Ph.D, A Design Office » Stories

Reviewing in a Modern Way

phdla — Fri, 04 May 2012 14:07:11 +0000

Following on from her lovely review of LACMA’s California Design 1930- 1965: “Living in a Modern Way” show in Tuesday’s Felt & Wire post, our good friend and F&W contributor Alyson Kuhn turns her attention to the catalogue in today’s featured F&W story.

Not known to turn down a chocolate when offered, Alyson saw the book as “a deluxe 6-lb box of eye candy”. Insightful comments from curators Wendy Kaplan, Bobbye Tigerman and project manager Nola Butler along with some thoughts from Mick after the fact, make this a great read.

More about the catalogue here.

Living in A Modern Way

phdla — Tue, 01 May 2012 17:12:57 +0000

Great to see that our good friends at Felt & Wire recently visited LACMA to see the landmark exhibition California Design 1930–1965: “Living in a Modern Way”. Now in its last 5 weeks before it closes and starts its journey to Japan, New Zealand and Australia, the show has had over 300,000 visitors. If you have any interest in design (and as you’re on our website we know you must have) and if you haven’t already been, and you’re in Los Angeles or even planning a visit, PLEASE make sure you go and see this show. And as Alyson says on F&W if you can’t make it, then you must get the catalogue we designed which is now in its 3^rd printing!

More about the catalog here.

PLANEwrap

phdla — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 22:11:01 +0000

On Saturday, April 28, in the Edward Cella Art + Architecture gallery opposite LACMA, Michael Boyd’s PLANEfurniture show will open. We started working with Michael on the catalogue for the show in January and the book was printed and bound 14 weeks later! An intense 14 weeks! The furniture and the show are magnificent. The book, dare we say it, also magnificent. The fun part is that we also designed all the graphics for the installation, and some mini collectors cards by Moo. If you’re in Los Angeles come by and celebrate with us. If not the catalogue will be available through the gallery and PLANEfurniture websites, along with two limited edition inkjets prints from the show, published by PLANEfurniture and echelon editions.

More about the catalog here.

World Water Day

phdla — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 23:13:09 +0000

Today, March 22, 2012, is World Water Day.

Ph.D has always been a big proponent of eliminating as much bottled water as possible. In 2006 we were asked to design a banner for AIGA’s Urban Forest Project. Our thought behind our design: Why are we being brainwashed into thinking that we have to pay for water, something that should be free? According to Dan Imhoff, author of Paper or Plastic, Searching for Solutions to an Overpackaged World, “one in every three servings of water in America is now consumed in a bottle. That’s about 45 million bottles per day of which around 12 percent are recycled. The bottled water problem, perhaps more than anything else, points to the real ecological issues we’re facing; among them a complete trust in the commercial industrial packaged world versus the natural world.”

We invite you to download our poster and tape it up in your kitchen. Maybe it will stop a few more people from buying a bottle or two.

Olympic Event!

phdla — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 20:17:48 +0000

While the Olympics will be happening in Mick’s home town of London this summer, we had our own Olympic event: moving office. We have a great new space on Olympic Blvd, a few blocks from the old office of 20 years!

2012 seems like a year for change for many of our friends, as it is for us. We’re excited, it’s time for a new space, and of course some great new work!

Come by and have a cuppa, or if its later in the day we can probably find a beer or a glass of wine.

Four Eyes

phdla — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 20:15:23 +0000

Great friend, great cyclist and now a great client, Dave Barton from KBL eyewear stopped by to help with our move to our new office on Olympic Blvd, Santa Monica. After moving some furniture around and unpacking a few boxes it was time for a break and a beer!

Is he happy with the new website Ph.D just designed for KBL? Yes! The response from clients: “Wow! We love the clean modern aesthetic design of the site and how great it makes the product look”

Poster Boy

phdla — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 22:59:41 +0000

For USC we recently designed this rather beautiful poster. The photograph by master architectural photographer Iwan Baan was overlayed with large type listing the five departments at USC School Of Architecture. Online design magazine Felt & Wire liked it too.

More on the poster here.

Super Domestique

dvsmethid — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 06:51:30 +0000

Mick’s stories about his recent 3 weeks working as photo assistant to his riding buddy Mike Powell are told to Peonies’ Pam Williams in this Fridays Felt & Wire Design Destination. Plus some nice photos too, even if we say so ourselves!

http://www.feltandwire.com/2010/09/24/mick-hodgsons-destination-anywhere-he-can-go-on-two-wheels/

A Published Author!

dvsmethid — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 06:56:12 +0000

My book is out! “Recycling & Redesigning Logos” by Michael Hodgson is now available in our shop (signed copies) and at your local book shop (if they don’t have it ask them to order it) Of course there are a couple of things we’d like to fix, but it looks great, and it’s a great read. Thanks to all the designers who sent in work, and thanks to Matt Porter for helping with the words.

Take Note

dvsmethid — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 20:40:05 +0000

Maybe it’s partly having grown up in England plus the fact that Harpers & Queen magazine, my first job out of college, was actually set on a linotype machine, (usually in 9 on 10 pt Modern No 7) that lead (sorry couldn’t avoid that one!) to my love of letterpress. Since we opened our doors in 1988, our business cards have always been printed by Pat Reagh (see previous post). So when the lovely ladies at Mohawk said would you like to be a part of the Feedback Loop, we were right there!

The project asked 25 letterpress printers to create notebooks that would be sold in that lovely shop on the Felt & Wire blog. As we’re not actually printers we enlisted Ph.D alumni Heather Mitchell and her Just Vandy press to print the covers.

We’re very happy with the dotty work, (start with the King of The Mountains jersey and work backwards). We hope you are too, and if you would like to buy one, you’d better hurry they only have 50!

And as the sales support our good friends Mark and Andrea at World Studio and their Design Ignites Change-School By Design project, we’re even happier.