A furniture making school

Overview

A visual identity research and development project for a highly regarded and established furniture making workshop and school.

I previously worked at Rowden before moving into a couple of new roles, so I have a deep understanding of their offer to students and the needs of the business.

Utilising this knowledge we explored the visual language of the school and aimed to utilise the aesthetic of classic educational handbooks from the early to mid 20th Century.

As well as this we wanted to develop an image library that evoked the passage of time and set up visitors with an understanding that the school embraces slowing down and taking time to develop core skills.

By using imagery from the past 30 years, and by employing multiple photographers for new shoots, we intended for a sense of having multiple styles of imagery that tell a real story of the experience of joining courses at Rowden.

Parts

Analogue Digital

Labour

A furniture making school’s visual identity

Parts & Labour

Branding & Visual Identity
Digital Design
Interviews
Pitching
Print Design
Project Management
Prototyping
Research
Visual Direction
Wireframes

As we produced a new website I also recommended the original website domain was kept as a tribute for the Atelier’s founder.

Example Pages from a brand guidelines document I produced.

“Thom continues to be instrumental in helping us clarify our message and vision, as well as communicating with our audience”

– Rowden

A selection of pages from the presentation document I used to pitch the visual direction I had called TRUTH TO NATURE; a philosophy proposed by John Ruskin, a forebear of the Arts & Crafts movement, from where a direct lineage can be traced to the Rowden Atelier, through it’s founder David Binnington-Savage.

To bolster the new positioning I produced a suite of additional graphic marks and emblems that utilised various facets of the visual direction.

The intention being that these could be used in a range of applications such as print, apparel, or interior decoration.