We pay a visit to Rose – a Best of Show winner at the Brand
Impact Awards – and tour its hugely characterful studio.
When Simon Elliot and Garry Blackburn founded Rose
in 1999, each had already built up a strong design reputation. The
studio has gone on to work with a huge range of iconic cultural
institutions - including BAFTA, D&AD, the National Portrait Gallery,
Tate and the V&A - as well as the likes of Virgin, Unilever and the
BBC.
Was it a deliberate move for the studio to specialise in the cultural sector?
Simon Elliott: It's partly born out of my
background at places like Pentagram. We had a great heritage of working
with people like the English National Opera, so I had a good knowledge
of how that sector works.
As co-founders, how do your design skills complement each other?
Garry Blackburn: Ideas are important, but
it really matters to us to craft them beautifully. Simon has an ability
to make everything look beautiful. The cultural clients we work with are
interested in that, but also recognise the logic behind the decisions
and the practicality of solving commercial problems. SE: The fact that Gary comes from a
corporate identity background really helps institutions use whatever
money they have to maximum effect.
Rose is increasingly working with global clients – how did this come about?
GB: We've always worked on two platforms,
one corporate and the other arts-based. This works really well
internationally. Essentially we're exporting the best of British. Look
at China, where Aston Martin sales are going through the roof. There's a
real interest in British design at the moment. SE: I'm going out to St Petersburg and
Moscow soon as part of an envoy, and that's down to our cultural
specialism: I'm deliberately going out and talking to museums and
galleries. We were also fortunate enough to get a call from an Indian
client two years ago. Gary and I went out to Delhi, and we've been
working with them ever since.
Case study: Bletchley Park rebrand
Rose recently developed a new identity system for Bletchley
Park museum - where the Enigma code was famously broken in World War
Two. Fittingly, the branding is based around finding patterns in
seemingly random jumbles of letters and numbers.
"The way they originally recruited the staff in the 1940s
was to put crosswords and puzzles in the Telegraph and the like, and
make a competition of it," explains co-founder Garry Blackburn. "People
would send off their names and addresses and get contacted mysteriously.
Those people had brilliant brains."
Junior designer Maja HÃ¥kenstad helped craft the pattern
element of the brand, translating the concept across everything from
posters and business cards to signage and staff uniforms.
Case study: Mark Wallinger: Labyrinth
One of our Best of Show winners at the inaugural Brand Impact Awards,
Mark Wallinger: Labyrinth is a fascinating project from Art on the
Underground that saw 270 unique pieces of artwork installed in every
single Tube station on the network.
Senior designer Rupert Gowar-Cliffe helped make the project
happen: "We knew the artwork would remain on the underground for ever;
it would have a legacy," he explains. "Each piece was unique, and Mark
had done lots of research to identify designers to create them. Our
involvement was to make sure all the different elements came together."
And finally…
Garry Blackburn and Simon Elliott conclude by exploring how
Rose's portfolio of work for iconic British institutions is expanding
with more international clients.
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