Design Week Awards 2021: Editorial Design Winner

WINNER

idetroit by Studio Sutherl&, for Marcus Lyon

Detroit is a research-based exploration of 100 individuals from the City of Detroit.

The three-year project was built on the foundation of a six-month nomination process: Detroiters nominated people from their own communities who “represent the very best of service to society and are making significant contributions to Detroit, the region and beyond”.

Studio Sutherl&’s brief was to create a “human atlas” focussing on this select group of people. Bringing together art and science, the project maps these Detroit individuals through photographic portraits; app-based image-activated oral histories; ancestral DNA and actual maps of the streets, neighbourhoods, intersections and journeys taken around Detroit to photograph everyone to create a deeper understanding of the city.

The work is available as a book, a museum exhibition and in digital formats.

The free i.Detroit app enables users to scan the portraits onscreen or from the book to hear original soundscapes created by Detroit-born techno artist Derrick May, and Brian Eno, who produced a seven-inch single that samples the street sounds of modern Detroit and is housed within the book. Each featured nominee also chose a track that was collated into a Detroit playlist.

‍The judges said: “Beautiful piece of work on every level. You can see the love that has gone into this.”

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HIGHLY COMMENDED

End of Year Books by Peter & Paul, for Leeds Arts University

Leeds Arts University briefed Peter & Paul to create a book showcasing the work of its 2020 graduates in a year when traditional end-of-year exhibitions were impossible. The books were given to graduating students as a physical keepsake and could also be used by the University for potential stakeholders and new audiences.  

With 500 undergraduates and 30 postgraduates to accommodate, the studio created two volumes – one for undergraduates and another for postgraduates – that became companion pieces. To accommodate the number of students, the undergraduate book is a small, thick, 500-page “objet d'art that sits in your hand like a miniature white sculpture,” says Peter & Paul. With a minimal cover, the studio wanted the book to echo the “visual language of the white cube gallery, so each graduate’s name was embossed onto the cover to create a plaster-cast aesthetic.

For the postgraduate book, a smaller page count and larger physical size gave the edition a more “mature student feel”, says Peter & Paul, with each student given a double page spread for images of their work, alongside a short explanatory paragraph.

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