One Leicester Street

Brand Identity

One Leicester Street is a new hotel and restaurant located on the edge of Chinatown in London’s Soho. Part of the Unlisted Collection hospitality group, it encompasses fifteen rooms, a Michelin-starred restaurant headed by Chef Patron Tom Harris, an outdoor terrace and a first-floor bar.

APFEL were commissioned to design, develop and art direct the One Leicester Street brand identity, including its logo, stationery, menus, marketing materials, interior and exterior signage. The identity uses simple but characterful typography which references traditional street signage and lettering. Signage is hand painted, and materials for the print collateral are tactile and humble, evoking travel paraphernalia. The collectible bar and restaurant menus change every season - with a new illustrator commissioned each year interpreting the ingredients of the menu with a surreal twist and bright neon colours.

To develop this identity throughout One Leicester Street, we brought on board a group of talented collaborators – Universal Design Studio, who crafted the interior re-fit and decorative scheme; artist Sister Arrow, who created the inaugural restaurant and bar menu illustrations; and clothing brand Comradettes, who designed bespoke uniforms for One Leicester Street’s staff members.

Bauhaus: Art as Life Exhibition Design

Situated in the Barbican Art Gallery, Bauhaus: Art as Life is the largest exhibition focusing on the iconic art school to be held in the UK for almost 40 years. We collaborated with Carmody Groarke to design an installation of elemental forms, reinterpreting the spacial structure of the gallery to create a bespoke viewing experience for exhibition visitors. Graphically, the design is informed by an awareness of the Bauhaus’ own principles of colour, structure and typography – painted walls, bold panels and supergraphics draw together objects, themes and ideas, and the typeface used throughout is a contemporary revival of the letterpress typeface used within the Bauhaus itself, Breite Grotesk.

Nominated for the Design Museum Designs of the Year 2013 by Teal Triggs

The Hepworth Wakefield
Brand Identity

The identity and bespoke typeface we designed for The Hepworth both echo the angular shapes from David Chipperfield Architect’s minimalist gallery building. We chose a colour scheme inspired by oxidised metals and the effects of the weather on the surfaces of Hepworth’s works, and the forms and shapes within her sculptures informed texture and patterns used throughout the brand identity and printed materials.

Credits: Typeface designed in collaboration with Emma Williams

Postmodernism, Style & Subversion 1970–1990 Exhibition Graphics

Evolving from the ideas of Modernism of the early 20th century, Postmodernism was a radical reaction to simplicity. Always resisting a straightforward explanation, it encompasses a wide range of practices from graphic design to philosophy, and everything in-between. For the V&A exhibition we wanted to reflect on this extensive variety without directly pastiching previous works. Utilising supergraphic reproductions as towering billboards on the walls. Neon lighting evocative of the reoccurring vision architects held for future city landscapes. And a labeling system held in place with patterned elastic bands of Memphis reproductions placed on top of bright coloured perspex, which varied between each of the 3 rooms.

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Publication

Originally published in nine volumes, the first two in 1759, this self-narrated tale of fictional character Tristram Shandy’s life is one of the forerunners of contemporary narrative styles. Laurence Sterne’s original text played with printing techniques which were available in his time, but over time and many editions it has lost much of its visual spirit and humour. Publisher Visual Editions approached us to bring the story back to life, and through researching and growing to love the book, we designed a visually rich, playful edition, which has inspired a new and shared Shandymania.

Nominated for the Brit Insurance Designs of the Year 2011 by Simon Esterson and Will Hudson