New Work: Berlinale Retrospective

The 62nd Berlin International Film Festival, or Berlinale, wrapped this week following a program of over 400 films, many of them premieres. Each year the Berlinale also presents the Retrospective, a showcase of historical film that runs alongside the main festival and is curated in cooperation with the Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum für Film und Fernsehen. This year the Museum asked Justus Oehler and his team in Pentagram’s Berlin office to create the graphics for the Retrospective. Oehler previously designed the identity for the Museum in 2006 and has since created numerous posters and campaigns for the institution and its exhibitions.

The Retrospective is always dedicated to an important but lesser-known director or period of film history and helps bring German and international film back to the big screen, often in restored prints. Titled Die Traumfabrik (The Red Dream Factory), the Retrospective program of the 2012 Berlinale has rediscovered the legendary German-Russian film studio Mezhrabpom-Film and its German branch, Prometheus, which operated from 1922 to 1936. The graphics designed by Oehler make use of an iconic black-and-white still of the Soviet movie Okraina (directed by Boris Barnet in 1933), combined with large, distinctive typography inspired by the Museum für Film und Fernsehen identity.

The Red Dream Factory program will travel to the Museum of Modern Art in New York this April in a new partnership between the Berlinale Retrospective and MoMA.

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Justus Oehler’s Haiti Poster at Kunstmuseum Dieselwerk Cottbus

Justus Oehler’s award-winning poster for The Haiti Poster Project, created in response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, is one of the works featured in Es geht um die Welt (It’s About the World), a major exhibition that opens this Sunday at the Kunstmuseum Dieselkraftwerk Cottbus in Germany. Showcasing works by over 100 designers from around the world, the exhibition presents posters about nature and the environment, looking at humanity’s influence on the natural world, and vice versa. The show remains on view through 15 April.

Oehler’s poster was previously selected as Judge’s Choice in TDC57 and received a Red Dot Award.

New Work: Rolls-Royce

Rolls-Royce is the iconic luxury automobile, representing the finest in British engineering since the company’s founding over a century ago in 1904. Pentagram’s Justus Oehler and his team in our Berlin office were commissioned by Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, now part of the BMW Group, to develop the theme and create the overall look and feel for the Rolls-Royce exhibition stand at Europe’s most important car show, the IAA (Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung) in Frankfurt. Oehler’s solution for the brief was to create a gallery-like environment that showcased the exquisite craftsmanship of Rolls-Royce and brought to life the spirit of its manufacturing.

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New Work: Telematik Solution

Telematics is the integrated use of telecommunications and informatics, also known as ICT, for information and communications technology. Pentagram’s Justus Oehler and his team in the Berlin office have developed a logo for Telematik Solution, a new German consultancy that specializes in ICT for clients in the healthcare, public and private sectors. Founded by Peter Conradsa and Dirk Drees, the company offers a variety of services including post-merger integration, migration and integration of IT systems, planning and implementation of telematics and controlling systems, and design and development of software.

The logo, a linear filigree network superimposed on a transparent cube, symbolizes the intricate and complex nature of telematics systems. The company name is set in DIN, with the word “Solution” in bold. The identity has been applied to corporate collateral and a website.

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New Work: Mein Baum für Berlin

With its tree-lined streets, Berlin is a city of green, but its stock of approximately 425,000 trees—gradually replenished after decimation during World War II—is getting older. Many trees are removed every year because of age and sickness, and the city does not have enough money to replace them all. Hence 200,000 or so trees are missing already.

Justus Oehler and his team in Pentagram’s Berlin office have designed the identity of a new initiative of the City of Berlin called “Mein Baum für Berlin” (My Tree for Berlin). The campaign encourages citizens to sponsor the planting of new trees. The logo is a bold sans-serif letter B (for Berlin and Baum) turned on its side to become an abstract tree. The logo is friendly and accessible, to make the idea appealing to the city’s residents. The designers have also created an announcement to promote the initiative, as well as a plaque and poster.

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New Work: Two Heavens Creation

Justus Oehler and his team in Pentagram’s Berlin office have designed the logo for Two Heavens Creation, a new Austrian-Chinese partnership in the field of culture, entertainment and the performing arts. The organization’s mission is to mutually promote and further strengthen cultural and creative relations between the Republic of Austria and the People’s Republic of China. The objective is to establish a long-term cooperation between the two countries for the purpose of transferring first-class Chinese productions to Austria and Europe and top Austrian productions to China and Asia.

The two letters “H” stand for the two heavens—China and Austria—and come together to form a bridge, which also reads as a “C” for creation. The logo is designed to appeal to both a European and a Chinese audience, hence the theatrical “sunburst” colour gradation from red (both Austria and China have red in their flags) to yellow.

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Justus Oehler’s Haiti Poster Wins Red Dot Award

Quick Link: Justus Oehler’s Haiti Poster Wins Red Dot Award

Awards: Type Directors Club 57

It happens every winter: Just about the time the ice begins to thaw, the results of our favorite annual design competitions start to trickle in, getting us ready for a spring of great design. (Too soon? It is warm and sunny today in New York, and we are optimistic sorts.)

We are currently celebrating news of our winners in this year’s Type Directors Club TDC57 Typography competition. Both Justus Oehler and Harry Pearce’s posters for Helping Haiti were honored, with Justus’ poster receiving the added distinction of being selected as Judge’s Choice. Other Pentagram projects chosen for the annual include Angus Hyland’s catalogue for “The Surreal House”, the Barbican exhibition; and three winners from Team Michael Bierut: the “Emotional Spell-check” animation for The New York Times Magazine’s Year in Ideas issue; Saks Fifth Avenue’s I’m Going to Saks campaign; and the poster for Yale School of Architecture’s 2011 J. Irwin Miller Symposium, “Thinking Big: Diagrams, Mediascapes and Megastructures.”

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

Update: Additional winners announced February 15: Paula Scher’s Queens and Metropolitan Avenue murals for Queens Metropolitan Campus, and poster for the 2nd Chicago International Poster Biennial; and Lisa Strausfeld’s Home Appliance Energy Use Calculator for GE.

New Work: Biosphere Connections

The Star Alliance Network has established Biosphere Connections, a new partnership agreement with a group of international organisations that promote environmental sustainability.

Justus Oehler designed the original Star Alliance identity and has now created the logo for Biosphere Connections, which aims to promote the conservation of biodiversity and the sustainable use of natural resources. The initiative teams the Star Alliance network of airlines with the Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar, Iran, 1971), the World Conservation Union (IUCN), and the Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). The logo uses two half circles joined together to form the letter ‘B’ linking the four organisations.

Biosphere Connections will use the communications activities of the four partners, including websites, publications, events and in-flight entertainment systems. It will also provide the airline connections of the Star Alliance—with whom Oehler has been working for the last 14 years—to help connect the people and places of IUCN, MAB and Ramsar in their daily work.

The Real Nike Air

Since its founding in 1978, Nike has led the way in developing trainers as state-of-the-art athletic footwear, as well as expressions of personal style and creativity. NIKE78 is a new project created by London College of Communications student Paul Jenkins that celebrates Nike’s legacy of design innovation. Using shoes donated to the school from a Nike concept store, Jenkins sent pairs to 78 designers, artists and other creatives and asked them to challenge the function of the shoes, using sport as inspiration. The ‘78’ celebrates the year of Nike’s founding, and the project officially launched on May 30, Nike’s birthday. The resulting designs are being posted to an online gallery.

As one of the participating creatives, Pentagram Berlin’s Justus Oehler invented an unusual evolution for Nike Air shoes. Justus says of his design:

As we human beings can’t fly, we settle for less; we make do with running and jumping. But the dream of flying is still being dreamt, and maybe one day we will literally take off given the right pair of shoes. Well, this is the pair of shoes mankind has been waiting for. The real “Nike Air”.

Oehler knows about flying: he designed the identity for Star Alliance.

An exhibition showcase for NIKE78 is planned for this Autumn’s London Design Festival. Read more about the genesis of NIKE78 on the CR Blog.