Brand Strategy
Throughout his prolific career, Saul Steinberg redefined drawing as "a way of reasoning on paper," using it to make sense of the beauty and brutality of modern life. Steinberg was most well known for his iconic New Yorker covers, but also had a prolific career as an illustrative artist. With affection, irony, and unparalleled mastery, he peeled back the masks of 20th-century civilization, creating a visual language that was both playful and profound. His works, spanning drawings, sculptures, photographs, and collages, continue to inspire us today.
We were challenged with creating a brand identity system for the Saul Steinberg Foundation that honors this legacy, while at the same time paying homage to his hip, quirky style. The challenge was to encapsulate Steinberg's work into a cohesive system that felt timeless yet contemporary. defined by fluid lines, witty distortions, and cultural commentary.
Website Re-Design
This is our second iteration of the foundation's website which has evolved over time to be a dynamic digital archive of Saul's work, and a home to the writings of it's tireless research director Sheila Schwartz. We re-organized the website's navigation making it easier for researchers, art enthusiasts, and the general public alike to all find what they are looking for.
Visual Identity
We decided to use a very limited color palette, which made sense for the work of an illustrator. The majority of Saul's work is ink on paper, so we wanted to keep that black & white typography meets line-work theme throughout the site. We also added a warm pop of color to draw attention to the headlines. For the headline typeface, we chose Literata, designed by the TypeTogether foundry in 2015. We like how "readable" it is on small devices, TypeTogether uses a good word to describe it: "comfortable." This typeface sets your eyes at ease. We paired Literata with Libre Franklin for the body copy, it's a modern revival of Morris Fuller Benton's Franklin Gothic (1912).. Libre Franklin was designed by Pablo Impallari of Argentina, who is one of the unsung heroes of modern typography, try finding any info about him, yet he's designed some of the most used modern typefaces.
The Results
Congratulations-Thanks for the enormous time and intelligence you have put into this.
–Patterson Sims
