The Edit: five projects including République Studio’s spatial identity for Bien Vieillir Ensemble

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.

Between 17th December 2021 and 13th March 2022, Bien Vieillir Ensemble at the Cité de l’Architecture in Paris reflected on France’s approach to housing for their elderly population. Taking on the challenge of creating the exhibition’s identity, signage and catalogue, Parisian design practice République Studio found inspiration in the game of Scrabble – which is one of the most popular games in French retirement homes. The result is a striking yet straightforward typographic system that utilises the game’s stacked tiles as a referential starting point – with the stark forms of Forgotten Shapes’ sans serif Gerstner Programm appearing as the one and only typeface.

Throughout 2022, London and Lisbon-based design agency How & How are playing their part in saving the world by contributing £200,000 towards the launch of four climate-tech startups. The initiative, titled GetSet, will see How & How choose one company per quarter to take on a four-week intensive branding programme, from which they’ll leave with a presentation worth £50,000 – but completely for free. Rightfully shouting about what’s on offer, GetSet’s identity balances tongue-in-cheek messaging with a loud graphic tone representative of the important issue at hand. “We want GetSet to be a positive, exciting opportunity to tackle something scary,” Co-founder Cat How explains, adding that they selected Blaze Type’s Arges as the display typeface for the striking cuts in its letterforms and its “contemporary flourish.” They actually bought NSW 01 from Buy Fonts Save Lives as their original choice – with the fact that all of its proceeds go to charity making it a rather fitting typeface for the project. “We’re keeping NSW 01 on ice for another project though as it’s an absolute corker,” How concludes, “watch this space ;)”

Working closely with interior designers Studio Roslyn, Vancouver-based creative studio Skeleton Crew have designed the identity and packaging for Bricklayer – a Canadian brewery that initially came into fruition during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The name derived from an off-hand comment made by a friend of the brewery’s owner – in which they said their childrens’ names sound like those of typical Italian bricklayers. Feeling inspired by this, Skeleton Crew looked to the graphic language of traditional Italian storefronts for inspiration; creating a warm and colourful identity system that doesn’t try too hard to be perfect.

In response to a brief to create a festival identity for their master’s course at ELISAVA in Barcelona, student duo François ‘Frans’ Hulet and Melina Papadioti developed the ‘ShhFilmFestival.’ Screening a broad mix of vintage silent movies and contemporary ‘almost silent’ movies. Their graphic concept aims to represent the ‘growth’ of cinema; utilising a tidy yet playful combination of repeating, extending and stretching typography and imagery. By pairing the stark construction of Neue Haas Unica with a primarily black and white palette, the duo’s identity system emphasises the weird and wonderful imagery from the movies it represents.

Modrá Púpava, which translates to mean ‘Blue Dandelion’ in English, is a family-run natural cosmetics brand from the Slovakian city of Banská Bystrica. Created by Bratislava-based designer Ivana Palecková, the brand’s identity and packaging utilise vibrant colour to functionally define their products by usage or skin type. Never predictable, however, the boxes intentionally mix up the product names with an unexpected colour; such as yellow for products containing rose and blue for products containing lavender. Embodying the simplistic playfulness that defines the identity, the packaging is graced with a seemingly randomly placed dandelion seed illustration – as if blown away by the wind. The identity also makes the most of one of Palecková’s own typographic creations – employing her and Jitka Janecková’s variable monospace Plastic as Modrá Púpava’s typeface of choice.