The Edit: five new projects including Drunk Pizza by Chris Thorpe Design

Each and every day, we're lucky to discover dozens of interesting and inspiring projects from around the world. From global identities and campaigns to side projects and independently published books, The Edit is home to five of them; every two weeks.

A concept developed by New York-based designer Chris Thorpe, Drunk Pizza is a fast food stop dedicated to the ‘after-hours athletes’ that go unapologetically and fearlessly searching for a late-night slice. In exploring the concept visually, he decided to couple the iconic ‘New York slice experience’ with the quintessential New York attitude. At the core of Thorpe’s work is the charming brand mascot, or “the inebriated pizza slice” in his words, which was illustrated to represent “the mindset of the average tired and hungry patron who would find themself gorging on hot bread and cheese at 4am.” The illustration is combined with vintage typography, and a ‘sauce’ inspired red; with each element coming together in a multitude of eclectic arrangements to capture the look and feel of a 1970s pizza parlour.

Located in Saudi Arabia, CRACK is a fast food restaurant serving up crispy fried chicken and hamburgers with a bunch of ‘spicy humour’. With a visual identity designed by Mexican designer Karla Heredia, including illustration and packaging, CRACK conveys a light-hearted sense of togetherness and comfort through bright colours and straightforward, warming typography. Heredia tells us that she wanted to evoke the “feeling of neighbourhood, where you get together with your lifelong friends to hang out and enjoy the moment.”

In one of the country’s largest-ever urban transformation projects, northern Swedish city Kiruna is relocating by more than three kilometres due to the expansion of its nearby mine. Kiruna Forever, an exhibition by the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design ArkDes, examines the outstanding work of the 100 architects, urban planners and artists behind the city’s transformation. In tackling the design of the exhibition, its identity and supporting print materials, Stockholm-based art director Magdalena Czarnecki explored concepts of duality such as history versus future, peace versus destruction and utopia versus reality. Her concept is brought to life visually through contrasting images and typography choices; with delicate serif, characterful illustration, chunky sans serif and matter-of-fact photography all used together fluidly. Despite the multitude of elements, the brand works harmoniously due to the uniting choice of fluorescent yellow, which was inspired by the workwear worn by the staff at the mine as well as the safety tape used to rope off parts of the city during the move.

Master sommelier Ian Cauble founded SommSelect in 2014 as a way to ‘bring the sommelier experience home’ to curious wine drinkers. Throughout 2020’s lockdowns, their home delivery ‘wine club’ subscriptions have increased by 300%, resulting in the company developing a younger and more adventurous clientele. Aiming to move away from the stuffy, white-gloved look of traditional sommeliers, SommSelect Marketing Director Melissa Saks tasked New York-based creative director Deva Pardue with rebranding the company in line with their newly-acquired audience. Through elegant typographic choices, her solution is rife with sophistication while feeling distinctly modern and approachable. At its core is the double ‘S’ logomark, which intelligently utilises the prominence of the letter in the company name to create a corkscrew-like form. It’s accompanied by a bespoke version of Commercial Type’s graceful display serif Canela; on which Pardue worked with Jesse Ragan of XYZ Type to find the perfect balance of sophistication, severity and warmth.

Brazillian designer Gláuber Sampaio was invited by Casa Diária, an independent shop in São Paulo, to collate an exhibition of his work with handmade illustrations. On accepting their offer and naming the exhibition ‘Orto’ (Brazillian Portuguese for ‘the beginning’), Sampaio designed its minimalistic visual identity in reference to the strong lines, repetition and geometric texture found in his illustrative output. Despite the bold typography and striking palette, the straightforward graphic system allows the expressive, immersive nature of his illustrations to take the spotlight.