It starts with a red boxThe schneider+schumacher brand
When the young architects Till Schneider and Michael Schumacher achieved their first notable success in 1995 with the red box, an information pavilion in the middle of Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, it was not yet clear that the color of this box would become the center of an entire brand universe. But what worked to attract attention on what was then Europe’s largest construction site works just as well for a corporate identity unique in the architectural landscape. And so the substantial anniversary volume s+s 30 returns to the major construction site in Berlin: a red monolith among brightly varied print products.
Office Anniversary
30 years of architecture with ambition
In 2018, the architecture office celebrated its 30th anniversary. For communication, this was a welcome opportunity to look back on a rich and varied body of work. The anniversary volume s+s 30 sets out to summarize these years of architectural creation. At the same time, the book represents the quintessence and pinnacle of the office’s corporate design and corporate communication measures.
A red monolith that perfectly embodies the office’s design and entertainingly summarizes 30 years of architecture by the Frankfurt office.
Structure
In search of values and convictions
Together with s+s, we first formed a five-person team responsible for schedules, research, milestones and much more throughout the project. In the first step, this team set out to identify the fundamental values and convictions that define the office and have always shaped its actions. Several brainstorming rounds, collective gathering, sorting and filtering led to seven substantial thematic areas that defined the content framework of the work. Seven renowned authors address these topics in their own interpretations, accompanied by seven photographers and illustrators. In between, Till Schneider and Michael Schumacher offer insights into their way of thinking and share both familiar and previously unknown stories about their most important projects.
Seven Projects was the title of the first book about the work of s+s, published in 1996. Seven chapters form the content framework of the almost 400-page anniversary volume from 2018.
From analyzing what is especially significant in a task, we usually arrive at a strategy through association.
The Red Monolith
The logo becomes a sculpture
A corporate publishing product usually needs the logo placed on its cover. Not s+s 30. Here, the book is the logo: a logo extruded into the third dimension, capturing the essence of architectural work. It creates space, a volume. In this sense, the cover design is not only reduced to a minimum; it also uses the book’s volume for its message. An elaborately applied red edge and an unusually thin hardcover lid shaped by the edge cut make this possible.
A logo that impresses as a three-dimensional sculpture on any table.
Editorial Design
A design cosmos for a diverse body of work
A topic as comprehensive as a retrospective for an established architecture office, one that is also meant to be forward-looking and personal, requires a complex design structure. Different typefaces take on different content levels; tinted backgrounds signal when things become more personal and emotional. The strong red of the corporate design, combined with black and black-and-white photography, makes a clear statement about the book’s origin.
The development team identified seven authors who would approach the work of s+s from very different angles: reflecting on aesthetics, on the nature of the architect, or on experiences in New York, the city of urban architecture par excellence. On the visual level, photographers, illustrators and photo artists were found to provide associative counterparts to the theme of architecture and were assigned to the authors’ contributions. The result is multilayered content worth exploring again and again, content that reflects the complexity of large buildings and the work of a large architecture office.
The two language versions are produced very economically by changing the black printing plates.
A book packaged like a record
Not only the content and cover were considered, but also the packaging. In the style of legendary records whose covers allowed no lettering, the s+s anniversary book was given an additional label on the cellophane wrapping to point to the content. The red monolith was simply too good for printed information.
Successes
Best of Best
The renowned Iconic Awards architecture competition named s+s 30 “Best of the Best” in the Communication category in 2020. We were especially pleased with this distinction.
