One of my absolute favorite firms, League just updated their website with some stunning work. The above photo is titled "Discussing Water Colour Techniques", and that makes me that much more a fan of them. I placed some images below from the website, but obviously you need to go see all the work and quickly. I especially like the fact that they basically own, in an Yves Klein kind of way, that bizarre teal color that appears all over their website. They even posted some shots of a specimen book they did for their customized version of futura for gig posters. It's all a little overwhelming in the best way.
It's especially nice to see musicians like Ulver and Attila Csihar get a nice contrasting, yet intense clinically structured graphic treatment. Extreme music's visual language has been marred by the slumping ghost of punk's DIY aesthetic for too long. It's nice to see disciplined and sharp work done like this that completely refreshes the band's image and shines a new light on their work.
Considering the many directions design is moving in Europe, especially with this whole resurgence of "The Cult of Ugly", well documented in the zeitgeist capturing book "Turning Pages", League fits in an interesting slot. Thankfully, I would argue, this second wave of anarchic design is fronted by an avant-garde that is fully aware of the history it is helping shape. Obviously for every 032c magazine we get this bastardized commodified version, but the discourse remains valid and exciting to watch. League's work obviously has foundations in the International Typographic Style, but I think they stray away from rote & predictable solutions time and time again, consistently injecting an element of bizarre whimsy. They have a style entirely their own and I would not be surprised if we see more and more people trying to replicate the elegantly subversive work of these Swiss folk.
Great work, I can't stress that enough, take a look.
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