It's Like This (Design Studio)
@itslikethis-studio.bsky.social
We're the place-based design studio for social good - through brand, design and motion. HQ in East London. Posts by Creative Director Jonny Weston. Occasional hyperbole, occasional dad jokes.
#LondonDesignBiennale back for the 2025 edition: "Surface Reflections" - what futures we want to build? ⚡ Through craft, making, governance & skills, resilience and circularity comes from placing people at the centre of design. #Instituteforglobalprosperity @ucl.ac.uk @designcouncil.bsky.social.
NEW: 2024 has just been confirmed as the warmest year on record, and the first to breach the 1.5C threshold. We used a ridgeline (Joy Division inspired) chart to visualise daily temperature anomalies since 1940. 2024 clearly stands out with 100% of its days above 1.3C and 75% above 1.5C.
In honour of great Thomas Matthews agency, we are reposting an old manifesto image today to honour the firm closing. Much of their work was made in the image of the first ever public declaration for design to transform our society and planet, First Things First). HUGE Respect Sophie + the team.
Always a pleasure to see #HatoStudio 's work. This rebrand for the #NewContemporaries 75th anniversary (showing this year at the ICA in London) raises many questions about how graphics can contribute to the "continuously changing collection of matter". www.itsnicethat.com/articles/hat...
Hato’s rebrand repositions New Contemporaries as a more “nimble” institution
In line with New Contemporaries’ 2025 exhibition, the organisation’s rebrand marks 75 years at the cutting edge of British art.
itsnicethat.com
Urban Community Land Trusts are gaining attention as a response to the housing crisis. 👀 However, it’s not just urban areas that can benefit from the CLT model, writes Tom Bennett, a director at Studio Bark architects. Read more. ⬇️ https://bit.ly/40DHKCj
We couldn't have put it better ourselves.
Elio España@elioespana.bsky.social · 2y agoEncouraging speech from Lisa Nandy. Arts & culture in the UK have been horribly and unforgivably abused by a procession of witless bookkeepers and insensitive, incurious troglodytes. Nandy says “it ends today”, I hope she means it.
This week’s newsletter is another Creator Note: being alive to opportunity, and the story of how I missed one of the biggest that came my way. www.aftershocks.co/p/creator-no...
Creator Notes#4: Being Alive to Opportunity
And how not to miss it
aftershocks.co
And thank god for #JeremyDeller. He pens an interesting piece on the fear and hesitancy facing artists/designers being vocal on Gaza. Not surprising, given the 'cultural clampdown' we are witnessing in Germany. (bit.ly/4g8uaeT)
Rob Maslin@robmaslin.bsky.social · 2y agoNot often a billboard makes me smile
Needs a re-read: Legendary sociologist W.E.B Du Bois was using data visualisation to challenge racism more than 100 years ago. Reminds me of the powerful illustrations of enslaved people packed into Western ships - rational yet horrifying design.
Back in 1900, activist W. E. B. Du Bois was using infographics to challenge white supremacy
A new show at the House of Illustration, called W.E.B. Du Bois: Charting Black Lives, explores the little-known infographics created by the African American activist and intellectual to challenge raci...
itsnicethat.com
One from the archives - really worth checking: exploring how #data & #design can create social change in times of crisis, introduced by @leoniebell.bsky.social. @martaforesti.bsky.social, @jburnmurdoch.bsky.social and others... buff.ly/3we99cq
Data and Design: Making stories visible
Welcome to V&A Dundee - Scotland’s design museum
vam.ac.uk
“The idea of design has to be transformed from the notion of a specialist function, to [an] attitude of resourcefulness and inventiveness which allows projects to be seen not in isolation but in relationship with the needs of the individual and community” László Moholy-Nagy, ‘45
👏 "I’ve come to understand the importance of broadening our perspectives beyond the Western framework. Today... I see design as a tool for liberation – a means to reclaim and reshape narratives, bridging worlds and histories." www.itsnicethat.com/articles/gra...
Graphic designer, do you need to study “The Design Greats”?
Could too close an adherence to design history have an “unintended impact” on your creativity and sense of self? For graphic designer and art director Shamma Buhazza, it certainly did.
itsnicethat.com
"A brand system built to solve only for today risks becoming irrelevant tomorrow. A strong identity doesn’t just offer rules for consistency; it also provides a kind of time capsule – seeds of ideas that anticipate where the brand might need to go." Elizabeth Goodspeed (@goodspeed.bsky.social)
So true: "what might seem like gossip over semantics actually speaks to a larger question: who gets to own a brand’s story when multiple studios contribute to its evolution?"
Elizabeth Goodspeed on untangling credit in design
As Athletic Greens’ meteoric rise shows, a brand’s success often depends on its identity system. But who gets recognition for the work when multiple studios shape a brand over time?
itsnicethat.com
A key tenant of design for a new world: "the kind of leadership required rests most of all in a willingness to make a genuine invitation to everyone to collaborate for the common good, across private and public sectors, and, critically, the community at large".
UCL Policy Lab@uclpolicylab.bsky.social · 2y agoHow can we transform public service design and delivery by focusing on the power of human relationships? We talked to @nick80.bsky.social and Osian Jones about the work being done at Camden Council to build a new relational approach to public services. www.ucl.ac.uk/policy-lab/n...
The absolute don of graphic design, Ken Harland. Feels suitable for our first ever repost on Blue Sky :)
Design Reviewed@designreviewed.com · 2y agoDesign, Council of Industrial Design, 171, March 1963. Cover design by Ken Garland #kengarland designreviewed.com/artefacts/de...
