11 July 2014

Street papers design brief at the D&AD New Blood Awards

For this year's D&AD New Blood Awards, we worked with our friends at Monotype and Brand Perfect to help them set a brief that challenged students to develop a new typographic system for a street paper. Students needed to create a design that would help readers, sellers and the rest of the world see the connections between the paper, new media, and its relationship with the people that sell the publication to support themselves. The finalists and 'Yellow Pencil' winners were announced last week at an awards ceremony in London. Read more via Monotype here. For pictures from the awards ceremony, click here.

Yellow Pencil winner:

The redesign for Spare Change News centres on the concepts of 'community' and 'humanity', and use typography to highlight and celebrate the connection between the city and the local homeless community.

The students created a custom typeface based on the Old Cambridge Baptist Church, which serves as the headquarters for Spare Change News, as well as a place of congregation for the community. "The letterforms resemble its structural strength coupled with an asymmetrical massing of forms," they explain. "The triangular serifs mimic the buildings' steeply pitched roofs."

The paper also uses hand-drawn typography submitted by the vendors, which aims to emphasise the vendors' own contribution to the project and their voice within the community. Each issue is in collaboration with a different vendor, who will customise the logo lock up. Other submitted contented will be shown in the original handwriting, where possible.



The other three finalists were:

The Way Home:

Passing the Baton:

[Images courtesy of Monotype and D&AD]