Book and website design for The Composing Rooms
The Composing Rooms was founded in London in 2010 by Ché Zara Blomfield to host projects as collaborations, exhibitions, talks, events, music and publications. The new website and book documents almost all of Blomfield's curatorial work from 2010 – 2020 and features exhibitions for over 40 local and international artists.
The book includes a limited edition fold-out dust jacket displaying artwork by Aaron Graham. Inside the book there are essays and texts by the founder and director Ché Zara Blomfield, alongside those by artists and curators: Gerardo Contreras (Preteen Gallery), Nate Hitchcock, Yanyan Huang, Miltos Manetas, Warren Neidich, Marisa Olson, and Krystal South, with an animated .gif by Petra Cortright.
This project entailed brand identity development from concept through to final execution. Art direction and graphic design for logotype, fonts, colour palette, secondary brand marks, book and website.
The logotype is set in Univers — a geometric sans serif typeface designed by Adrian Frutiger and released in 1957. This typeface is also used as the brand font for the website and book. Univers comes in a comprehensive range of weights and widths, making it very versatile.
This website combines the latest Bootstrap 4 framework with cool effects such as the mixed blend mode logotype, custom mega menu and modal frame art gallery. The site is fully responsive across all devices.
Bootstrap 4 badges make it easy for users to quickly explore popular tags such as artists' names. Users can easily share their favourite webpages via social media as they are coded to display beautiful 'previews' when posted on sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Each webpage is Google-friendly and uses appropriate metadata and alt tags. Details like the favicon and SSL certificate were also important design features.
The Composing Rooms book is printed using environmentally friendly paper and is available for purchase in London at Tenderbooks and in Auckland, New Zealand at Strange Goods, Unity Books, Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary and Lamplight Books. Explore more at thecomposingrooms.com.
