New at Pentagram
Celebrating ‘Conundrums’
On 10 December, our friends, clients and colleagues gathered at our New York office for some pre-holiday cheer in celebration of Harry Pearce’s new book, Conundrums. The party doubled as a fundraiser for WITNESS, with all proceeds from books sold at the event going to benefit the human rights organization.
Guests puzzled out a series of conundrums projected on the walls. Toasts were made by Terron Schaefer, senior vice president of marketing at Saks Fifth Avenue, who initiated the Conundrums project when he used Harry’s typographic games in Saks’ 2008 holiday catalog; and Yvette Alberdingk Thijm, executive director of WITNESS. Pearce has worked with WITNESS for nearly two decades, creating designs for the group’s campaigns. WITNESS was co-founded in 1992 by musician and activist Peter Gabriel and uses video and online technologies to raise awareness of human rights abuses. Peter sent a personal message for Harry that was read out by Yvette.
We would like to thank It Books for its generous donation of books for this event.
Win a Copy of Conundrums on Dezeen
Quick Link: Win a Copy of Conundrums on Dezeen
New Work: ‘Conundrums’
“Sometimes the more cornered you are the more fun you have.”
Designed by Harry Pearce, Conundrums is a new collection of elegant typographic puzzles constrained by three simple rules: one box, two colours, a single typeface.
In the introduction to the book Pearce writes:
“I grew up in an age and a home where the words of Spike Milligan, Edward Lear, Peter Cook and Monty Python, among many others, filled the air. Nonsense that made sense; irreverence that became pure pleasure. Words became images, images words, and where was the line between the two? It didn’t matter as long as they gave you a smile of recognition.
So, visual games with words have stayed with me. And, strangely, these little games seem to have a life of their own. I started them years ago, a love affair between typography and phrase, and they’ve been one step ahead of me ever since.”
Published on 8 December by It Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, Pearce’s first book Conundrums is the perfect gift for anyone with a love of language or a playful sense of humour.
Conundrums in Wallpaper
Quick Link: Conundrums in Wallpaper
Conundrums in the L.A. Times
Quick Link: Conundrums in the L.A. Times
For the Love of Nonsense
Harry Pearce was called on by Saks Fifth Avenue over the holidays to add a dash of festive cheer to their seasonal catalog. The catalog makes holiday shopping so easy that Saks decided to sprinkle its pages with 108 of Pearce’s Typographic Conundrums, a long-running series of images that use wordplay and typographic invention to present a familiar phrase as a cryptic puzzle that toys with the relationship between typography and meaning.
Saks approached Pentagram after receiving our 2007 holiday greeting, Decipher, a collection of cryptograms designed by Pearce. Each year Pentagram issues a small book as a seasonal greeting to its friends and colleagues, intended to give better value than a simple card by providing an entertaining diversion over the holidays. The idea instantly appealed to Terron Schaefer, Saks’ senior vice president of marketing, who contacted Pentagram to devise a similar style of festive fun for the holiday catalog.
A closer look at Pearce’s Typographic Conundrums and a chance to test your wits against the complete set of 108 after the jump.
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