I think we can all admit that 2020 was a humdinger of a year. That some of us managed to make it out with a modicum of our sanity intact warranted some serious lifetime achievement awards and parades.
And now, we’re all another year older. I don’t know that we got any wiser or if we even have a better understanding of how our world currently works, but pat yourself on the back anyway. And maybe take a nap—you deserve it.
It’s been a pretty, pretty, pretty good year at PRINT. Not only did we get this brand-spanking-new website, but we even got to talk to some of our favorite artists and designers in the industry—folks like Bisa Butler, Pum Lefebure, Yosnier Miranda, Efdot, Megan Lewis, Amber Vittoria, Nekisha Durrett, Jessica Hische, Tre Seals, Nick Barclays, Igor Bastidas, Jim Jarmusch, Paul Soulellis, Fe Amarante, and comedy and painting duo Very Gay Paint.
Also, if it seems like we’re bragging, well, we kind of are! It’s an honor and a privilege that we get to speak with some of the best design minds in the game and share their stories.
And we get to do it all over again in 2022. So a heartfelt thanks for reading and sticking with PRINT.
That said, here’s PRINT’s Top 25 Stories of the Year, as determined by you, the reader. Dig in, and we’ll see you on the other side.
For all the certainty an algorithmic approach to design can provide, good books deserve covers that stand out, polarize, and take risks.
2. The Burger King Rebrand: Design Fit for a King?
In the ongoing corporate quest to keep the crown, Burger King has rebranded, serving up its first alternate look in more than two decades.
3. Someone Just Bought A GIF For Half A Million Dollars
How much is a gif or meme worth anyway?
4. Cleveland Indians Change Name to Cleveland Guardians and Get a Brand New Look
Cleveland’s major league ball club announced that they would change their name from the Indians to the Guardians, unveiling a new logo and a slick campaign video.
5. Jack White Launches New Website Highlighting His Art & Design Work
It’s fair to say that The White Stripe’s Jack White has always had a knack for ace design and craftsmanship.
6. 30 of the Best Book Covers of the Year (So Far)
In 2021, as the world begins to rebound and bask in the hope offered by vaccines and new leadership, visual culture has served to uplift, energize and surprise.
7. Aaron Draplin’s 10 Favorite Album Covers
We challenged Aaron Draplin to name his ten favorite record covers. He cheated just a bit because there are a dozen albums here—but we’ll allow it just this once.
8. It’s Here: The 2022 Pantone Color Of the Year, and it’s Very Peri
PANTONE touts Very Peri as a new color “whose courageous presence encourages personal inventiveness and creativity.”
9. What Matters: Inside the Brilliant Mind of Artist Kenneth FitzGerald
Kenneth FitzGerald, an educator, designer, artist, writer and curator living in Chesapeake, VA. He occupies the virtual space Ephemeral States.
10. Facebook Changes Company Name to Meta: Welcome To The Metaverse *Gulps*
Zuckerberg told his fiefdom that the name “Facebook” no longer adequately encompasses all that the conglomerate has become and all that it aspires to be, hence the megalomaniacal refresh.
11. Top Five Data Visualization Artists To Follow On Instagram
Like many of the best styles of multidimensional art, data visualization is an interdisciplinary specialty that dissects facts and information and reformats it into digestible graphical representations.
12. What Matters: Austin Kleon
Austin Kleon is the New York Times bestselling author of a trilogy of illustrated books about creativity in the digital age: Steal Like An Artist, Show Your Work!, and Keep Going.
13. Duolingo Brings Back Bathroom Reading with New Toilet Paper
Language learning app Duolingo are no strangers to the time-for-two-toilet-timeout, as surely users of the service have busted out their phone to take a quick lesson from the platform.
14. Golden Venum Celebrates Both The Mystical And Magical
Golden Venum manages to stick the landing with a UX design for its blog that revels in the mystical, with a typeface that looks like it came out of a book of near-magical spells.
15. Craig Ward’s Brik Font Makes Us Wonder If We’re All In Search Of More Simplistic Design Afterall
Inspired and prompted by the process, type designer Craig Ward explores the art of typography by creating typefaces solely made from LEGOs.
16. Everything Gets A Redesign, Even Mail Trucks
Starting in 2023, the mail truck is going to start looking a LOT different. Dubbed the Next Generation Delivery Vehicle (or the NGDV, which certainly rolls off the tongue), the mail truck has undergone a drastic redesign as many of the vehicles in their fleet are upwards of 30 years old.
17. Penguin Classics Unveils ‘Green Ideas’ Series With Gorgeous Design From Tom Etherington
Dubbed Green Ideas, the collection includes 20 great works in paperback that explore topics related to the environment.
18. OkCupid Gets a Little Naughty With Their Latest Ad Campaign
Keen on standing out from a crowded field of dating platforms licking their chops this post-lockdown hot girl summer, OKCupid has rolled out a cheeky, out-of-home global ad campaign that’s bold in more ways than one.
19. Drake’s Album Cover Art For ‘Lover Boy’ Designed By Damien Hirst Was…Not What We Were Expecting?
Lover Boy’s album cover, designed by artist Damien Hirst, at first glance, seems evident that it combines Hirst’s sculpture The Virgin Mother, a painted bronze sculpture, with his famous spot paintings.
20. ZhuanZhuan’s Lunar New Year Gifts Inspired By The Viking Spirit
The gifts ZhuanZhuan designs for staff and partners communicate the values and character of the brand. They typically make Lunar New Year gifts to convey a sense of gratitude on the firm’s behalf, as well as inspire a bright outlook and good fortune for the year ahead.
21. What is the New Normal? 27 Artist, Designers, and Creatives Weigh In
As the vaccine rollout ramped up across the country, we reached out to a medley of our contacts across the industry with a simple (yet utterly complicated) prompt, offering them as much or as little room as they’d like to answer it.
22. Coca-Cola Launches ‘Real Magic’ Brand Platform With an Updated Visual Identity For Global Campaign
This new platform includes a new design identity across Coke Trademarks, including Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Light/Diet Coke, and Coca-Cola Zero Sugar. Additionally, the new “hug” logo, conceptualized by Wieden+Kennedy London, adds a bit of charm to the branding system.
23. After a Winning Election Campaign Design, Robyn Kanner Has Started Her Own Studio
Robyn Kanner doesn’t think of herself as a designer in the traditional sense; instead, you could call her a storyteller, with design being one of the avenues through which she creates.
24. The Resurgence of Retro Sports Design; A Conversation with Charles Nix
One of the ways this retro resurgence has manifested is within the sports design industry, with throwback jerseys and allusions to vintage sports branding on the rise across professional leagues.
25. The Logo Redesign That’s Cheesier Than Most: JKR Introduces Velveeta’s New Look
As the world moves towards one filled with flat logo designs, Velveeta decided to play keep up with their first logo refresh in over 20 years with design from Jones Knowles Ritchie.
