Design Week

2 days ago | designweek.co.uk | Rob Alderson

Our weekly design/leader interview series ends with the same prompt. “Complete this sentence – ‘I wish more clients…’”At least half of the answers feature the same handful of words – bolder, braver, risks. Across these interviews, and many other conversations with designers, a picture of frustration emerges. Of nervous clients making playing it safe. Of designers forced to rein in their ideas. And of a creative culture where things look the same.

1 week ago | designweek.co.uk | Rob Alderson

Rachel Fairley and Sarah Robb explain how to approach a rebrand in a more holistic, flexible and long-term way. There is a strange tension in the design world in this current economic climate. While businesses need to strengthen and focus on their brands to move forward, budgets are down, and internal stakeholders need more convincing that a rebrand will drive tangible impact. For Rachel Fairley and Sarah Robb, we need to change how we think and talk about rebrands.

1 month ago | designweek.co.uk | Rob Alderson

Pentagram has released a new version of its Marks book, featuring 1,000 logos designed by the firm’s partners, past and present. The first edition was published in 2010, with 400 symbols and logotypes from 1972, when Pentagram was founded, to the present day. But rather than reprinting the previous book, the agency “saw an opportunity to create something bolder” and upped the number of marks featured to 1,000.

1 month ago | designweek.co.uk | Rob Alderson

In a world where it’s quicker and easier than ever to access information, thanks largely to AI-generated snippets, Scribd wants users to rediscover the pleasure of in-depth research. The online information library holds more than 200 million documents in 261 languages on almost any topic you can think of. But as the internet came to prioritise short and snappy, Scribd commissioned Mother Design to create a new global identity to underline its very different ethos.

1 month ago | designweek.co.uk | Rob Alderson

Five years after the first UK lockdown, ten design leaders tell us the biggest thing they learned from navigating the COVID pandemic. It was five years ago this month that the UK entered its first COVID lockdown. What followed would change the UK’s economy, and its society, for good. The design industry too went through the mill, and many people you speak to today still reference the pandemic as a turning point in their business.