Case studies

A page-turner

State of The Times, an annual event hosted by the New York Times (NYT), brings together the company’s employees to celebrate their journalism, keep up with their business strategy, and offers them a chance to connect. More than just a town hall meeting, the event gets a fresh update for each edition. For 2024’s conference, Jessi Brattengeier – NYT’s Creative Director – brought in London-based CC Studio to collaborate on the identity and a motion system.

Stellar as stardust

Copenhagen-based freelance designer Gabrielle Adam presents a conceptual project for an oral care brand, ‘Premolar Grains,’ inspired by interstellar presolar grains and their strength, longevity, and beauty. “These grains have been around for billions of years and existed before the sun was formed,” she explains. “They were spewed out by ageing stars, and they then got mixed with chondrules, calcium-aluminium inclusions and dust particles.” Inspired by their legacy, the designer conjured the idea of an oral care brand, and built a visual world to match.

A ‘zing’ in your step

In their quest to deliver vibrant, spontaneous, and zestful moments of joy and refreshment, the flavoured soda brand, Zingara, needed a unique, attention-grabbing identity that could hold its own on competitive retail shelves. To breathe life into their canned soda lineup, they reached out to UK-based packaging studio Noramble to design a captivating and distinctive look that would resonate through its product line.

Big tips on managing finances

Interviews

Mouthwash Studio’s Research Center

For a few years now, the team at Mouthwash Studio has been thinking about their R&D process – an integral part of their practice that keeps the cogs turning and leads them to the impactful, contextual work they’ve come to be known for, but equally, a slice of the creative process that often goes unseen. To give research and experimentation a space of its own, the team launched the Mouthwash Research Center as a playground for boundless creativity, with no constraints in sight. The new vertical has let the studio tap into many things at once – it presents an opportunity to learn new skills and techniques, throw the rulebook out the window, and allows each member of the team the space to push themselves outside of their discipline and department. But perhaps, most importantly, it’s given Mouthwash the chance to redefine what it means to ‘create,’ making experiments that help tease one’s skill sets and imagination just as important as commercial work. “To only commit to client work, to playing it safe, and sticking with what we know works, is like trying to drive while only looking in the rearview mirror,” says Alex Tan, Partner, Direction & Strategy.

To learn more about the project and where it promises to take the studio next, we huddled with the team. Tan – along with Partners & Designers Mackenzie Freemire and Ben Mingo, and Partner & Creative Director Abraham Campillo – give us a peek into how the Research Center has allowed the team to think differently, and why R&D at Mouthwash is now getting the limelight it deserves.

News

A bite-sized burst of inspo

Are you a designer searching for a space that lies between early-career guides and studio founder hubs? Look no further than Conceptseeker – a newsletter tailored for those with a few years under their belt, offering a two-minute dose of timeless concepts, ideas, inspiration, and resources. Each week, it delivers five hand-picked recommendations for senior designers.

Mockups

“We’re more interested in pursuing specific dynamics than specific clients.”

NMRDOTCC
29th Feburary 2024

Books

Displaay CATALOGUE Coll.#1

Coll.#01 is the first comprehensive catalogue of Displaay’s typeface collection. It is a guide to 20 of their typeface families, as well as an insight into upcoming typefaces and custom projects. For bookworms, it can serve as a tour guide through the labyrinth of Wikipedia topics that occupy our minds.

Jobs

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