New Branding for Ventura Foreman by Studio Blackburn — BP&O

Based by Robert Ventura and Sophie Foreman, Ventura Foreman is a design and manufacturing studio primarily based in Woolwich, south London, which specialises in high quality workwear items for shoppers like Paul Smith, Matches, and much-hyped North London ‘liberal metropolitan elite’ tackle the greasy spoon, Norman’s Cafe.

Having been round for some time with no ‘model’, there got here some extent within the firm’s life that it wanted a coherent visible identification, and it appointed London-based Studio Blackburn to take that on.

The transient was one thing of an uncommon one, in that Ventura Foreman wished an identification, however not a ‘model’: its workwear-focused, sensible roots nonetheless needed to come by way of. Like so many manufacturers (or on this case, not-brands) earlier than it, Ventura Foreman wished to prioritise and convey the thought of ‘authenticity’.

It’s an attention-grabbing one, the entire branding-but-not-branding  factor; and begs the query, what’s the distinction between a model and an identification? And, for this challenge particularly, how do you get branding when not a model? What are the parameters? Is that this, then, only a ‘look’?

Regardless of the solutions to those reasonably philosophical musings, Studio Blackburn’s strategy was to maintain issues very, quite simple and practical.

The thought of an identification that feels type of ‘off’ underpins the entire idea; intentionally eschewing any type of perfectionism and celebrating the quirks and peccadilloes of issues which can be only a bit flawed, barely off-kilter, colouring it in a wee bit outdoors the traces.

The thought was to create the notion that the model is ‘clear, easy and acquainted however that one thing shouldn’t be fairly proper’. This sense of ‘somewhat bit flawed’ was utilized to all the things, together with the data hierarchy that prioritises Woolwich, the typographic system, the ‘brand’ (which is mostly a assortment of phrases relating first to put, then the precise firm title) and even the best way that labels are connected to clothes.

The color palette, in the meantime, doesn’t actually exist: paper shares and completely different color tones are as a substitute depending on the particular garments themselves, and the materials they use. As such, on branded property like print collateral, labels, containers and so forth, the colors vary from muted gray and mauve to pops of daring major pink and blue.

The artwork course on the Ventura Foreman pictures can also be very a lot ‘a bit flawed’: take this hilariously unusual, nearly Toiletpaper journal-esque pic the place a girl appears to have flopped off a shelf.

The star of the present is the typeface, a robustly workaday typeface by Berlin-based kind foundry Dinamo – ABC Marfa Medium. Described by the foundry as ‘a sturdy, utilitarian typeface’, it’s impressed by the times of metallic typesetting and since an replace, contains small caps and outdated fashion figures ‘simply how printers and designers within the late nineteenth Century appreciated it’. The identification makes use of an attention-grabbing interaction of the typeface’s decrease and uppercase letters, and likewise of its different characters – the comma, as an example, between the in-your-face all caps of LONDON and UK. There are not any different supporting fonts, which means that it creates a strong, no-nonsense and stripped again typographic system that feels good for the shopper.

It’s that typeface that enables its co-star to shine, too: Woolwich. Historically not a spot that’s related to taking centre stage – extra industrial estates, Kafkaesque bus routes, and its place because the filling in a sandwich between Greenwich (picturesque, residence of time itself, maritime museum) and Thamesmead (Brutalist, residence of numerous Goldsmiths efficiency artwork initiatives).

Right here, nevertheless, Woolwich is elevated to the standing of the kinds of locations which can be adorned on assertion tote luggage and baseball caps – New York! Berlin! Er, Peckham! The reasonably lengthy wordmark, if we are able to name it a wordmark, sees Woolwich positioned far above even the title of the corporate itself: ‘Woolwich LONDON, UK Ventura Foreman’, emphasising the position of place over individuals; performance over character. And it actually, actually works. If the transient was all about centering Ventura Foreman’s practical, sensible, ‘genuine’ roots, then celebrating certainly one of south London’s reasonably extra hidden gems makes good sense.