Map Project Office

A Farringdon, London industrial design studio, spun out of Barber & Osgerby in 2012, that designs technology products and is now part of WPP.

About Map Project Office

Map Project Office is an industrial design studio in central London. Its focus is consumer technology, including products that use artificial intelligence, augmented reality and the internet of things, which means everyday objects connected to the internet. Wikipedia describes it as offering strategy, research and design. For start-ups it has run an end-to-end process that takes an idea through strategy and fundraising to manufacturing. Clients named there include IBM, Sony, Google and Honda, and start-ups such as Kano, BleepBleeps and Beeline. It has also done exhibition and installation work, including the entrance desk of the Science Museum.

The studio began as a technology design team within the furniture design studio Barber & Osgerby, founded by Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby, to handle a growing amount of technology work. It was spun off as its own business in 2012. It started with four people and has grown to 12 designers working across engineering, science, digital design and business. Wikipedia credits it with more than 40 awards and Creative Review's Creative Agency of the Year title in 2016. We did not find a mission statement in its own words, so we have not made one up.

Its UK base is Farringdon in central London. A job board page in the search results and a Design Week Top 100 listing show it as a London business. In 2018 Map became part of WPP, a large communications group, and Wikipedia says it works in partnership with its sister company Universal Design Studio and the digital agency AKQA. This is a case of an acquired studio that still trades under its own name, but we could not check from recent pages how closely it is run with those companies.

We found little about daily life in the studio. Wikipedia does not describe the culture directly, and none of the pages we read gave perks or hours. What the sources do show is a team that mixes designers with specialists in engineering, science and digital technology, and a studio that works on products from the first idea to the factory. Its sister studio and the AKQA partnership suggest a business used to working with larger teams, but those are our inferences rather than statements by the company.

A technology design studio needs industrial designers, who shape the physical product; interaction and digital designers; engineers; researchers and strategists; model makers; and studio managers and account staff who keep projects on track. If you like gadgets, from smart speakers to educational kits, and enjoy working out how a clever idea becomes something a person can hold, it is a good example of where that interest leads. Its website will show current openings.

What they do

• {'desc': 'Designing physical products for consumer technology.', 'title': 'Industrial and product design'}
• {'desc': 'Working out what a product should do and for whom.', 'title': 'Strategy and research'}
• {'desc': 'Taking a start-up idea from strategy through to manufacturing.', 'title': 'Support for start-ups'}

Key facts

• Spun out of Barber & Osgerby in 2012; Farringdon, central London
• 12 designers across engineering, science, digital and business (Wikipedia)
• Named Creative Review Creative Agency of the Year in 2016 (Wikipedia)
• ACQUIRED: by WPP (2018); still listed under its own name

Website: www.mapprojectoffice.com