My husband and I had an amazing opportunity to visit Ireland this spring for our honeymoon. As a graphic designer here at image.works, I loved seeing all of the different signs, billboards, magazines and banners while traveling and wanted to share them with you, along with some of my thoughts and observations. It’s always interesting to see how design trends differ, as well as how they are similar, across the world.
Thankfully, my husband has long been aware of and accepted my obsession over marketing, advertisements and visual design and communication. I couldn’t help myself and commented on nearly the first sign I saw in the Dublin airport. It was a large advertisement of Dublin, which was our destination. I loved the script font pairings, seagull icons, pastel blue, yellow and gray colors and the tagline, “A Breath of Fresh Air.” I felt refreshed just looking at the sign.
The large billboard for Brown Thomas was the next one that caught my eye in the airport, partly because I wasn’t familiar with that brand name, but also because I love the font, Bodoni, used for their name. This font exudes luxury, and the clean, white background with simple black text says “classic, chic style” to me. I continued to see similar Brown Thomas ads throughout the city and walked by this huge fashion and lifestyle store on Grafton Street.
During our bus tour of the city, I saw traditional Irish signs in the Celtic font with forest green, black and gold colors, but I was surprised by how many store signs and billboards seemed in style and up to date, featuring script fonts and fresh colors. Our new designs at image.works use similar trendy script fonts, and I have seen them in the U.S. in emails, magazines and websites. I haven’t seen these design trends on Wisconsin store signs and billboards, but that may be migrating here soon.
One of the design highlights of Ireland was the Guinness Store, which is more of an art museum that explains the process of making the beer. I loved all of the typography on the walls, barrels and signs. There was an entire floor dedicated to all past Guinness advertisements: a robotic fish riding a bicycle, a whistling clam on stage, and a huge panoramic screen to display commercials.
During the tour, I noticed every inch of space was so well designed, engineered and thought out. I wonder how many artists, designers and engineers had a hand in creating this wondrous, interactive brewery tour – which I’ll share with you via the photos and captions below:
I loved the textured bubble glass signs to represent the fermentation process.
There was bold, all-cap type printed on the walls and brick throughout the tour, explaining the importance of using quality ingredients and directing us along the way.
Guinness once had a team of coopers onsite making these wooden casks, or barrels, as we call them. They now use aluminum kegs but feature these old barrels in a room on the tour to create a unique typography display.
We were taught the best way to taste the beer and received a certificate for properly pouring a perfect pint of Guinness.
On the top floor, there was a huge glass-enclosed area with a timeline of the history of Guinness printed on the glass. The view overlooking Dublin is beautiful, the perfect way to enjoy a pint of Guinness.
Our trip to Ireland was amazing, and I highly recommend that everyone visit if given the chance. The weather was what I consider chilly, in the low 60s, but that was sunbathing weather for the natives. The people are so friendly, and the Guinness really does taste better. I loved being overwhelmed by the old architecture and sculptures, but I especially appreciated all of the newly designed art and signs and wanted to share these trends with you.
Have you noticed other intriguing design trends outside of the U.S.? We’d love if you would share them with your comments below!