Draft:Blok Design

Blok design is a graphic design studio based in Toronto, Canada. With an all-female design team, Blok specialises in brand identities and experiences, packaging, exhibition and editorial design. They are a design platform with over 80 notable clients, including brands such as Nike, Pepsi, Toyota and Canadian Paralympics.

History of the Firm
After practising design in Mexico for eight years, Vanessa Eckstein founded the graphic design agency in 1998, a time when “design studios weren’t really owned by women.” Eckstein (2021). In 2011 Marta Cutler became a co-owner and business partner alongside Eckstein. The name Blok was taken from a political magazine called ‘Blok’ from the Russian Revolution in the 1920s. Blok was a group of Polish artists who played a significant role in the radical avant-garde of the Polish interwar period, linking this to how design is a means of communicating, serving and being part of society.

Visual Identity Design for CSPG- The Centre for the Study of Political Graphics
Blok design created the visual identity design for CSPG - the Centre for the Study of Political Graphics. CSPG is based in New York and was founded in 1989. The centre contains over 90,000 political posters and prints relating to historical and contemporary social movements. Vanessa Eckstein met Carol Wells the director of CSPG in 2001 and in 2018 Carol reached out to Blok design to ask them to create their visual identity. The project was founded on the belief in the vital importance of keeping these stories and voices alive - it was Blok designs responsibility to do this using design.

The project is type-centric, disregarding proprietary imagery which is usually a critical component of political posters. Blok’s design choices function as frames for a series of images and messages. These include Jerry Palmer’s ‘Resist’ (1967), Barbara Kruger’s ‘Your body is a battleground’ (1989) and Alicia Nauta’s ‘End police brutality’ (2015).

Blok's 'Counterculture" Issue of Wayward Arts
In 2015, Blok was invited to design a counterculture-themed issue of Wayward Arts Magazine. The studio teamed up with Dr Bob Deutsch, a professional cultural anthropologist, to put the subject in sharper focus. Wayward Arts Magazine is a non-commercial, non-profit monthly publication that showcases the design community across Canada. Launched in 2013, each year the company partners with a different award-winning Canadian design studio to create each issue. The project is filled with examples of radical architecture, conceptual art, experimental theatre and graphic design throughout the 20th Century. The team investigated the artistic movements throughout history, politics, music and architecture from Poland to Argentina - no corner of the world was untouched from the publication.

The team read a book of 100 artistic manifestos and assembled iconic images, those that represent shifts in society. These examples are creatively put together using blue and orange Risograph throughout the publication. The magazine issue is split into three separate booklets, each of them glued shut on all four sides, forcing the reader to open it through circular a perforation in the centre, which is the only access point to its inner contents.

Blok writes: “The issue is a celebration of what happens when art, politics and design come together to change history, and an expression of our belief that design is at its best when it serves society.” (Blok Design,2015)

Political and Social Themes
Blok is known to have many political and social themes running throughout their projects, with each design choice they make reflecting these set themes. For example, as previously mentioned, the visual identity project they created for CSPG’s main focus was surrounding political design, in which they were directly contacted for due to their reputation regarding the use of political and social themes in their work.6 As a studio they have always been driven by and believed in the power and relationship between art and politics.

Awards

 * Design Agency of the Year 2021 with Strategy. 2021.
 * Gold, Silver and Bronze Awards by ADCC- The Advertising and Design Club of Canada. 2023.

Clientele and Partners

 * MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art)- Toronto
 * Nike- Toronto
 * Pepsi- Mexico City
 * Miami Art Museum- Miami
 * Centre for the study of political graphics- Los Angeles
 * Nestlé- Mexico City