Lichtenstein in Lebanon

Lebanon’s leading luxury brand Aïshti commissioned New York agency Sagmeister & Walsh to make this autumn’s billboards and magazine ads for Aïzone, the group’s subset of stores focusing on casualwear and aimed at a younger fashion audience. The US duo responded by tapping into the recent trend for flattened imagery, inspired by digital cut and paste, and the collapsed perspective of modern art.

For the creative direction, Jessica Walsh and Stefan Sagmeister reversed the usual perspective translation performed by illustrators, building cut-out sets featuring flattened objects. Writing about the project they explain: ‘Illustrations often depict a 3D object or environment in 2D form, but here we decided to twist this notion and create a 3D environment that looks like an illustration.’

The Big Picture: Designers and art directors are continuing to explore the Flatforms design direction we outlined in 2012, but having tired of digitally inspired everything, are returning to the classic iconography of illustration and pop art.