Dispatch 016

Stills from AZ Awards 2020 virtual prseentation

Written by Brian Sholis

This Dispatch was originally sent on November 11, 2020

Hello friends,

Brian here. As an American living in Toronto, it was bittersweet to watch celebrations unfold in many of the places I love last weekend. I am glad that the push for justice gave us a victory to cheer and am mindful that the work continues—on both sides of the border. After nearly a week spent anxiously refreshing news sites, it is a relief to dive back in to any kind of work.

☆ Updates from our office

Since we last wrote, we’ve interviewed Montreal-based type designer Étienne Aubert Bonn about Baryton, a brassy new serif typeface he created with My-Lan Thuong. We published a short feature on Kachi-Buwa, a visual inquiry into sound, form, and meaning in Japanese onomatopoeia by our own Emi Takahashi. And we began a new series of brief book profiles by sharing resources from Sara Hendren’s What Can a Body Do?

We’ve also published case studies detailing three recent collaborations: with the AZ Awards team, with TAS Design Build, and with the Sacramento Kings.

☆ Live Magazine giveaway

This week marks the beginning of RGD’s annual design conference, Design Thinkers. Like every year, it features a wonderful array of speakers on the trends and work that shape our field. The event, which is being streamed online, has us reflecting upon the rewarding experiences we had last year in Toronto as attendees participated in the creation of Live Magazine.

So, we’ve decided to give away ten copies of the two Live Magazine issues, which reflect upon the most powerful ideas and conversations at Design Thinkers Toronto in 2018 and 2019. All you have to do is share with us the names of some of your favorite designers! Click here to enter.

Give and take care,
The Frontier Team

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Four figures, three of whom are standing and wearing Indigenous dress and another on their knees in jeans and a black tank top, outline and color in the beginning of a wall design that has distinctly Indigenous graphic markings. (Photo: Stef & Ethan)

Seeing Is Believing — Dispatch

Screenshot of the BeatConnect software showing a sequencer with tracks being edited by multiple people represented by differently colored cursors

New Streams — Dispatch

A still life with an all-white tennis shoe made of Polybion’s leather alternative Celium. Its heel rests on an orange; a pomegranate balances on its tongue

Cell Numbers — Dispatch

Photograph taken in a darkened room of a glowing orb filled with what look like plants connected by clear rubber tubes to ten vertical cylinders with wires and liquids. Everything is suspended from the ceiling.

Together Forever — Dispatch