The original site – for posterity.

Back in 2002, the web was a fairly volatile place. Web standards had just been introduced and the internet was in flux with new coding strategies and methodologies. Since 2002 we have seen incredible advances in both the way websites are made as well as a substantial change in what they are made out of.

This website was originally designed in 2002. It was, at the time, pretty cutting edge using WordPress as its internal content management system. Now in 2012, that is standard practice for most websites on the internet. As such we have decided at Whitehouse & Company to redesign using the latest standards HTML5 and CSS3. To bring our blog and portfolio into the twenty-teens.

It is something we are very excited about and also a journey we will share in posts about what we learn along the way.

W+K Studio is donating all of the profits of their Help Japan Poster for relief support. Buy one today.

Dropping its time tested and 20 year old logo, The Gap (now simply GAP) has re-branded with what may be the most boring re-brand since… ever really. Dropping their iconic stretched serif logo for one which is remarkably like American Apparel’s logo (also Helvetica, also black, and also tightly kerned)

What I find most confusing that during this economic decline, why they would decide to throw out something which will require millions of dollars in new signs, promotional materials, clothing labels, etc. Not to mention as environmental graphic designers, we have no idea how one might apply this mark 3 dimensionally without creating a fairly ugly sign box for the gradient?

All in all, we are not impressed with GAP’s re-brand and think it’s more of a marketing stunt (Ala Tropicana’s terrible re-brand of months back) than an actual graphic design solution.

If you can’t make it to the SEGD national conference this year or want to see what we are up up to in D.C., you might want to follow the Whitehouse & Company Twitter feed. We’ll be updating throughout the event and bringing our unique view of the show.

There will also be tons of spelling errors, because there is no spell check on the iPhone, so you’ll have that to look forward to as well.

Let’s get environmental.

Whitehouse & Company will be closed during the 2010 SEGD National Conference down in Washington D.C. June 2nd — June 5th. We hope to see you there and please feel free to say hello to Ben or Roger.

We will also be live tweeting during the conference, so please be sure to check back to find out what find interesting in our nations capital.

Some interesting illuminations in London photographed on my visit there with Ben this month. The inset shows St. Pauls in Covent Garden, known as the actor’s church – the Christmas tree silhouette, projected from the market building, is a great example of low-cost high-visibility environmental graphic design. When I was a student at the AA in the late 50’s, and when this was a real market, we often used to visit an all-night pie stall which lived on the right of the church entrance under the stained-glass window. The other image shows the more well known St. Pauls in the background, behind the National Theatre on the South Bank, whose lighting changes color from day to day. All different and festive examples of creative lighting design.

For the technically minded, the site features:

• XHTML Strict compliance
• CSS Styled
• Cross browser compatibility
• Small bandwidth footprint

All of which means that it is state-of the-art, as well as having a clear graphic hierarchy to enable users to easily navigate and understand this otherwise complex and extensive site.

We recently completed this branding program, in association with DK Holland, for the Morningside Center for Social Responsisbility; a wonderful group who, among other things, foster conflict resolution in our school system. The use of an anthropomorphic M in the mark, and silhouettes in their outreach materials, underlines their core mission. Shown here are boxes for teaching aids for a range of grades, their website, and a bookmark.

The first phase of our work at the Children’s Discovery Museum of the Desert project is now completed. The aluminum shafts display the Museum’s logotype, which assembles itself visually on the pylons as you enter the site. The mural (described in the entry for 23 January, below) features 4,000 tiles to which donors portraits are continually being added, eventually aggregating into an image representing the supporting community and America’s diversity. Due to the success of the project, MGA Partners, who are the architects of this superb building, are now working on the extension of the Museum.

We recently completed this sign system for a Children’s Hospital using photo pictograms for both wayfinding and destination signs to create an accessible and children friendly environment. The system builds on our work with Lighthouse International in New York and features a tactile ledge which is easily located by sight-impaired users, and a new typeface developed by our studio to facilitate tactile reading. Both the sign system and typeface were featured in Roger Whitehouse’s keynote presentation to the International Conference on Universal Design in Kyoto in November.