An independent, partner-owned design studio founded in London in 1972 that creates brand identities, products, exhibitions and digital work.
Pentagram is a design studio whose work covers brand identity, strategy and positioning, products and packaging, exhibitions and installations, digital experiences, advertising, data visualisation, typefaces, and sound and motion. It has made identity and graphic design for clients such as Citibank, United Airlines and The Co-operative, as well as the Warner Bros. Pictures rebrand and graphics for The Daily Show, according to a Wikipedia summary.
Its own site says that great design depends on "passion, intelligence and, above all, personal commitment". It stresses that Pentagram is "independently owned" and "the only major design studio where the owners of the business are the creators of the work". Partners work, the site says, "in friendship", whether together or alone, and each is the main contact for their clients.
Pentagram was founded on 12 June 1972 in Notting Hill, London, by Alan Fletcher, Theo Crosby, Colin Forbes, Kenneth Grange and Mervyn Kurlansky. Since 1982 its London office has been in a former dairy on Needham Road in Notting Hill. Its site lists ten London-based partners, including Angus Hyland, Domenic Lippa, Harry Pearce, Marina Willer and Samar Maakaroun. It also has offices in New York, Austin and Berlin.
Pentagram's structure is unusual. Wikipedia describes a flat partnership with no chief executive, where designer partners share ownership and each leads their own team. The site lists 23 partners plus Michael Bierut as a partner at large, and 44 associates. Wikipedia also records a long tradition of shared staff meals, with a new cook each year preparing a menu for everyone.
A studio like this employs designers, typographers, motion and digital designers, project managers and partners' teams who work on a client from brief to finished work. Because each partner has their own small team, you would work closely with an experienced designer. The site also runs a news section where partners talk about their projects. Wikipedia notes pro bono work for places such as the High Line and the National Gallery of Art, and a 2008 US presidential service award for building pro bono work into the firm's culture. A 2016 design-press city guide (as at 2016) described the London studio as friendly and supportive, with about 70% of roles creative, a working day of 9:30am to 6pm, lunch eaten together and prepared by the studio's own cook, weekly Pilates and Friday drinks, and public talks. It said each partner runs a separate team of designers while admin, finance and new business serve the whole firm.
Website: www.pentagram.com
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