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27.12.08
Review of the year, 2008
Finally, finally, a gap to write our review of the year. We’ve had quite a few emails with thoughts and nominations, along with some thoughts of our own. So, let’s stop hanging around and get on with it before the year is actually over.
In no particular order... The 'wish we’d done that’ projects of the year This year it’s plural because there are various things we’ve loved. Like this beautiful coin installation in Holland by a certain Mr Sagmeister, currently taking time out in Bali (but have a nasi goreng for us Stefan, nice job). 
There are multiple blog stories on this one, but the ironic twist is that for an installation built entirely from coins, it only stayed up (down?) for hours before the Dutch police swept it up. There’s some huge hidden irony in there, somewhere... Keeping the coin theme going, these have to be in there. Lots of votes from our readers and blogged everywhere (and there’s a nice interview here). Very nice. Well done, Mr Dent. As one reader commented, ‘to have got a clever and relatively funky design through those clients, that’s amazing’.
From earlier in the year, this fascinating combination of Marian Bantjes, Michael C Place, of Build and some auto-generated Faber and Faber book covers also gets into our top three. 
The Marian Bantjes illustration prize ..goes to, er, Marian Bantjes for these lovely snowflakes for Saks in New York. 
Brand of the year Well, no surprises here, it has to be the Obama campaign and its attendant graphic surge. 
And we suspect that, in terms of sheer graphic power, 21st century graphic design has already found a contender for its Che Guevara, courtesy of Shepard Fairey. Logo of the year Tough category. The runners-up are Pentagram San Francisco’s lovely mark for the Culture Bus... 
...and Studio Dumbar’s multi-layered C for Omroep voor Kunst en Cultuur, a Dutch cultural broadcasting organisation (although we’re not completely sure if it’s an ’08 job or not). 
The winner has to be the excellent we/me mark for the Alliance for Climate Protection, designed by Brian Collins. Very, very nice.
Ad of the year 
Well, in Britain at least, we loved this ad by Wieden and Kennedy London, where skydivers fell out of a plane spelling out ‘Honda’, in a live ad break, all to prove that ‘difficult is worth doing’. Er, absolutely. But what a great idea. If advertising is becoming more about ‘stunts’ covered online, well this is a pretty good role model. Right up there too is this mad little Transport for London film by WCRS to promote road safety to cyclists and drivers. It’s hard to write it up without giving it away, so best watch it and see what we mean.
(New Year’s resolution: work out how to get videos on to the blog).
Steal of the year 
Well it has to be London agency Beattie McGuinness Bungay’s decision to ‘adapt’ the iBeer iPhone application for their client, Carling. Having seen it in the USA, and having had their request for a version turned down by developer Hottrix, they just developed their own. It seems that the ‘borrowing’ hasn't gone down too well, resulting in a $12.5m lawsuit. Ouch. Meanwhile TBWA, the agency they left (but nearly re-merged with) seems to have stepped sideways into design, with these rather lovely designs for some in-house tea bags. We really hope these aren’t a steal. Please. 
Music of the year Weirdly it’s been live album year in the johnson banks studio, from Rodrigo Y Gabriela in Japan, Buena Vista Social Club, Brad Meldhau, to John Mayer, Jeff Beck, and the Gotan Project... ...we love that crowd noise you see. Studio albums? Goldfrapp was hammered on the studio iPods for a while, and we can see why everyone loves the Bon Iver album and the recent TV on the Radio. (Still not sure about the Kings of Leon though). That Miles in India album was great too. But, rather predictably, when we think about which album has been played most, it has to be Elbow. Single? Well, very subjective, but the editor picks That’s not my name by the Ting Tings. 
Guitar geeks out there will surely agree that Where the light is (John Mayer live in Los Angeles) had to be guitar album of the year (although the bits where he talks are deeply bugging).
Gig of the year We’ve had some very cosmopolitan votes on this one. Andy (from Milan) wanted the Chicks on Speed gig in Milan, Grant wanted the Foo Fighters at Wembley, the editor wanted Bill Bailey and Eddie Izzard back to back this month in London, but by popular vote it had to be Radiohead in Victoria Park. 
Worst timed ads of the year... ..had to be these cross-track posters for Icesave that ran on London’s Underground just as the bank (and Iceland the country) ground to a fiscal halt. Ooops. 
Design blogs of the year Well, we have four winners. Based on the simple rule ‘you can only keep 4 design blogs in your RSS reader’, it has to be equal billing to the CR blog, Design Boom, Yanko Design and of course Design Observer. Creative Review seemed to come of age this year, especially as a debating forum for UK designers. Design Boom just astonishes us with the sheer quality and quantity of its selections from around the globe. Very rarely do they pick anything duff, very rarely do you sense the hand of ‘corporate PR’. Design Observer needs no introductions, but perhaps Yanko does - a product design site that posts designs and concepts of the highest order. Have a look at their review of 2008, you’ll soon see what we mean. 
A mention in despatches has to go to Ben Terret and his blog, Noisy Decent Graphics, written by one man in a sea of multi-authored design sites. As Quentin Newark pointed out: ‘it always has something fresh and interesting... it hasn’t got an agenda at all, it’s far more genuine than that - so many blogs are thinly disguised sales promotion’. New-to-us blogs of the year Well, we’re genuinely intrigued by Brandsinger, always worth a visit. Design-wise we have to note the impressive arrival of none other than ex-D&AD President, Mike Dempsey... 
...and ex-DR stalwart, Michael C Place. We love those cats (Brockmann and Betty). The flickr set has to be visited too. 
Last year’s underground design trend gone overground Dan Gray wrote in and suggested ‘beautiful/unreadable infographics’ (and he’s got a good point). Robin Howie suggested spineless binding (true). But as last year we noted the preponderance of counterless, blocky designs on the likes of FFFFound, and in student portfolios, this has been the year when the style has ‘gone public’ (as one of our respondents, Jake Pover, also noticed).
So from Vodafone’s music campaign (by The Brand Union)... 
 
..to the MAD Museum in New York (Pentagram)... 
...to the über-copyright cops, DACS (by 300 million), it’s now public property, and everywhere. Still great, but very, very 2008. 
Maybe credit should be given to the style’s progenitors, Non-Format and the now sadly defunct Kerr Noble. Non-Format have already moved on, anyway. We love this Jeff Koons hedgehog. 
The other design trend of the year has to be all those cities using hearts for their logos. The ‘I really don't need one but I’d really like one’ award Well, there are quite a few ridiculous ones in this category. but we've cut it down to these lovely wooden iPhone covers (very nice)... 
and these fabulous inks-splat bookmarks. 
There have been some votes for this bunny plate rack/dryer too. See, told you they were essentially ridiculous. 
The ‘looks a bit dodgy but I’d still like one’ award ...has to go to this camera that prints its own inkless prints, on the spot. Wow, a kind of digital Polaroid? Yes please. Can we have one on ‘test’, maybe?
Conversely it seems from readers’ votes that all we really (really) want, camera-wise, is a Leica of some description. A D-Lux? An M8? We don’t mind... Cars? A Fiat 500. Neat web project of the year 
We weren’t too enamoured by the design of this site, and have no interest at all in the product on sale (sorry) but loved the idea for this site where photographer Nick Turpin toured the world for a month, taking pictures where location and subject were decided by the visitors to the site. Great. We’re going to see more of this. 
FFFFound find of the year? Has to be this. 
Design book of the year 
Not a vintage year. In a year where the designer monograph trend seemed to slow down, there were quite a few nominations from readers for Daniel Eatock’s book, but we enjoyed this Barney Bubbles retrospective the most. It’s flawed, yes, and frustrating, true, but finally the work has been collected in one place. You could read the two-years-and-still-going post that led to it here, or Rick Poynor’s recent review here. Or, better, just buy the book, a valuable record of an almost forgotten influence. Worst of the year? Well, readers votes mainly concentrated on more hatred of the Olympics logo (sorry, it was ’07) and there’s a lot of venom towards the Pepsi re-jig (as noted over here on Brand New’s review of the year). Overall, we have to point the finger at the whole marble/globe/globalised thing, best summed up by the Barclaycard and Xerox projects, neatly parodied on the CR blog here. In terms of greenwash, readers nominated ‘anything that came out of David Cameron’s mouth’ or ‘Tesco and Sainsbury’s bag advertising - we do all the work while they save money’. Some people nominated D&AD (that awarded no graphic design pencils this year) as ‘biggest disappointment of the year’ (ouch), but most people’s boring topic and biggest disappointment of the year seems to be the same - the credit crunch. Next year’s trend? 
Well, we’re hoping for more of those projects that feel less like graphic design, and we’re hoping that Uniqlo’s brave foray into dual languages will be the beginning of a whole move towards global brands that feel much more local. But we’re prepared to be disappointed. Anyway, that’s it, thanks for your votes, thanks for visiting this year, and have a happy new year. Thought for the Week is taking a break for a week or so. See you in the new year.
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