New at Pentagram

New Work: House of Cards

Fifty-three of the UK’s leading artists and designers including our own Domenic Lippa have created a unique collection of art inspired by Shelter’s House of Cards campaign. Shelter is a UK charity that works to alleviate the distress caused by homelessness and bad housing. In 2008 Shelter, in association with Leo Burnett London, launched the House of Cards campaign to raise awareness of the housing insecurity facing millions of families in the UK, where more than 1.9 million households await social housing and an estimated 65,000 face repossession this year. The campaign’s acclaimed TV commercial directed by Dom and Nic uses Radiohead’s “Videotape” as its soundtrack and features a voiceover by the actress Samantha Morton, who lived in a hostel for the homeless as a young woman.

Following the success of the campaign Leo Burnett developed the idea of inviting 53 artists to design a set of playing cards. Participating artists include Damien Hirst and Marc Quinn, photographers David Bailey and Rankin and designers Kyle Cooper and M/M (Paris). The original artwork will be displayed in an exhibition at Haunch of Venison that opens today and runs through Monday, 28 September. Members of the public can place silent bids on the artwork throughout the exhibition, with a selection of the pieces going to a live auction on Monday night. All proceeds go to Shelter.

Leo Burnett approached Pentagram with the brief to create an identity for the campaign and event, an exhibition catalogue and a limited-edition box of A5 playing cards. Domenic Lippa and designer Jeremy Kunze developed a logotype that played on the idea of the rearranged letters and a symbol of a “H” that combined pictograms of the suits from the cards and a pictogram of a house. All invitations, catalogue and cards were designed with radius corners to reflect the playing cards. Patterns were printed in various colours and varnishes to give all the items a sense of desirability and quality. Lippa produced the Jack of Spades card for the set.

A show of the program and several of the cards after the jump.