Rob Giampietro is quoted in this week’s issue of BusinessWeek on AT&T’s new ad strategy in an artcile by Matt Vella, who writes

“They may have underestimated how much equity was in the Cingular brand and are now trying to bring it back,” says Rob Giampietro, one of the founders of the New York-based design studio, Giampietro+Smith. Simply attempting to blend the two further could confuse customers more, not less. “It suggests some lack of brand leadership,” he warns. “What you could end up with is a ‘bizzaro’ version of what they think their customers’ vision of the brand is.” And that, as all branding experts preach, is a surefire way to appeal to no one in an attempt to attract everyone.

Read the entire article here.

Cepia’s album “Natura Morta” (Ghostly) is out now and getting great reviews. We designed the cover for this abstractly beautiful album. Read some of the buzz here and here.

HAVE A BEER ON US

Come join us for an end of summer party at our studio

Wednesday 22 August
After work

Giampietro+Smith
195 Chrystie Street No. 402F
Between Stanton & Rivington

DJ Chroma will be on hand
to assist those in need of getting funky

Bring friends!

This week’s issue of New York magazine features maps to 10 different New Yorks, the first of which is a map for the “Design Maven.” Coming in at #17 on the list is our home base and favorite unofficial NYC Design Landmark, 195 Chrystie Street. The editors write,

The highest concentration of design genius in the city: nine floors of office and workshop space for firms including John Derian and the emerging stationer Superdeluxe.

We feel lucky to be in such great company. See the whole list here.

A new article by Rob Giampietro entitled “The Fonts of Summer” is on Design Observer today. The article explores the font’s history, its popular resurgence of late, and if such a thing as a “summer font” is possible. The whole article is here, and UnBeige’s playful shout-out is here.

The newest issue of Dot Dot Dot is out today and includes a new article by Rob Giampietro called “Collected Words.” The article is a series of short essays arranged in alphabetical order from A–Z that chart some of the connections and allusions used on the cover of artist Richard Hamilton’s book Collected Words. Pick up a copy of DDD 13 or read the article here.

Leslie Kwok, a grad student at RISD, will be working in our studio this summer. See more of Leslie’s work here. Welcome!

We’ve got another illustration in the New York Times Book Review this week, this time accompanying an essay by Rachel Donadio about the recent knighthood of Salman Rushdie. Donadio’s essay looks at some of the negative reactions to the announcement of Rusdie’s knighthood through the lens of negative reviews of his book The Satanic Verses, written 10 years earlier. Our illustration uses a quote from The Satanic Verses that suggests a writer’s role is precisely to stimulate these kinds of disagreements:

A poet’s work… To name the unnamable, to point at frauds to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep. And if rivers of blood flow from the cuts his verses inflict, then they will nourish him.

As this essay is essentially a footnote about reactions to the book, we employed a symbol that sits somewhere between text and image as a footnoting device: the dagger. Read Donadio’s essay here.

We’ve got another illustration in the New York Times Book Review this week, this time accompanying a review of Steven Landsburg’s book of counterintuitive everyday economics, “More Sex is Safer Sex.” The author suggests that if the prudes out there would loosen up just a little bit, the risk pool for everyone would be dramatically reduced. Our playful infographic spoof depicts just such an extended network of semi-swingers.

Our catalog for the Marcel Dzama show “The Course of Human History Personified” and our poster announcing the launch of AIGA.org have been selected to appear in the The Layout Look Book, which is out now.

Read our interview for the book after the jump.

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