Memberful
Design

Eddie Opara is a partner at Pentagram, an Englishman in New York, a designer who codes, a valued member of the AGI, and a senior critic at Yale. Who inspires team members to go crazy and talented students to not be afraid. At 50, he’s exactly the same age as Pentagram itself. Above you see him on stage at the What Design Can Do conference in Amsterdam. Photo by Enrique Meesters →

When it comes to making meaningful, lasting work, collaboration is key. That’s why I’m proud to share that this episode came together in partnership with the friendly folks at What Design Can Do. For over a decade, this resilient group has empowered the global creative community. I’m a long time fan of their conferences and who they invite on stage. They don’t hold lame talks but host actual conversations on what we can do →

Creative work has a way of creating adventures. One of my journeys got me living in New York. Each day, I would walk just a few blocks to our cramped little office, in the middle of Manhattan, close to the iconic Flatiron building. And each day, I would pass one building that was even more iconic to me. It wasn’t so much the limestone facade from 1912 that drew my attention, though it was lovely with pointed arches in the Gothic Revival style. It was the 9 impressive bronze letters above an unassuming doorway at number 50 that grabbed my eye. Together they spelled: Pentagram →

Eddie studied graphic design at the London College of Printing. Yes, in those days there was still a school for print though it’s now called the College of Communication. When he discovered Yale University had a design course, he applied — over the phone! In 2005, he established his own studio in New York, The Map Office. When legendary designer Paula Scher asked him to join the Pentagram gang, he couldn’t resist and became a partner in 2010. That lunch with her was probably the best chicken schnitzel he ever had →

Eddie and his team at Pentagram got together with Kirby Jean-Raymon to give his narratively rich designs the identity they deserved: the lovely, yellow-dipped Per Moss →

In 2003, the London Design Festival was launched by Sir John Sorrell and Ben Evans. It promotes the city’s creativity, as a celebration of design. This year marks its 20th anniversary, with the next edition being from 17 to 25 September. Find out more. Photo by Massimiliano Polles for DAMN° Magazine →

On the eve of his departure to the US, Eddie’s father said to him "Design is spiritual. It's a way of life." Eddie chewed on that phrase for 26 years, to get a better understanding of what his father meant. He contributed the afterword to the new anthology ”The Black Experience in Design: Identity, Expression & Reflection,” in which he looks at design as an inherently spiritual practice that uses imagination to uplift and transform →

Ben’s Best invests “100% of its profits back into the black cannabis community and groups advocating for criminal justice reform. Where possible, the Ben’s Best brand and design reflects this approach, prioritizing work with black-owned vendors and partners, and proudly featuring the work of black artists and typographers on their packaging and products” →

Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man was first published in 1952 and “immediately hailed as a masterpiece, is one of those rare novels that have changed the shape of American literature. For not only does Ralph Ellison's nightmare journey across the racial divide tell unparalleled truths about the nature of bigotry and its effects on the minds of both victims and perpetrators, it gives us an entirely new model of what a novel can be” →

The F-117 Nighthawk was developed by Lockheed's secretive Skunk Works division and operated by the US Air Force. It was the first operational aircraft to be designed around stealth technology →

Stealth was designed by Eddie to promote his own studio, The Map Office, at the opening of the 2007 exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem, a contemporary art institution that focuses on artists of African or African-American descent. Discover more at Google’s Arts & Culture →

Colin Grant wrote the book on Marcus Garvey, who was born in Jamaica. In the 1920s his Universal Negro Improvement Association had 20 million members worldwide, making it the biggest black mass movement in history. Colin Grant said that as a child of Jamaican immigrants himself, his father used to counsel in the 1970s: “Don’t get too comfortable, you hear; we’re only passing through” →

Pentagram found a structure that allowed them to keep its industry superstars: to make them partners. At this moment, there are 23 and they all create. They all have an equal profit & loss structure, and if a partner is not doing so well, it’s equated. That’s why my guest refers to it as a wonderful, dysfunctional family →

Eddie was asked to do a book on color, which eventually became Color Works, with John Cantwell →

Michael Bierut, a partner at Pentagram, confessed his fear of color: chromatophobia. He loves black & white. Like Henry Ford, who famously told buyers that they could have whatever color they wanted as long as it was black. Michael says “Every now and then, I dip my toe in the vast rainbow-hued sea. It usually comes up with no more than a little bit of red and an even littler bit of yellow. I admire people who can use color with authority. To me, they seem to be able to swim like fishes.” →

Through a combination of intense craftsmanship and an exceptional understanding of production methods, designer Ootje Oxenaar created one of the most iconic and beloved banknotes of all time — the Dutch guilder. From the late 1960s, he was active in the national postal service, as head of the Department of Aesthetic Design. The postal service PTT at the time highly valued beautiful design and thus contributed, in part thanks to Oxenaar, to the fame of Dutch design →

Together with his team, Eddie worked on the interface of the Samsung Galaxy series. Pentagram collaborated with the Samsung UX Innovation team on the design of the iconographic and color framework for the smartphone →

Moving away from user experience design, nowadays I rather talk about memberful design: How designing a meaningful member experience creates durable initiatives. Read more on Medium →