Daniel Freytag was featured last week on September Industry and I noticed a piece of work that fit perfectly with MUDEO’s showcase on graphic design for architecture. Daniel is a bit of a man of mystery. His website showcases beautiful work yet offers little information on who he really is. He does however, credit several firms of which he’s been a part of including PDC Creative, Why Not Associates, and Eskimo. One of his latest works, the brand identity, stationery, book, and zine for architectural firm Tribe Studio was created in association with Eskimo and offers a minimal and elegant framework that doesn’t detract from the architectural work. The repeated use of a dashed rule and the minimal sans-serif font Hermes provides a distinction that’s memorable. Lovely.

See more work by Daniel Freytag and the firms he’s been associates with: PDC Creative, Why Not Associates, and Eskimo.

Toko is a multidisciplinary creative practice based in Sydney. Their two founding members, Dutch designers Eva Dijkstra and Michael Lugmayr, were educated and raised in Dutch-European design culture, which makes one of their recent clients unusually similar. They created some print material and environmental graphics for an exhibition by Laboratory for Visionary Architecture (LAVA). Like Toko, LAVA is based in Sydney but the firm’s founding partners have a history of studying and working in Europe. Chris Bosse was educated in Germany and Switzerland and later worked for PTW Architects in Sydney, most recently profiled for the National Aquatics Center in Beijing. Tobias Wallaser was associate architect at UNStudio in Amsterdam and was instrumental in the recent Mercedes-Benz museum in Stuttgart.

Check out more work by Toko and see architectural projects by LAVA, PTW Architects, and UNStudio.

Conor and David are designers working in Dublin with a ton of print, interactive, and identity work under their belt. One of their recent projects was a yearbook created for the architecture program at the University College Dublin School of Architecture. UCD landed some big names to visit the the school, including renowned architectural professor and writer Kenneth Frampton, along with Todd Williams Billie Tsien Architects, an award-winning New York-based practice.

The layout of the yearbook is landscape, of course. The contours on the cover image are cleverly manipulated to form the number 10. Page numbers are strangely placed in the center of the page, but give the page depth, like the section title spread Landscape & Archaeology. Fluorescent green is used throughout and gives the book a really fresh feel.

Check out more work by Conor & David and see the magnificent architecture by Todd Williams and Billie Tsien.

(Found via the reborn Grafikcache, Collate)

Weiss Manfredi is a design practice specializing in architecture, landscape, and urbanism. Their second monograph, Surface/Subsurface, features nine major projects that have been completed since their first monograph in 2000. The book design eventually led to an update of the New York firm’s website as well. Designed by Jennifer Kinon of OCD, Original Champions of Design, while working as a designer for Michael Beirut at Pentagram. It’s nice to see the correlation between offline and online portfolio work; it really creates a fully cohesive brand identity.

Check out more work at OCD and Weiss Manfredi.

Football (not American football) returns to Fenway Park after a 42-year hiatus. The last match took place in 1968 with football legend Pele and his Brazilian club taking on the Boston Beacons. Tonight, Celtic FC, Scotland’s premier football club, will match up against Sporting CP, one of Portugal’s big three teams. Although, I’m not a huge Sporting fan (I prefer to root for Benfica), I’ll be wearing my Portuguese jersey and scarf at the game. In their last visit to the States in 1931, Celtic FC lost; let’s hope history repeats itself tonight.

Read the press release of the match and more details on the Red Sox site.

UPDATE: FIFA recorded the game result as a tie. But, the “Football at Fenway” challenge needed to declare a winner, thus the game went into PKs and Celtic FC won the game. It was an exciting game with a lot of shots on net and extremely nerve-wracking after Sporting tied the game in the 81st minute.

In the spirit of featuring architectural firm websites, here are a couple from London-based Engage. They are an award winning communications consultancy, designing digital solutions for design-conscious clients.

Engage was involved in coding the beautifully designed website of Adjaye Associates in collaboration with Mode. Adjaye Associates was founded in 1994 by David Adjaye as a small practice and has since expanded to 35 employees with offices in London, New York, and Berlin. The grid-based design is a derivative of the architectural designs which feature simple volumes and bold geometric facades.

Knight Architects is another firm that Engage has worked with. Large project images and large type navigation complement the firm’s work that is focused on bridges and buildings. A super clear hierarchy makes the site really easy to navigate, with an added alternative to visit the Index to choose specific projects.

Engage was also contracted to redesign the Bibliotheque site, a top-notch design agency in London.

Check out their work: Engage, Mode, Adjaye Associates, Knight Architects, and Bibliotheque.

London-based architectural firm PLP Architecture recently launched their new website. I love the minimalism and full screen images but I’m hoping they add some more project information and functionality to the site. One office that has it figured out is Snohetta – my favorite architecture firm website.

Zaha Hadid Architects recently launched their new website, designed by Micha Weidmann Studio. Zaha Hadid is on the forefront of dynamic and innovative architecture and design. The website provides a clear and minimal framework where the collection of powerful work can stand on its own.

Although Micha Weidmann Studio’s website is a merely a slideshow of recent projects, SeptemberIndustry highlighted more of their work in a special feature last month. Take a gander at the new site at Zaha Hadid Architects.

Polshek Partnership is now Ennead Architects. The announcement came on June 24th, a year and a half after the firm had been planning the rebrand. The naming and strategy were headed by LaPlaca Cohen, a strategic marketing, advertising and design firm based in New York, just 1 mile from the Ennead office. Logo and website were created by Michael Bierut and Lisa Strausfeld of Pentagram. Just as Bierut did with brand for PLP Architecture, the identity is a stark contrast to the previous brand. The Polshek logo, a light, sans serif in uppercase, is now Ennead, a bold, slab-serif, in lowercase. The word “ennead” is derived from “nine” in Greek, representing the nine partners of the firm. Bierut cleverly separates the six letter word, into nine stencil pieces… I wonder if the partners have each claimed a piece.

While the rebrand is beautiful, I see some potential conflicts. The website is flash-based, meaning it is inaccessible on the iPhone and iPad. Speculations have been made whether Apple will ever accept Flash as an application or if Flash is a dying medium. Another conflict is the name itself. The change was made to suit the firm better, since the founder Jim Polshek, primarly serves as a design consultant and hasn’t been involved with day-to-day operations. This brings up the question of another ownership change in the future. Will there always been nine partners as the name Ennead suggests? They’ve already had five names in the last 50 years… will they need another name change if they ever add a tenth partner?

More images of the identity over at Pentagram, and check out the strategic marketing firm LaPlaca Cohen.

And, if you’re not on an iPhone, have another look at Ennead Architects, all the familiar Polshek projects you’ve come to love.

We had a great time at the Common Boston dParty last Thursday, held at the Artists for Humanity EpiCenter. After so many photographers told us we were going to be in the Boston Globe, I had little reason to believe it was actually going to happen. But sure enough, there I am, in the light blue, next to Peter Kuttner, president at Cambridge Seven Associates, in a purple graduation robe. Crazy guy.

Scanned image via the BSA on Facebook.