Contemporary Graphic Design Research

I have started to gather some research into interesting map designs and concepts that relate to journeys and maps. It is important that I research into maps with interesting concepts and relevant examples of contemporary Graphic Design so that the map that I create is visually strong whilst having an interesting concept and research behind it.

The work that interested me were branding for the East London Art Walk by The Beautiful Meme and the typeface that Johan Elmehag created to communicate the dangers of melting ice caps.

The East London Art Walk is a line in which an art tour which links the O2 in Greenwich, south London and the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, near east London’s Hackney Wick. The identity takes the idea of a line rather literally, but applies it in imaginative, smart ways, meaning that it was able to be applied to stationary to the bark of a tree. I think the simplicity of the line works extremely effectively they were able to use it on loads of different contexts. I also think that the overall minimal design for the branding of the art walk makes it easy for people to understand, which is important for a journey route.

The designs take their inspiration from “the idea of journeying through a landscape.”  The creative director at The Beautiful Meme (Ben Haworth), mentioned that: “Using the pure vertical and horizontal strokes of the seven characters, our logo is an interpretation of the path of The Line – in the same vein as Beck’s tube map. More importantly though it is designed to feel simultaneously contemporary and primitive.”

Johan Elmehag's recent project focuses on a typeface which was created to communicate the dangers of our melting ice caps. The project is called 'A-Z: Coast to Coast Shore to Shore'. It is a custom font which aims to find innovative ways to present the geographical impact of climate change by sculpting future coastlines into letterforms. The research into this project also relates to Studio Brief 2 as it focuses on representing and promoting a worldwide issue through Graphic Design.

The typeface takes its initial references from a “future world map” which he had previously mocked-up. The map displays what our landmasses would look like if all the ice in the world melted (based off information from floodmap.net and projects from National Geographic). “I started to see different letterforms in particularly exposed coastal areas,”- Johan.

The end product that Johan created was a type specimen, a world map and a website which present Coastline, a typeface created from a set of geographic variables. These include distribution of areas around the globe, a form taken from an exposed coastline, scale variation between letters, as well as obviously stemming from aesthetically appropriate letterforms. “Each letter represents a specific area, and a unique future,”