A small London brand-design studio, founded in 1992 by Michael Johnson, known for identities for museums, charities and cultural organisations.
Johnson Banks is a brand consultancy and design studio in London. It creates logos, visual identities and brand systems, which means the shapes, letters, colours and rules that make an organisation instantly recognisable. Most of its work is for cultural, educational, government and charity clients. Its best-known projects include the rebrand of the Science Museum, the identities for the charities Shelter and Christian Aid, a Royal Mail set of Beatles stamps, and a 2016 open-design rebrand for Mozilla, where the public could comment on the ideas as they developed. It also experiments with letterforms, including an alphabet based on Japanese katakana and a 3D-printed alphabet called Arkitypo.
Michael Johnson set the studio up in 1992 with Tom Banks, a former client. They parted ways in 1995 and Michael kept the name. Design Week reports that he has always led with the thought behind an idea rather than the way it looks, and that his stated aim is to work with "people who want to do big things". The same article says that more than 85% of the studio's clients are not-for-profit organisations, covering culture, education, philanthropy and the environment. It lists clients such as Cancer Research UK, Save the Children, the V&A, the British Council, Jodrell Bank and the Royal Astronomical Society, and it mentions work connected to the COP26 climate conference.
The studio is based in London. A 2010s guide to London studios from AIGA's Eye on Design places it in Clapham, in south London, though you should check the current address on its website. The wider point is that this is a London design studio you can visit, rather than a branch of an overseas company. It has won seven D&AD yellow pencils, one D&AD black pencil for its 2003 Fruit and Vegetable stamps, and a long list of Design Week awards, according to Wikipedia.
Johnson Banks chooses to be small. Design Week says the team is usually six to eight people, and an older Creative Bloq profile also describes a core team of six. When a brief needs more, the studio brings in filmmakers, animators, copywriters and cultural specialists for that project, a way of working Design Week calls hub and spoke. Clients deal directly with Michael Johnson, not through layers of staff. The studio also does its own brand strategy work in-house, so the thinking and the visual design stay connected.
A studio like this employs designers, who make the identities and test them at very large and very small sizes, and account and project managers such as Katherine Heaton, named by Design Week as an account director. It also relies on writers and strategists. If you enjoy drawing letters, asking what a charity or museum really stands for, and seeing your work on posters, stamps and signs, this is the kind of place where those interests turn into a job. The studio's own website is the place to check how it is organised today.
Website: www.johnsonbanks.co.uk
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