Hotel Missoni opened its doors on June 8 in Edinburgh. The first of a new family of luxury hotels, Hotel Missoni brings together the immediately recognizable visual world of Missoni with the hospitality experience of The Rezidor Hotel Group.

This team brought on Base to design the Hotel Missoni identity. We collaborated with Missoni’s Home Design department, and integrated the brand’s signature patterns and colors into a hotel personality that is subdued enough not to compete with Missoni’s bold visual world. Our work started with the logo … more

Not really…but you just can’t beat the photo…

If you have a goofy photo of something “Base,” we’d welcome your submission! Please send it to infos at basedesign dot com.

Riley Johndonnell

There are big talkers and there are big doers. Riley Johndonnell is the latter. Don’t let the rosy cheeks, electrifying smile, and fanciful fashion fool you. In the decade since we at Base first met them at Surface, we’ve witnessed Johndonnell (former creative director, with his then-partner, publisher Richard Klein) develop their pivotal magazine along with many other Surface initiatives, including the renowned Avant Guardian showcase of emerging talent in American photography, … more

Madrid’s Conference Hall, empty until this weekend’s MAD

MAD 009, the fourth and 2009 installment of Madrid’s annual conference on design, is happening this weekend in the Congress Hall of Madrid. Sixteen guest speakers are scheduled to present during the two-day event, including Base’s own audiovisual specialist Jean-Marc Joseph. Our audiovisual team is also responsible for directing the event’s opening credits sequence.

Jean-Marc will discuss, among other things, the interaction between design, text, typography, and motion graphics, and how to work with stock footage—a key subject in these times of budgetary smallness.

Other speakers include Herraiz & Soto, Interbrand, Trevor Jackson, Agency Republic, Álex Trochut, Grupo W, … more

24 of the 60 faces currently in the growing online project

La belleza es tu cabeza—”An anonymous homage to Barcelona creators and their ideas”—is a website that generates a series of abstracted images of visitors’ faces from either an uploaded image or a webcam snapshot. We collaborated on the project with concept creators Carlitos y Patricia and Ramon Illobre, who programmed the webcam-driven face-radar. See baselab.net for more, and be sure to visit labellezaestucabeza.org to contribute your own portrait to the project, even if you don’t live in Barcelona. … more

Inoui Program

Théâtre National, the Belgian national theater, has recently launched a campaign to promote its 2009-10 season. Having designed the institution’s identity and communications since its grand re-opening in November 2004, we designed the campaign around the word “Inoui,” meaning incredible. … more

Graffiti artist hacks Clear Channel’s electronic billboard (Photo: Create Digital Motion)

This post has been submitted by Steve Rogenstein, Director of Base’s New York office, after a recent trip to Los Angeles.

Los Angeles. The land of cars. The land of traffic. The land of the billboard. Billboards are ubiquitous, oftentimes lining both sides of a boulevard. Ads for movies. Ads for television shows. Ads for gas depots. Ads for amusement parks. Ads for concerts. Ads for banks. Even ads for bimbo starlets. Each bombards you with visuals, with information, with messages, urgent urgings to buy, watch, visit, listen to, fill up, spend, spend, spend. But, lest you get too attached, within the next 30 seconds you’ll undoubtedly pass another billboard, at which time your attention will be again diverted with new appeals to uncontrollably consume. At least that’s their attempt. … more