awards ceremony last Saturday night in Dallas. The award-winning book, The Gernsheim Collection, written by Roy Flukinger, was designed by Pentagram’s Austin office for the Harry Ransom Center and published by the University of Texas Press last fall.

The Texas Institute of Letters gave its first literary award in 1939 to the legendary Texas author J. Frank Dobie for his book Apache Gold and Yaqui Silver. DJ Stout won his first TIL award in 1992 for his design of a Keith Carter photography book called Mojo. Since then Stout has been awarded the TIL award for best book design a record-setting nine times, with seven of those nine wins with Julie Savasky as co-designer. No other author or designer has won more awards in the 75 year history of the Texas Institute of Letters. “It is amazing to look back at the names of the winners over time,” says Stout. “In 1957, the year I was born, Tom Lea and Carl Hertzog won the award for best book design for The King Ranch. Those guys are my heroes and that is one of my all-time favorite book designs.”

The Gernsheim Collection, housed at the Harry Ransom Center on the campus of the University of Texas in Austin, is one of the most important photography collections in the world. Amassed by the renowned husband-and-wife team of Helmut and Alison Gernsheim between 1945 and 1963, it contains an unparalleled range of images, including the world’s earliest-known photograph, made by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1826. Its encyclopedic scope—as well as the expertise and taste with which the Gernsheims built the collection—makes the Gernsheim Collection one of the world’s premier resources for the study and appreciation of the development of photography.

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