Sifting through the endless design blogs (oh yes, the irony is not lost here), copy can often get overlooked by the clean visual form or general aesthetics.
With this years D&AD festival theme, Beautiful Meme have managed to put the content front and center highlight the fact that we, as designers, think in terms of words as much as think in terms of visuals.
The Beautiful Meme aim was to provoke debate around creativity while representing the variety of voices and discussions that can be heard at creative festivals and awards judging. Through stretching, distorting and careful arrangement of the typeface Franklin, this idea was achieved with the end result being a range of visual styles to match the various voices. This concept really brings the copy to life and makes for a refreshing and light-hearted approach to something that is often seen as being a very serious subject.
Beautiful Meme created environmental graphics and way finding, and have produced around 100 pieces of creative. Typographic artwork features a mix of jokes, poems and phrases which reflect on creative work, industry awards and the importance of creativity – some are quite abstract and others more light-hearted, from “Awards are newborn stars forming sudden constellations” to “Whenever you begin to doubt the brilliance of humanity just look around and ask, ‘could dolphins have done this?’”
This years D&AD Festival line-up includes an exhibition of pencil-winning professional work, Next Director, Next Photographer and New Blood Awards showcases plus talks, workshops and studio tours. (Speakers include Paul Smith, Annie Atkins and Wayne Hemingway).
