New at Pentagram
New Work: ‘Last Folio’
Daniel Weil has designed an exhibition entitled Last Folio, which runs from 10 – 27 November 2009 in the Lower Library at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.
Last Folio is a set of portraits taken since March 2006 of decaying books, pictures of wisdom turning to dust. Photographer Yuri Dojc found these poignant symbols by chance in an abandoned Cheder in Bardejov in the east of Slovakia, where time has stood still since the day in 1943 when all those attending the school were taken away to concentration camps. The schoolbooks are still there: essay notebooks with corrections, school reports, and remarkably enough, a book once owned by Yuri’s grandfather, Jakub. The books still tell a story, despite every page disintegrating as it is touched. But the story is of neglect and destruction, and Dojc treats each book as a survivor, every one captured as a portrait.
The challenge for Weil was to design an exhibition specific to this most appropriate of venues, a library. This part of the project highlights the contrast of destinies between these books and those housed in the College Library. He has created a series of virtual spaces which replicate bookcases in which each image is housed. The structure of these “ghost” cases is deliberately modest and vulnerable, contrasting with the venerable setting. Each has a translucent mesh behind it allowing the viewer to see through the image to the robust and grand cases behind, thus heightening the contrast. At the far end of the library is a massive image of the abandoned synagogue in Kosice.
This exhibition is one element of an extensive project on the extinguishing of Jewish life in Slovakia. A documentary film has been made by Yuri Dojc and filmmaker Katya Krausova. It follows the journey of the photographer through Slovakia and aims to preserve Holocaust memory through filmed survivor testimonies and photographic documentation of places and fragments including the schoolbooks.
Daniel Weil Maps His London at the Design Museum
Daniel Weil is one of the participating designers in Super Contemporary, the new exhibition at the Design Museum in London that focuses on the city’s dynamic design ecology. The show features a series of new commissions by influential and renowned London-based designers from different disciplines including Neville Brody, Ron Arad, BarberOsgerby, Industrial Facility and Paul Smith. Daniel was commissioned to create a personal map of London that will be part of a timeline charting the last 50 years of creative activity in the city. The map illustrates Daniel’s experience in London since his arrival from Buenos Aires in 1978.
Super Contemporary opens on 3rd June and runs until 4th October.
New Work: Grey Goose
A Pentagram team led by John Rushworth and Daniel Weil has designed three packaging projects for the premium Vodka brand, Grey Goose. The introduction of the packaging is one of a number of ongoing initiatives undertaken by Grey Goose’s parent company, Bacardi, to refocus the brand for its international luxury markets and build on an already impressive rise to success in the United States.
New Work: Truvia™
There are few products more ubiquitous in the world than the packets of sweeteners found on kitchen countertops and in coffee bars everywhere. Now Pentagram has designed its first project in this category: Paula Scher and Daniel Weil have designed the brand identity and packaging for Truvia™, the new natural, no-calorie sweetener that is being launched by Cargill. Naturally derived from the stevia plant, Truvia™ natural sweetener represents a genuine innovation in its category, and the brand has been designed to stand apart from its competition.
So Long, Ted
We learned yesterday that our longtime client United Airlines was closing down its low cost carrier, Ted. Like so many other airlines, United is consolidating in the face of brutally high fuel costs; integrating its operations in this way will permit substantial savings.
Coming up with the name and design philosophy for Ted in 2004 remains one of our favorite projects. United was looking for a name that would identify their new initiative to offer reduced-fare travel on selected routes in a casual, personal, friendly setting. Naming exercises often can be exhausting and inconclusive. What fun it was instead to discover that a friendly-sounding person had been hiding all along in United’s last three letters.
Pentagram’s work included aircraft liveries, signage, gate environments, and on-board communications, all executed in record time in collaboration with a great team at United. Ted, we’ll miss you.
United Seating Wins ‘Condé Nast Traveller’ Innovation and Design Award
United’s First (top) and Business class (bottom) airline seats recline into completely flat, 180° beds
and are now in service on international flights. Click on the images for enlargements.
United’s new First and Business class cabin environments, developed by Pentagram partner Daniel Weil and B/E Aerospace, have won first prize in the aviation category of the Condé Nast Traveller Innovation and Design Awards 2008.
The United seating was shortlisted for the award by a panel of travel experts and commentators, before being put to the public vote alongside the other finalists. Readers of Condé Nast Traveller voted online for the winners, who also included David Chipperfield in the Culture category for his Museum of Modern Literature in Germany; Ross Lovegrove in the Sustainable category for his Solar Tree street lighting system and Heston Blumenthal in the Gourmet category.
Daniel Weil said of the award: “This is a great opportunity to celebrate the success of the collaboration between United, B/E Aerospace and ourselves. I see this award as the product of a unique combination of talent, expertise and commitment that every member of the team has contributed to.”
Continue reading "United Seating Wins ‘Condé Nast Traveller’ Innovation and Design Award"
New United Cabin Designs Now Flying
Daniel Weil interviewed for the launch of United Airlines new first and business class cabins. Video courtesy of United.
Daniel Weil’s new cabin designs for United Airlines have begun flying on routes between Washington D.C. and Frankfurt or Zurich in a rollout across 97 international aircraft expected to be finished in the autumn of 2009.
Weil designed the seats in partnership with the in-house design team at B/E Aerospace, the world’s leading aircraft cabin manufacturer. Full details of the new cabins can be found on United’s Suite Dreams minisite.
Previously: United Reveals New Cabin Design
United Reveals New Cabin Design
United Airlines announced a breakthrough yesterday: this fall, they will be the first US carrier to feature fully reclining lie-flat seats in their International First and Business cabins. Pentagram’s Daniel Weil worked with United and a team of specialists throughout the intricate process of designing two new cabins.
“This is the moment where the customer is put first,” said Weil. Designed to provide more space and a better sense of privacy through an innovative forward- and rear-facing design and seats that recline 180˚ to form a six-foot-long bed, the first updated planes will take to the skies later this year. The entire international fleet will be updated in phases over the next two to three years.
The new cabins were designed in conjunction with industry experts B/E Aerospace. Pentagram has been United’s design consultant for nearly ten years, with responsibilities that have ranged from developing the airline’s current livery design, to naming its low-cost carrier Ted, to designing its self-service ticket dispensers, to consulting on tableware and in-flight amenities.
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