Centro Poster
CENTRO, a media and design university in Mexico City, invited partner Sagi Haviv to design a poster celebrating creativity. Beginning with a life-sized hand—the primary tool of human creation—a vibrantly colored series of hands enclosing circles conveys a sense of expansion and possibility. This image inaugurates an annual series commissioned by CENTRO to showcase the brightest design talent from around the world. Each poster is printed in an edition of 10,000 and distributed widely in Mexico and internationally.
For more information, please contact Chris Nutter at chrisn@cgstudionyc.com.Otokar
Otokar is a major manufacturer of buses and other heavy vehicles, a part of the Koç Holding group of companies based in Turkey. Chermayeff & Geismar has created an integrated identity program for the company and its products.
The core of the new identity program is a symbol, an “o” interrupted by a speed line, to be used primarily on the fronts of vehicles, along with a new logotype. An entire alphabet based on the logotype was created for the company’s communications.
Print Magazine
Print magazine invited partner Sagi Haviv to contribute to its special Rants and Raves issue (August 2010). Haviv responded with a provocative graphic and nuanced essay about the troubles facing his home country of Israel.
For more information, please contact Chris Nutter at chrisn@cgstudionyc.com.SEW Infrastructure
SEW is a major infrastructure company based in India. It is responsible for engineering and building large infrastructure projects around the country – dams, tunnels, canals and power stations as well as the new Mumbai subway system. In preparation for the company’s going public, SEW came to Chermayeff & Geismar for a memorable, modern new identity that emphasizes the initials SEW.
The three bold bars of the new mark, inspired by the monumental structures built by the company, connote strength, solidity, and stability. The implied motion of the italic letterforms expresses SEW’s core mission: building infrastructure that facilitates the movement of water, vehicles and people.
For more information, please contact Chris Nutter at chrisn@cgstudionyc.com.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Chermayeff & Geismar originally designed this logo for the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, when it opened in the early 1980s. The museum has resurrected the playful and memorable identity of MOCA, as the institution was and is known, made up of the three most basic geometric forms of contemporary art – the square, the circle, and the triangle. They evoke contemporary art and design even as they push the boundaries of legibility.
Hirshhorn
Chermayeff & Geismar has created a new graphic identity for the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Smithsonian Institution's museum of modern and contemporary art.
The Hirshhorn is the second most attended museum of contemporary art in the U.S. because of its location on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. where millions visit every year. Yet its name is relatively unknown.
We took the most distinctive aspect of the word "Hirshhorn," the three H's, and emphasized it, making a memorable wordmark. As part of the complete identity system, we redesigned the museum's magazine and created a distinctive style using vibrant colors for other publications, posters, and promotional materials.
Amesco
The Dubai-based steel-trading company Amesco is a truly global firm, conducting business in the Middle East, Europe, and throughout Asia. Representing five generations of metal and steel traders, the company turned to Chermayeff & Geismar for a new graphic identity as it prepared to expand into new markets. We created a symbol that incorporates three capital “A”s, a letter that is meaningful to the owners, harkens back to the firm’s previous symbol, and signifies the name “Amesco”. The symbol further suggests strength, structure, and building.
Designboom
The website designboom featured an interview with Tom Geismar about the practice of identity design that included rare sketches of famous logos in development.
For more information, please contact Chris Nutter at chrisn@cgstudionyc.com.Haiti Poster Project
Chermayeff & Geismar created this poster for The Haiti Poster Project, a collaborative effort by designers and artists to raise money for the work of Doctors Without Borders in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake. Our poster, “Help Rebuild and Restore,” was printed at no charge by Phoenix Digital Grafix in New York; 25 signed and numbered copies will be sold at a fundraising auction.
For more information, please contact Chris Nutter at chrisn@cgstudionyc.com.Business Week
Partners Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar have been named to Business Week magazine’s “World’s Most Influential Designers” list, put together by Helen Walters and Venessa Wong. The list is accompanied by an article on “The Value of Design” in today’s business world; Ivan and Tom are called out for their decades of work designing some of the world’s most iconic brands.
For more information, please contact Chris Nutter at chrisn@cgstudionyc.com.