Frieze celebrates its 30th anniversary with a recent look
Founded in 1991, Frieze has built an artistic empire over the past three decades consisting of three publications – Frieze, Frieze Week and Frieze Masters Magazine – and four international art fairs in London, New York and Los Angeles.
In recent years the scope of the organization has been expanded to include the digital platform Frieze Viewing Room in addition to editorial initiatives such as podcasts and lectures. However, the growth of the organization and the development of various sub-brands had resulted in the use of a number of different visual identities and word marks.
As Frieze is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, it has revealed a refreshing look that brings all of these sub-brands together under a more unified overarching visual identity.
Creative Director David Lane reached out to Pentagram partners Luke Powell and Jody Hudson-Powell to find out how the organization's various identities could work better, both individually and together, and be flexible enough to support the continued expansion of the Frieze brand into Enable the future.
The duo landed on a more suitable typographic solution based on the classic Frieze magazine imprint, originally created by Tom Gidley and later redesigned by Paul Barnes.
The new typographic system was developed in collaboration with Luke Prowse of NaN and retains some of the unique characteristics of the imprint, such as: B. Curved brackets and serifs, but adds capital letters and full fonts, and is displayed in four different weights.
The Frieze font was combined with Sina Nova, a supporting serif font that is easy to read and is intended to give the branding warmth and intelligence.
It is a stripped-down approach that is not intended to dictate the creative output of the arts organization. In addition to the typographic system, a black and white color palette has been introduced so that the artists' work can be the real star of the show.
That approach is reflected in Lane's creative direction for Frieze's series of anniversary campaigns launched later this year that include artist collaborations including New York artist Zach Lieberman and photographer Chris Rhodes.
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