(Not a proper) round-up of the year

johnson banks is inviting contributions to its annual round-up of the best and worst of 2009, so here are ours.

The ‘wish I’d done that’ project of the year

Diego Monetti. As well as being funny, it's beautifully crafted and appropriate as a portfolio site for a multimedia designer. That's if Diego is a real person – we're still not quite sure. Hasn't yet got the full attention it deserves, although this may be the fate of all truly great artists.

Design / advertising trend of the year
Loser-generated content. (Charlie Brooker's phrase for the practice of involving the public in branding exercises, from the T-Mobile Flashmobs to democratic, ever-changing logos like Aol., to those Confused.com TV ads.)

Copywriting trend of the year

 'Appen it be the trend fert local copywriting, innit me old china? Like them thar wine labels from Co-op, and these pukka cashpoints darn sarf.

Worst design of the year



The Michael Owen Brand Guidelines. Not so much for the design, but for the decision to produce such a thing. (Although you could argue they worked well for the client, as he signed for United shortly afterwards – the best argument yet against the Design Effectiveness Awards.)


Iconic image of the year

The redacted MPs' expenses claims. Beauty may be Truth, and Truth Beauty, but it seems weaselly two-faced hypocritical lies can be quite beautiful too.

Iconic image of the year (part two)

This photo (one of ours) captures something of the economic climate of 2009.

Comments

[james]

i'm sorry...michael owen brand guidelines? wtf?!? i love that charismatic and articulate are two values we're supposed to associate with him.

the expenses claims reminded me of that classic game where you had to manoeuvre an ever-elongating snake around the screen without hitting the sides or itself.