Soulellis Studio

I never thought that a two-year series of posters using the same format, colors, typography and "graphic machine design generator" would be so interesting. But that's exactly what Dean Kleinman at Cornell University College of Architecture, Art and Planning challenged us to do and it's resulted in some of our best poster work. Here's the recently printed Fall 2010 events poster.

The AAP Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University is celebrating its 75th anniversary. Here's our gridded "75" design on a save-the-date postcard, using Pantone spots 3965 (yellow-green) & 540 (blue). The photo is from 1957. More to come, including a 148-page book in the fall.

Our latest issue of the alumni newsletter for the College of Architecture, Art and Planning at Cornell University, featuring neon blue-green Pantone 808. This is the eighth issue of the remarkable magazine that we re-imagined and redesigned four years ago.

I just had a crazy moment realizing that we started designing the new website for Cornell University's College of Architecture, Art and Planning in August 2005 — the same year YouTube was created. Soulellis Studio was four years old. Twitter wasn't even born yet.

We launched it in two stages (2005 and 2006). It goes without saying that the internet is a different place now. So is AAP. During the last five years we've worked with two deans and many dedicated staff to refine the identity of the college (an exciting evolution). Designing quick and dirty brand identities and launching in record time has become the norm these days (doing a few of those right now), but this is a great example of what can happen when designer and client are in it for the long haul. A committment to exploring brand identity over time.

This year AAP asked us to revisit our original design. Among our goals:

• "expand" the feeling of the narrow site without increasing actual width
• refresh the design to better reflect AAP's current visual identity
• refine the typography
• increase size and visibility of images
• increase legibility

Here's our profile piece for OMA's Paul Milstein Hall at Cornell University's College of Architecture, Art and Planning. The over-sized magazine-ish thing wrapped in an Astrobright Gamma Green 65 lb. dust-jacket with white foil-stamp presents the building in context, with its incredible Dutch-American team: Rem Koolhaas, Robert Silman and Petra Blaisse. The heavy kraftpaper enclosure is screened with opaque white ink.

Lovingly crafted by Monroe Litho in Rochester, NY.

Spring in Ithaca: Lise Anne Couture, Shayne O'Neil, Laurie Hawkinson, Toshiko Mori, Petra Blaisse, Rem Koolhaas.

This is our tenth poster for Cornell University AAP (College of Architecture, Art and Planning). We began with this one in Spring 2006 — pure typographic play. Two deans later we're still exploring a single theme that's been at the core of every one of the ten: mapping. Creating a system within the boundaries of a single printed sheet and letting the information play itself out according to the set of rules (color, grid, typography, order).

Maybe it's time for a little book or website? The next post will highlight all ten as a set.

Our seventh Cornell University College of Architecture, Art and Planning alumni newsletter, featuring Pantone 814 purple.

A Libeskind lecture and exhibition in Ithaca. Update: Thom Mayne now added.

Nice collaborative effort for these eight LCD information screens at Cornell AAP. They're floating and pivoting and informing in multiple locations throughout AAP.

Soulellis Studio designed the interface, Krate engineered the web-feed software and Aleksandr Mergold designed and built the screen enclosures. A Mac Mini is embedded in the frame of each screen.

And of course proper credit is due to the Cornell team that is responsible for this. That includes Aaron Goldweber, Beth Kunz, Elise Gold, Andre Hafner, Ashley Reed, Spencer Lapp and Frank Parrish, Cornell Shops, and AAP IT who wired it all up.

Cool photography of the installation on Mergold's site.

Seen in situ in Rand Hall at Cornell AAP.

We've turned a corner. Working with Dean Kent Kleinman has pushed us to revisit our Cornell University Architecture, Art and Planning posters. The mapping of information is like a graphic machine, generating serial works; stepped scales of operation produce difference and variation.

For the Fall 2009 events poster our collaboration yielded a dynamic graphic but that's almost beside the point; the mechanical shuffling of chronological and alphabetical order is at the core of this work.

It's been a busy winter. Results are coming in the form of boxes filled with newly printed stuff landing at our door (from Rochester, in this case).

Look familiar? If you know the Cornell University campus, you'll recognize the Foundry building on our cover of the spring 2009 issue of the AAP newsletter. Workers are laying down the stone paving for University Avenue — in 1909. Turn the page, and we mirrored that view with an identical one, showing OMA's rendering of Milstein Hall one hundred years later. It's almost the same perspective — a fortuitous pairing that lends the controversial site a larger historical context.

Here's the new Cornell University College of Architecture, Art and Planning spring 2009 events poster — the seventh in the series, which we've been developing since 2006.

Dean Kent Kleinman says that he loves this particular concept because it visualizes the re-mixed, interdisciplinary nature of AAP. We're really happy with the result — the rich black printed beautifully. But the photographs aren't doing it justice, so we're only showing the graphic file for now. If we can get the black to photograph well we'll post some more images.

Here's issue #5 of the Cornell University College of Architecture, Art and Planning alumni newsletter, fresh from the printer. I really love our cover on this one, totally conceived by Erik. The collage features student work from last semester's South Africa studio, plus 23 images of students, faculty, staff, Dean Kleinman and guest lecturer José Oubrerie. A few hundred of these were spread out all over the party at the New Museum last night, and the bright purple-pink Pantone 807 was perfect.

Tonight, Cornell University alumni welcome the new Dean for Architecture, Art and Planning at a party at the New Museum. They asked us to do a mural representing the entire college, so we asked every student, faculty and staff member to email us photos and we assembled the results, which was output on vinyl (22.5 ft. x 11 ft.). More here.

We just presented the in-progress design of AAP NEWS05 to Kent Kleinman, the new dean at Cornell AAP. Should be a fantastic issue.

Here's the fall 2008 events poster for Cornell University's College of Architecture, Art and Planning. Getting the printed samples of our Cornell posters twice a year is one of the most satisfying moments in our studio. We really love our Cornell design work. This semester's color (purple 807) is gorgeous.

The spring issue of our twice-yearly magazine for Cornell University is finally printed. This one's a beauty, perhaps our best yet. Working with gorgeous photography — like the James Turrell cover shot (by Florian Holzherr), and the 58 images of contemporary Portuguese architecture — made an incredible difference in the overall design.

We're starting to see the results of a really productive winter — a lot of new work launching here, between now and June. The entire issue of AAP's "NEWS04" is hanging in our office and about to get its final review, with James Turrell on the cover, and a gorgeous pull-out section on Portuguese architecture. To the printer, later this week.

AAP, Spring 2008. NEWS04 coming soon. Take a look at NEWS03, NEWS02, and the first issue.