18 Colorful Employee Portraits by Olaf Breuning Add Creativity To Pernod Ricard's Annual Report

Co-creation by Olaf Breuning is a new photo campaign for the Pernod Ricard 2012/2013 annual report in which 18 employees create a fresco for the cover and pose for pages with personal quotes scattered throughout the 168 page annual report.

Pernod Ricard’s commitment to contemporary art, which it has inherited from Paul Ricard, is an integral part of the company’s sponsorship strategy. The Group endeavours to share and promote creativity in all its forms. Therefore, for the last 35 years, Pernod Ricard has commissioned a piece by a renowned contemporary artist to illustrate the cover of its Annual Report.



The approach now focuses on contemporary photography, giving a well-known photographer “carte blanche” to produce portraits of their employees, the front-line ambassadors of the organization’s values. In 2010, Argentinian Marcos Lopez became the first photographer to have his work featured in the report, while French Denis Rouvre and Spanish Eugenio Recuenco have followed in his footsteps in subsequent years.


above photo of Olaf Breuning by Herbert Zimmermann

Olaf Breuning, the Swiss photographer and visual artist, has been selected for this year’s annual report photo campaign. He and 18 Group employees were invited by Pernod Ricard to a private area of the Pompidou Centre to work together on a series of artistic images. Inspired by the 2012/2013 annual report theme of “co-creation”, he asked the models to paint on a gigantic canvas. Each person was given an unusual object or tool with which to paint, and a matching colour.


above: the completed canvas, used on the cover, painted by the 18 employees

Under his artistic direction, the models themselves became the artists for this unusual piece. Joy, pleasure, concentration, introspection – each one of them experienced the range of emotions which goes hand in hand with creation and the images are featured throughout the report, along with their personal quotes, such as the example shown below:



Over three days of “creative conviviality”, the fresco took shape and what emerged was the collaborative work of art which adorns the cover of this document.

All 18 portraits:



















Having been inspired by observing these fledgling artists, Olaf Breuning immortalized the models in portrait form at the end of this creative session: “Artistic creation is often the product of confrontation, of dialogue… I wanted to follow this creative process for a Group that makes sharing and conviviality its signature. The idea was to bring these people that I was meeting for the first time closer to one another, and then to expose them to my world. They had no idea at all of what the final piece would be: like an exquisite artistic cadaver, they would each make their personal contribution, but only I knew where the journey would take us”.



Olaf Breuning was able to infuse his art with Pernod Ricard’s DNA as “Créateurs de convivialité”.

You can read/download the actual annual report here

Pentagram's Custom Signs Make Picking Up Dog Poop A Religious Experience At Manhattan's Famous Cathedral Saint John the Divine.

Michael Bierut and designer Jesse Reed of Pentagram have created a series of heavenly signs for New York's well known Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine that gently remind visitors to curb and leash thy dogs on Sunday, Oct. 6 (today) for its annual St. Francis Day Blessing of the Animals.



Funerals of many notables have been held at St. John the Divine, such as Soprano's star James Gandolfini, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, writer James Baldwin, inventor Nikola Tesla, musician Dizzy Gillespie and puppeteer Jim Henson.



Visitors will encounter a new set of commandments designed for the institution, which employs the custom font Divine, a redrawn version of Frederic Goudy’s 1928 Blackletter.


above: The font, St. John The Divine, was created exclusively for Pentagram to rebrand the Cathedral by typographer Joe Finocchiaro in 2009.




Throughout the past few years, Pentagram has been refreshing the identity of Manhattan’s Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine. Their relationship with the Cathedral, an extraordinary New York institution, goes back fourteen years. They designed its previous identity in 1999.



Shortly after 9/11, the Cathedral was severely damaged by fire; a painstaking seven-year restoration followed, and the interior was reopened to great acclaim last November. The updated identity, which has been slowly introduced over the past years, builds on the success of the reopening.


above: The updated identifier pairs a drawing of the Cathedral's rose window with the name set in Franklin Gothic.

The Cathedral’s identifier juxtaposes a drawing of the rose window (shown below) that dominates the building’s western wall with asymmetrical sans serif typography. The signature is complimented with a new version of Frederic Goudy‘s blackletter text from 1928, which Goudy had based on Gutenberg’s 42-line Bible.



In a process that paralleled the Cathedral’s detailed interior restoration, typographer Joe Finocchiaro “repointed” Goudy’s letterforms to ensure crisp reproduction at large sizes.


above: A comparison of the letter P in Goudy's original blackletter, left, and redrawn by Joe Finocchiaro for the custom font Divine, right.

The signs will be a permanent addition to the Cathedral grounds, a popular spot for walking dogs in the neighborhood.


above: The church also holds many exhibits. Dog Bless You: The Photography of Mary Bloom, opened there last month and will be on view through winter 2013. For more information on the exhibition and photographer Mary Bloom's evocative portraits of Cathedral friends both four- and two-legged, visit here

Related links:
Pentagram
Joe Finocchiaro
Cathedral of St. John the Divine
Architectural history and images of the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine
Construction of the West Rose Window

Giving U.S. Tax Forms A Much Needed Makeover - Modernizing The W-9 and 1040.

A self-initiated design project by FormNation, they took it upon themselves to give such US Tax forms as the ol' W9 and 1040 a much needed makeover for both hardcopies and digital. No one likes doing taxes and the fact that these painfully necessary forms are both confusing and downright ugly does not help.

Original and redesigned US Tax Forms 1040 and W-9:



Setting out to prove that design can help to innovate, promote ease of use, and add value to business and society, FormNation streamlined the fonts, clearly prioritized the sections and added color to help distinguish the forms.

The redesigned 1040 form:





The redesigned W-9 form:




“Change in the broad sense can be transitional, revolutionary, and transformative. It’s about making life easier, and making things more possible.” - FormNation




Nice work guys, now if only the US Government would follow suit.


FormNation

A Hole In G. Ollie Willis Designs A Typographic Golf Course.

Leicester born London based Designer Ollie Willis challenges the precision, patience and frustration common in the game of golf with a mini golf course in the shape of the letters of the alphabet.By creating a typeface that uses the curves, 45º and 90º angles that are present in mini golf courses, the letters can be made into interactive structures pairing the processes of golf and design to become a 26 hole course.