Graphic Thought Facility

News
- Summer 2015
  - Identity Soar
    
    Soar’s beautifully engineered performance running wear is now available to buy online. Together with founder Tim Soar, GTF developed a graphic approach that unites colour, shape, texture and typography across garments, packaging and a new website.
    
    Garment detail photography: Casper Sejersen
    Website development: We Are Everyone
    
    soarrunning.com
  - Retail Taschen Milan
    
    The vivid ‘bookworms’ developed by GTF for Taschen’s pop-up stores and packaging live on in the publisher’s permanent Milan showroom but now applied in gold leaf to compliment the striking new interior scheme.
  - Identity New M&S brand mark
    
    Continuing a long collaboration with Marks and Spencer, GTF have recently created new, core brand marks for the iconic British retailer.
  - Retail Taschen Bookworms
    
    Asked to develop a decorative approach for retail packaging,
    the publisher’s vast and varied back-catalogue was used to create a constantly changing but highly recognisable pattern of ‘bookworms’. The first application announces the presence of this pop-up store in Paris.
  - Wayfinding Hult Business School
    
    A new London campus for Hult’s international business school allowed us to trade playfully on the themes of global exchange and London idiosyncrasies – taking in the ubiquitous buddlieah bush (originally from China), rhyming slang and East End bill posters. To complete in October 2014.
  - Identity Brinkworth
    
    A new identity for the London interior and retail specialists,
    a palette of architectural grounds signifies a selection of the studio’s favourite materials and love of the tactile.
  - Campaign Frieze London 2013 and Frieze Masters 2013
    
    Since its inception in 2002, GTF have been responsible for the brand identity of Frieze Art Fair. Twelve years on, the Frieze family has grown to include Frieze London, Frieze New York and Frieze Masters and is now recognised as one of the art-worlds most successful brands. As well as establishing the identity, GTF have art-directed 16 annual campaigns of which this October's London Fairs will be our last.
    
    Miles Aldridge’s colour-saturated take on the Regent’s Park formal gardens and the macro details of Bronzino’s ‘An Allegory with Venus and Cupid’ (c. 1545) provide the complimentary imagery for the concurrent events.
    
    Frieze Art Fair
  - Poster The National Theatre at 50
    
    The National Theatre Company is celebrating its 50th year and have commissioned five designers, Graphic Thought Facility included, to produce a limited edition print to mark the occasion.
    
    Created in collaboration with printmakers Jealous Studio, GTF’s design celebrates the ‘brutal warmth’ of the National’s South Bank home. Taking wax rubbings directly from the distinctive surfaces of both the original Denys Lasdun designed theatre and the temporary studio stage – The Shed – itself designed for this anniversary year by Haworth Tompkins architects.
    
    The print is available through the National Theatre shop and website.
    
    The National Theatre Shop
  - Packaging Herman Miller – Formwork
    
    Formwork, a new desktop storage system from Herman Miller, has been launched during London Design Week. Designed by Sam Hecht and Kim Colin with packaging designed by GTF, it will be available towards the end of 2013.
    
    Art direction: Graphic Thought Facility
    Photography: Milo Reid
    
    More information
  - Publication Interwoven: Kvadrat Textile and Design
    
    Launched during London Design Week, Interwoven: Kvadrat Textile and Design documents the history and output of the pioneering Danish textile company as told through its creative collaborations with some of the worlds leading designers, artists and photographers.
    
    Designed by Graphic Thought Facility, the book features a bespoke wool book cloth, dyed, spun and woven in England. This itself being a collaboration developed alongside Peter Saville and textile designers Wallace Sewell.
  - Edition Brancolini Grimaldi – Miles Aldridge’s CAROUSEL
    
    Published by Brancolini Grimaldi, a limited edition portfolio of 32 prints combines high-gloss litho reproductions with dead-matt silkscreen solid colours.
    
    Production management: Martin Lee Associates
    Printing: K2 Screen and Pureprint
    
    More information
    View project
  - Identity Sebastian Wrong – Wrong For Hay
    
    Graphic Thought Facility have created a suitably skewed mark for the Danish design brand HAY's new awkward younger sibling WRONG FOR HAY. Based in London under the creative direction of Sebastian Wrong, their first collection is being previewed at London Design Week.
  - Publication Gagosian Gallery – Edmund de Waal: Atemwende
    
    The landscape format catalogue for Edmund de Waal’s New York show responds to the challenges of reproducing the horizontal artworks that are both large in scale and complex in detail. Precise specification and a tight control of the production process (from photography through to printing) was necessary
    to retain the subtle shifts in colour and lustre present in the thousand of porcelain vessels.
    
    Image: pot samples in the booth at Pureprint
    
    More information
  - Exhibition Somerset House – Miles Aldridge: I Only Want You To Love Me
    
    10 July – 29 September 2013
    
    A major retrospective of photographer Miles Aldridge’s work,
    to coincide with the publication of the book by the same name.
    
    Exhibition design: Graphic Thought Facility
    
    More information
  - Exhibition Royal Academy of Arts – Richard Rogers RA: Inside Out
    
    18 July – 13 October 2013
    
    Exhibition graphics for a retrospective at the Royal Academy
    of Arts, Burlington Garden galleries to mark Lord Roger’s
    80th Birthday.
    
    Exhibition design: Ab Rogers Design
    
    More information
  - Publication Rizzoli – Miles Aldridge: I Only Want You To Love Me
    
    Shot on film, Miles Aldridge’s photographs of women stand out for his use of cinematic narrative and intense colour. Over 288 pages, I Only Want You To Love Me sequences together 36 stories originally published in Vogue Italia, Numéro and Paradis. A dedicated uncoated section reproduces Aldridge’s
    felt-pen working drawings.
  - Publication Charming Baker – Lie Down I Think I Love You
    
    Published to accompany the British artist’s Los Angeles show,
    this book is both structured and chaotic: paintings, drawings and sculpture slip in and out of sync with the coated and uncoated papers on which they are printed. Metallic pigment is incorporated into the black ink to emulate the sheen of the soft pencil drawings and the book’s jacket is impregnated with linseed oil to evoke smell like the painter’s studio.
  - Publication Gagosian Gallery – Robert Rauschenberg: Jammers
    
    The Jammers series was created by the American artist following a visit to India in 1975 on which he observed the intensely coloured fabrics used in day-to-day life. The accompanying exhibition catalogue’s generous page size, singer-sewn binding, transparent jacket and reductive typography (set in one size of Univer 45) respond to the qualities of the expansive colour-saturated artworks.
  - Identity Lubna Chowdhary
    
    Lubna Chowdhary creates tile-based artworks for interior
    and exterior spaces. Her visual identity is concentrated on a distinctive bold typestyle used across all printed and digital applications. By restricting the identity palette to shades
    of grey, focus is kept on the colour within Chowdhary’s work.
    A mailing package designed in fluted-board both protects and presents a single unique tile to architects and interior designers. Chowdhary’s website – designed in conjunction with Wolfram Wiedner – uses large multiple images to show both the glazed detail and architectural context of each project.
    
    lubnachowdhary.co.uk
  - Campaign Kvadrat – Ready Made Curtain
    
    Designed by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Ready Made Curtain is an easy-to-install curtain hanging system. GTF created the product packaging and art-directed the related press campaign to accompany the new range’s launch at IMM Cologne 2013.
    
    Photography: Casper Sejersen
    
    More information
  - Campaign Kvadrat – Shapes 2
    
    Building on the imagery of 2010’s Shapes campaign for upholstery fabrics, the new campaign suspends Kvadrat curtain fabrics
    in bespoke aluminium frames to create a delicate play of light
    and shadow. Due to run from Autumn 2013, a preview of the campaign can be see in Wallpaper*’s February Oscar Niemeyer supplement.
    
    Design and art-direction: Graphic Thought Facility and
    Fabien Cappello
    Photography: Matthew Donaldson
  - Publication M to M of M/M (Paris)
    
    Five years in the making, Thames and Hudson publish a major
    528-page monograph on the graphic design studio M/M (Paris). Edited by Emily King and designed by GTF.
    
    View project
    Press release
  - Publication Franz West: Man with a Ball
    
    Gagosian Gallery, 6 – 24 Britannia Street, London
    9 October – 10 November 2012
    
    This exhibition combines the artists final works with a survey of his large outdoor sculpture, bound with chunky plastic coil binding in a corrugated board cover.
    
    Visitor information
  - Publication Olafur Eliasson: Life is Space 4
    
    Designed by GTF and Peter Saville. Life is Space 4 was a one
    day seminar held at Studio Olafur Eliasson in June 2011. As a record of the event, one thousand unique books were produced on an HP Indigo 7500 digital press. Each copy contains a selection of images drawn randomly from a database of a 1000 prepared images. Mathmatician, Nicholas Firth scripted a programme to enable the variable composition of the pages.
    
    More information
Selected projects
All projects
About GTF
- Profile
  
  Graphic Thought Facility is a London-based design
  consultancy with an international reputation for appropriate, effective and original solutions. Recent commissions include store environments for M&S, exhibition design for the Science Museum, books for the Gagosian Gallery, wayfinding for Vitra, and campaigns for Kvadrat and the Frieze Art Fair.
  
  We believe that a successful project is rooted in a deep understanding of its objectives and we take great care
  to listen to our clients, often forging long-term relationships. Although our approach has been cited as original and unconventional, our underlying principles are clarity, simplicity and a belief that functional need and emotional response
  demand equal consideration.
  
  We enjoy exploring the physical possibilities of design,
  which has naturally extended our work into product, exhibition and environmental design. We often use non-standard materials and production methods, exploiting our knowledge of niche manufacturers and forgotten techniques, as well as new technologies.
  
  Established in 1990, GTF is jointly owned and led by three directors – Huw Morgan, Paul Neale and Andrew Stevens –
  all of whom remain very much hands-on. We have chosen
  to keep the studio relatively small and are currently a team
  of nine designers supported by our studio manager and project manager. We often collaborate with other creative specialists such as architects, writers and digital media experts, and are equally happy either to join or build a team for a particular project.
  
  GTF has been invited to exhibit and talk around the world
  and our work is held in public collections in Europe and
  America. In 2008, ‘Graphic Thought Facility – Resourceful
  Design’ became the Art Institute of Chicago’s first ever show
  dedicated to the output of a single graphic design studio.
- People
  
  Huw Morgan
  
  Principal/Creative Director
  Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, 1971
  Central Saint Martins, 1991–94
  Royal College of Art, 1994–96
  Joined Graphic Thought Facility, 1996,
  and became a director, 2003
  
  Paul Neale
  
  Principal/Creative Director
  Born in Leicestershire, 1966
  Saint Martins School of Art and
  Central School of Art and Design, 1985–88
  Royal College of Art, 1988–90
  Founded Graphic Thought Facility, 1990
  
  Andrew Stevens
  
  Principal/Creative Director
  Born in Sheffield, 1966
  Leeds Polytechnic, 1985–88
  Royal College of Art, 1988–90
  Founded Graphic Thought Facility, 1990
  
  Philippa Brook
  
  Finance
  Born in Leamington Spa, 1976
  Leeds University, 1995–98
  Joined Graphic Thought Facility, 2001 (until 2007) and 2011
  
  Inês Bianchi de Aguiar
  
  Designer
  Born in Porto, Portugal, 1988
  Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto, 2006–10
  Joined Graphic Thought Facility, 2013
  
  Carole Courtillé
  
  Designer
  Born in Saint-Malo, France, 1988
  ECAL, University of Art and Design Lausanne, 2007–11
  Joined Graphic Thought Facility, 2014
  
  Nicholas Davis
  
  Designer
  Born in Stockport, 1990
  Glasgow School of Art, 2011–14
  Joined Graphic Thought Facility, 2016
  
  Alexander Ecob
  
  Designer
  Born in Cambridge, 1988
  Norwich School of Art and Design, 2007–10
  Joined Graphic Thought Facility, 2015
  
  Jessica How
  
  Studio Manager
  Born in Buckinghamshire, 1989
  Bath Spa, School of Art and Design, 2008–11
  Joined Graphic Thought Facility, 2013
  
  Dominik Krauss
  
  Designer
  Born in Aalen, Germany, 1984
  Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg, 2005–06
  Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design, 2006–10
  Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig, 2010–11
  Joined Graphic Thought Facility, 2015
  
  Robbie Mahoney
  
  Creative Director
  Born in Shropshire, 1972
  Central Saint Martins, 1993–96
  Royal College of Art, 1996–98
  Joined Graphic Thought Facility, 2001
  
  Dario Mutter
  
  Designer
  Born in Zurich, Switzerland, 1987
  Zurich University of Arts and Rietveld Academie, 2011–15
  Joined Graphic Thought Facility, 2015
  
  Bradley Young
  
  Designer
  Born in Preston, 1991
  Bath Spa, School of Art and Design, 2011–14
  Joined Graphic Thought Facility, 2014
- Selected biography
  Solo exhibitions
  - 2008Graphic Thought Facility: Resourceful Design, Art Institute of Chicago
  - 2006GTF: 50 Projects, DDD, Osaka
  - 2004The/Le Garage (with Paul Elliman), 15éme Festival International de l’affiche et des arts graphiques, Chaumont
  Selected group exhibitions
  - 2011Graphic Design: Now in Production, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, New York
  - 2009Super Contemporary, Design Museum touring exhibition, London and Taipei
  - 2006Love and Money: The Best of British Design Now, British Council touring exhibition, Tokyo and Hong Kong
  - 2004Communicate: Independent British Graphic Design since the Sixties, Barbican Art Gallery, London
  - 2003Somewhere Totally Else – The European Design Show, Design Museum, London
  - 2002AIGA 50 books/50 covers of 2001, American Institute of Graphic Arts exhibition, National Design Centre, New York
  - 2002The Book Corner, British Council touring exhibition, Milan
  - 2001Great Expectations, Design Council, New York
  - 2001Lost and Found, British Council, Stockholm
  - 1997New British Design, Thessaloniki Design Museum, Thessaloniki
  - 1996Design of the Times: One Hundred Years of the Royal College of Art, Royal College of Art, London
  - 1996Work from London, British Council touring exhibition, various countries
  Public collections
  - Art Institute of Chicago
  - Museum of Modern Art, New York
  - V&A, London
  Selected publications
  - 2011Graphic Design: Now in Production, edited by Andrew Blauvelt and Ellen Lupton, Walker Art Center
  - 2011Design Museum Visual Identity Development and Application, 2002–06, Graphic Thought Facility/Kam Tang
  - 2008Graphic Thought Facility – Resourceful Design, Zoë Ryan, A+D Series, Yale University Press
  - 2005Lovely and Amazing, Emily King, Print, May/June
  - 2004Communicate: Independent British Graphic Design since the Sixties, edited by Rick Poynor, Lawrence King
  - 2003‘Graphic Thought Facility: Three Dimensional Projects’, IDEA Magazine, number 298
  - 2001‘Reputations: Graphic Thought Facility’, John L. Walters and Nick Bell, Eye, number 39
  - 2001GTF – Bits World, Graphic Thought Facility with Emily King, Gabriele Capelli Editions
  - 2000‘Graphic Thought Facility: Thought and Practice’, IDEA Magazine, number 278
  Lectures and talks
  - agIdeas, Melbourne
  - Apple Inc., Cupertino
  - Art Institute of Chicago
  - Belgrade Design Week
  - Berghs School of Communication, Stockholm
  - D&AD President’s Lecture, London
  - ddd Gallery, Osaka
  - Design Indaba Expo, Cape Town
  - Design Museum, London
  - École Nationale Supérieure des Art Décoratifs, Paris
  - Escola Superior de Artes e Design, Porto
  - Fabrica, Treviso
  - Glasgow School of Art
  - GraficEurope, Barcelona
  - Grafill, Oslo
  - International Society of Typographic Designers, London
  - Offset, Dublin
  - Royal College of Art, London
  - TCDC, Bangkok
  - V&A, London
  - Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
  Workshops
  - CalArts, Los Angeles
  - ÉCAL, Lausanne
  - Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht
  - National College of Art and Design, Dublin
  Juries
  - D&AD Awards
  - Die schönsten Schweizer Bücher
  - RSA Student Design Awards
- Credits
  
  Website designed by Graphic Thought Facility
  and Wolfram Wiedner
  
  Website built by Wolfram Wiedner
  
  © 2016 Graphic Thought Facility. All rights reserved.
  
  Unless otherwise indicated, all materials on these pages are copyrighted. No part of these pages, either text or images may
  be used for any purpose other than personal use, unless explicit authorisation is given by Graphic Thought Facility. Therefore reproduction, modification, storage in a retrieval system
  or retransmission, in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical or otherwise – for reasons other than personal use,
  is strictly prohibited without prior written permission.
Contact
info@graphicthoughtfacility.com
Telephone +44 20 7837 2525

Graphic Thought Facility
44 Vyner Street
London E2 9DQ

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55 bus from Soho
Bethnal Green Underground station (Central line)
Cambridge Heath Overground station (London Overground line)

Graphic Thought Facility

Identity Soar

Retail Taschen Milan

Identity New M&S brand mark

Retail Taschen Bookworms

Wayfinding Hult Business School

Identity Brinkworth

Campaign Frieze London 2013 and Frieze Masters 2013

Poster The National Theatre at 50

Packaging Herman Miller – Formwork

Publication Interwoven: Kvadrat Textile and Design

Edition Brancolini Grimaldi – Miles Aldridge’s CAROUSEL

Identity Sebastian Wrong – Wrong For Hay

Publication Gagosian Gallery – Edmund de Waal: Atemwende

Exhibition Somerset House – Miles Aldridge: I Only Want You To Love Me

Exhibition Royal Academy of Arts – Richard Rogers RA: Inside Out

Publication Rizzoli – Miles Aldridge: I Only Want You To Love Me

Publication Charming Baker – Lie Down I Think I Love You

Publication Gagosian Gallery – Robert Rauschenberg: Jammers

Identity Lubna Chowdhary

Campaign Kvadrat – Ready Made Curtain

Campaign Kvadrat – Shapes 2

Publication M to M of M/M (Paris)

Publication Franz West: Man with a Ball

Publication Olafur Eliasson: Life is Space 4

Huw Morgan

Paul Neale

Andrew Stevens

Philippa Brook

Nicholas Davis

Robbie Mahoney

Solo exhibitions

Selected group exhibitions

Public collections

Selected publications

Lectures and talks

Workshops

Juries

Transport links