New at Pentagram
New Work: Shakespeare in the Park
New York City streets are once again dressed in a new campaign for Shakespeare in the Park, the annual free performances presented by The Public Theater at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. This year’s plays include a raucous production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night starring Anne Hathaway, opening tonight, and Euripides’s tragedy The Bacchae, with a score by Philip Glass, coming in August.
As usual the two plays are largely unrelated, but one thing they have in common this year is transvestism: lead characters in both plays don drag, hence the campaign tagline “Cross-Dressing in the Park.” The posters feature a Greek sculpture accessorized with a Shakespearean rose and mustachioed with a fine calligraphic line. Designed by Paula Scher and Lisa Kitschenberg, the campaign uses elements of the Public’s refreshed identity and complements our campaign for last summer’s productions of Hamlet and Hair.
More from the campaign after the jump.
The Public Theater Identity Honored by the Art Directors Club
Fifteen years of our work for the Public Theater in 45 seconds.
Last night at its annual gala, the Art Directors Club honored our work for the Public Theater with the ADC Design Sphere Cube, a new award that recognizes a longstanding collaboration between designer and client on a brand identity that has been consistently and energetically expressed and that has excited the public’s imagination along the way.
In 1994, Paula Scher was commissioned to create a new identity and promotional graphics system for The Public Theater, a program that would become a landmark of identity design, eventually influencing much of the graphic design created for theatrical promotion and for cultural institutions in general. Scher has worked closely with George C. Wolfe, the Public’s producer from 1993 to 2005, and with Oskar Eustis, its current artistic director, on the development of posters, ads and distinct identities for each new season and its major productions. Applications have ranged from signage to mailers, from tickets to billboards, and Scher’s Shakespeare in the Park campaigns have become a seasonal tradition in the city. The identity has evolved through two redesigns, in 2005 and 2008.
We were asked to put together a brief (less than one minute) video for the awards ceremony, and we managed to squeeze 15 years of work, in all its varied incarnations, into a mere 45 seconds. Seen are over 300 pieces, and there is more to come—this summer’s Shakespeare in the Park campaign launches in a few short weeks, and the Public Theater has just announced the renovation of its building, for which Scher will be designing the environmental graphics.
More news of additional ADC winners coming soon!
Previously: The Public Theater Identity
New Work: The Public Theater
Fourteen summers ago Paula Scher designed a poster for the New York Shakespeare Festival that introduced a new identity for the Public Theater, a program that would eventually influence much of the graphic design created for theatrical promotion and for cultural institutions in general. Now, with the campaign for the 2008 Shakespeare in the Park productions (Hamlet and Hair), Scher introduces a refreshed identity for the institution.
‘Free Love’ in the Park
Paula Scher and Lenny Naar spread some love in the posters for the 2007 New York Shakespeare Festival. The campaign promoting this year’s productions, “Romeo and Juliet” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” to be performed alfresco in Central Park, starts going up this week.
Multiple positions after the jump.
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