The quality of online designers
has definitely improved in the past five years. When we look
to bring on a new designer, we hire either specifically for
offline or online. We find it easier to hire people who have
online experience as there is a bit of a learning curve with
regard to the technical savoir-faire that’s required.
Above all, however, we look for designers who fit within Base’s conceptual
approach to design.
How did September 11th
affect the NYC studio, being so close to the WTC?
As is true with everyone the
world over, September 11th had a profound effect on all of us.
The fact that the first plane flew over the roof of the studio,
that we could physically see the Trade Center on fire, that
Lafayette St. served as an evacuation route for the thousands
of dust-covered, fleeing people… those memories will be
engrained in our psyches forever.
Adding QNS to the end of the MOMA logo for the new, temporary
home of the New York City MOMA—now in Queens—was
a very elegant idea. Can you talk about its development? (See figure 01)
The Museum had several challenges
to address in its move to Queens. As 70% of its constituency
is from outside of New York, the main issue was to convey that
the museum was, in fact, moving outside of Manhattan. It was
equally important to make the museum and its image dynamic again
while at the same time preserving its core identity so as not
to alienate its core audience.
We therefore
decided to keep the existing Franklin Gothic typeface intact.
To this renowned logo, we simply added the new name, QNS (literally,
“Queens”). This moniker is actually derived from
airport abbreviations and as such, addresses the problematic
of conveying “movement”. The color blue was chosen
as it directly relates to the color that architect Michael Maltzan
chose for the building.
How do you feel your designs
for MOMA QNS formed a solution to the somewhat difficult idea
of getting people excited about a museum that is not located
in Manhattan? I noticed that on some collateral,
maps showing the location of the museum is a prominent design element.
The maps were a part of the
larger solution of conveying that the museum was moving. We
wanted this fact to be viewed as a positive one, a “change
for the better”. So in addition to the name, we also added
a system of dynamic graphic elements (dashes, arrows) as well
as custom pictograms (including icons for the subway, the bus,
etc). These combined with very direct taglines in the advertising,
such as “Destination: Queens”, together add up to
one simple message: MoMA has moved!
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