Beyond the screen: where our creative team finds unexpected design inspiration
What do gothic typography, isometric video game maps, and local street art have in common? They are the analog heartbeat of our digital designs.
Let’s explore the unexpected influences making waves in our studio.
Author: Olivia Banks, Designer
As designers, we spend heaps of time on screens and flicking through industry blogs, but we find so much of our creative inspiration in unexpected places. Our creative team recently gathered to discuss some of these weird and wonderful things that boost our creativity on a daily basis. So I’d like to take this opportunity to share some of them with you.
This exercise was a great way to learn more about what makes each of us tick, and revealed some commonalities. I’ve been taking some time to reflect on what we’ve been loving as a studio.
Typography from everywhere
Designers are, by nature, type-obsessed so the vast selection of beautifully designed letters and words was expected. What was fascinating was our collective obsession with analogue, imperfect, and salvaged letterforms.
For Tom, it’s the tactility of traditional sign writing. Nathaniel shared photos of his own studies of handcrafted type, finding inspiration in the grit of charcoal and glue. I personally find that a walk around our local Arnos Vale Cemetery provides a masterclass in gothic, handcrafted letterforms.
The beauty of handmade letterforms is in the acute details. The small imperfections and the unexpected moments where the designer has taken creative liberties to enrich the work. It provides a wonderful example of attention to detail, knowing the rules of design, and when to break them.
Architectural systems
Of course graphic design isn’t the only discipline where structure and creativity meet. Our creative inspiration came from a host of architectural references. Will shared examples of isometric drawings, and TomO referenced The Video Game Atlas, a book that depicts the worlds of video games as technical drawings – a joy to look at whether you’re into gaming or not.
While blueprints give a great insight into effective and interesting ways of mapping and displaying complex information, architectural marvels have been inspiring some stunning work from inside the studio. Jack recently returned from Barcelona with beautiful photos of La Sagrada Família, capturing the colour palettes and textures in its famous stained glass windows. You can see its influence in Jack’s new Shaped By ident, a glowing stained glass of our own.
The aesthetics of old tech
From Neo Gothic cathedrals to nostalgic technologies, a studio focal point seems to be engineering made beautiful. In the B2B tech space, we encounter a lot of technical concepts, so it’s no wonder that we geek out a little when we see both subject matters colliding perfectly.
Jamie finds inspiration in the story and aesthetic of the Roland TB-303 synthesiser – a retro space-age looking synth that failed its original purpose as a substitute bass guitar. It was picked up by DJs in the 90s and led to the beginnings of house and techno. The synthesiser itself is not only a great example of what happens when the right tools land in the perfect hands, but also an example of design for a tech product that has stood the test of time. See newer models like the Roland Boutique TB-03 and my personal favourite (mainly due to the smiley face) the Behringer TD-3.
This spirit of re-appropriation occurs in multiple other references, but I particularly enjoyed Parissa’s nod to Daniel Savage, who uses a pen plotter to make brightly coloured animations. The electric pen plotter was originally a tool used to produce technical schematics, but Savage subverts it to create visually arresting stop motion work that balances digital production with the tactile nature of felt tip marker pens.
Ultimately, these references focus on the friction between the physical and the digital, a tension that has never been so topical as now. Themes of AI and human craft are at the centre of many creative conversations, so it’s promising to look at where previous technical developments have led to incredibly innovative creative work.
Gurt Lush Inspo
While our inspiration spanned both the globe and design history, some of our most impactful influences can be found much closer to home. We’re a Bristol-based studio, we live in a city famous for its street art, so of course it’s made an appearance in the work that we’ve been referencing. From Simon’s collection of local graffiti and street art pictures to some vivid sign written murals by Tozer Signs, the ever changing walls of Bristol are always a source of inspiration.
In contrast, being surrounded by South West countryside, inspiration also comes from beyond the city limits: Tom finds influence in folklore, Will includes Field Guides, and Ben cites the importance of simply being outdoors:
This locational lens is fascinating because it’s an instance where influence seeps in when we are not even looking for it. We’re proud to be a Bristol-based agency, and the fact that our references embrace the local area and creativity proves that the best inspiration can often just be found by being present and engaged, in all areas of life.
Case and point
If there’s anything that the exercise of looking through these influences has taught me, it’s that inspiration is much more about how you look at the world than what you look at. And as a creative studio, we’ve definitely been looking, widely and voraciously at references that are authentic to ourselves. It’s this wealth of inspiration that feeds our work as a studio, and allows us to create work that helps our clients to lean into their own bold.
These highlights are only a glimpse into our collective mood board. To explore the full spectrum of references that fuel our studio, we invite you to dive into our creative case file.
