Last summer, Marian Bantjes and Pentagram teamed up to refresh the iconic Strathmore thistle. Marian’s reinterpretation went against the creative brief, against Michael Bierut’s direction, and against Marian’s own initial inclination. Her presentation showed the explorations leading up to her radical redo of the thistle. She described this direction as “essentially not calligraphic. It’s basically geometric. A little bit old, a little bit new. Kinda bitchin’.” Who could resist? Certainly not us.
Here are Marian’s sketches. See the ultimate thistle in its geometric glory on her blog, floating beneath Marian’s fab nav tabs.
Michael B. and Katie Barcelona at Pentagram translated Marian’s motif for our new ream wrap. Yes, we call it the Dream Ream. Once again, our design stars have aligned! Theme swag to follow. Thistle keep us amused for a long time.
Comments (6)
[...] first seen on canadian design resource. get the whole scoop here. [...]
[...] sketches are shared here on Felt & Wire (seen below) and a full length post on the redesign. Don’t miss her take on it at her [...]
That work is so good, it makes my spleen hurt. Jealousy abound…
[...] color is blue {PMS 661}, and Strathmore has long been synonymous with blue. The new Strathmore ream wrap is very blue {PMS 662 & PMS 279}. This means that I often find myself needing to print lots [...]
[...] the Strathmore thistle was redesigned by none other than Marian Bantjes, an accomplishment we featured in Felt & Wire’s earliest days. And not coincidentally, Bantjes appeared on the TED stage in [...]
[...] Bantjes. Amy says, We loved her talk and her work – and then she re-designed the Strathmore thistle. For the Call for Entries, we enlarged it to show its calligraphic detail. The bottom of the [...]