February 2010
The site we developed for Saint Louis University’s Parks College of Engineering went live Friday. Following on the heels of our well-received Parks view book, we worked hand in hand with the SLU Parks team pulling off one of the largest, most complex sites we’ve ever designed and developed. And it’s all the better that, like McCarthy.com, it’s built on TOKY’s proprietary MYOS Content Management System, making it faster and easier for the SLU team to update. Great work by Jay, Tyler, Melissa, Kathy, Jacob, and the rest of the TOKY web team!
February 2010
Mary and I are still buzzed about making ALIVE Magazine’s BUZZ list for Midtown Alley, our not-quite-downtown urban neighborhood. We’ve been lucky to find a part of our city that’s ready for rebirth as that most elusive of alchemies: the residential/creative/dining destination that still manages to be free of pretension, over-investment by love-em-and-leave-em investors, or suburban chains. Mary and I, along with our friend Jassen Johnson and many of our neighbors, were wined and dined Friday night at ALIVE’s Buzz-fete. Join us in the neighborhood that’s been called St. Louis best restaurant district!
February 2010
On a recent trip to Portland Oregon, I was fortunate to have a personal tour of the new Mercy Corps world headquarters building (designed by THA Architecture) from a good friend who was then dispatched to Haiti within the next few days. The Cooper-Hewitt Design for the Other 90% exhibit was on display at the MC Action Center, and it reminded me how some design CAN change and is in fact changing the world. Innovative thoughtful products like the Bamboo Treadle Pump and the LifeStraw help the poor in a multitude of developing countries gain access to safe water for farming and drinking.
WorldBike brings a new meaning to what hipsters would call artbikes, designing low-cost load-carrying bicycles capable of carrying hundreds of pounds of cargo for entrepreneurs and consumers in developing countries.
Good old humble graphic design wasn’t represented among the high impact life-changing products on display, beyond the beautifully designed catalogue and award-winning website. My tour guide however did mention that Mercy Corps is trying to make the new Action Center a more friendly and welcoming experience. Hopefully they will move away from the cold typography, stark banners and way-finding, and make their interactive stations more comfortable. I think they can achieve a sense of urgency and seriousness about changing the world without feeling and looking like a bank.
February 2010
Recently the National AIGA updated its massive Design Archives web site. Now the site makes it easier to sort, search and create your own collection from over 20,000 selections in the last 80+ years. While at first glance some may think it may have lost a little sex appeal, when digging a bit deeper the tools built into this make up for it.
It’s nice to see such a large archive of works move away from the previous all Flash experience. The new site has much smarter search and sort methods, resizable thumbnails, its easier to share and easier to find specific works online.
AIGA Design Archives is one of the richest online resources available to those who practice, study and appreciate great design. It represents the quality of work being created, as well as shifting aesthetics and sensibilities of the designers of the day. Included in this resource are more than 20,000 selections from AIGA’s annual juried design competitions dating from 1924 through the present.
A look back at TOKY in the AIGA Design Archives
2008 Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts: Dan Flavin Web Catalogue
2004 FK Photo
1990 Demo Tape Label, “Street of Dreams”
1990 Stroube
1990 Wedding Invitation Pairs
February 2010
From ABC News:
St. Louis, the city of red-brick, 19th century architectural jewels and diverse neighborhoods, has been named one of this year’s Dozen Distinctive Destinations by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The National Trust announced the winners of the annual contest Wednesday, but for the first time, the organization also invited the public to pick a “fan favorite” by voting online through Feb. 28 at http://www.PreservationNation.org/ddd.
Communities are chosen on the basis of their ability to “offer cultural and recreational experiences different from those found at the typical vacation destination,” the organization said. Dynamic downtowns, stunning architecture, cultural diversity and a commitment to historic preservation are among the criteria.
February 2010
We recently launched the online catalogue for the current Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts exhibit Urban Alchemy: Gordon Matta-Clark. This site serves as a permanent archive of the exhibition and how it relates to the space designed by Tadao Ando. TOKY designed and developed the site, outdoor pole banners, and some promotional materials for the event.
Visit the site: http://mattaclark.pulitzerarts.org/
January 2010
The first Pecha Kucha Night in St. Loo was an electrifying success tonight at BRIDGE, the new downtown (and under downtown) nightspot. Organized by members of HOK Architects, TOKY, Switch and lots of other great folks, the evening gathered a standing-room-only crowd (beyond the fire marshal’s liking) to listen to 14 great presenters talk about how to move our region forward. The beer was great, the conversation wonderful, the passion evident, the sparks tangible. Let’s do it again February 20 in a PK Night for Haiti. See pkstl.com for details.
January 2010
TOKY work has been nominated for 16 Addys in this year’s Ad Club of St. Louis “best of” review.
For us, the cool part is that we were nominated in so many different categories, for doing so many different kinds of things: web sites, print brochures, brand identity, photography, high-end invitations and holiday cards, posters and video storytelling.
Here’s a list of our nominations:
See you February 18th at the awards ceremony!
January 2010
TOKY will be included in “Typography 31″, the annual review of the Type Director’s Club, the leading international organization whose purpose is to support excellence in typography, both in print and on screen. We’re in with the banners that TOKY’s Katy Fischer created for the Saint Louis Public Library, art directing LA artist Noah Woods. This latest honor means that our Library work has now led to a regional Addy, a silver National Addy, Graphis Design annual, PRINT Design Annual, TDC Annual and AIGA-STL show wins. See more on TOKY’s Flickr set.
January 2010
Pecha Kucha is coming to Saint Louis! Look for many of us at TOKY to be there, and our own John Foster will be one of the presenters, talking about his collection of Accidental Mysteries. Each presenter gets 20 slides, at 20 seconds each, to talk about their big ideas or creative outlets.
The event is January 28th, at the Foundation in downtown St. Louis. Show up early, this event is limited to the first 200 people!
For more information, visit pkstl.com
January 2010
We recently launched a new small site for the Saint Louis Club, the foremost dining club in St. Louis for the past 45 years. TOKY designed the site, built it on our own our content management system, and much of the photography on the site was shot by TOKY’s photographer Geoff Story.
January 2010
We got an emailed call for entries for the 2011 Design Annual from international design publishing powerhouse GRAPHIS this week, and it took us all of a few nanoseconds to realize that the image they were using to promote the 2010 Design Annual was one of our pieces. Specifically, it’s one of the banners we designed (and Noah Woods illustrated) for the St. Louis Public Library Foundation. The attaboys started rolling in from our friends and colleagues across the country, which made all of us in our humble loft in Midtown St. Loo feel very worldly indeed. Thanks, Graphis!
