A couple of years ago, there was something of an online buzz when a spectacular piece of print was sent out to a specialised elite of designers, clients and others in the world of paper. Images of the item, a series of concentric coloured circles, started appearing on Facebook and Instagram, and on the blogs of design fans and students.
The limited-edition print item in question was a specimen book for Fedrigoni’s Sirio paper called Art of Color, whose design and conception was by graphic designer Bryan Edmondson of SEA Design in London. It was printed by Studio Fasoli in Verona, Italy, and bound with special glue that allows the pages to open flat. This is no ordinary specimen book – the opening section of twenty different coloured papers is subtle, sculptural and almost sensual. The diminishing circular cut-outs on successive pages create a conical crater that is pleasant to touch. Turning its pages reveals the shade, number and weight of each page. Its minimalist design and strong colours gives Art of Color an intoxicating appeal that was perfect to share with an audience far in excess of its actual circulation. It was lauded in sectors where people rarely use or even think about paper.
SEA’s Edmondson explains the genesis of the idea over a glass of wine. He says that some of the inspiration came from The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, a classic children’s picturebook with holes in the pages. But while Carle’s openings are part of the illustrations, Edmondson’s circles have a Modernist purity that guides the viewer through Sirio’s colour spectrum.
One of Edmondson’s latest projects is a follow-up to Art of Color. He has devised a new series of eight specimens, based on lozenge shapes, with the pages joined in accordion folds. As they unfold, the die-cut holes switch from right to left and back again in a pleasing rhythm. The plan is to release the first of these in April, followed by similar items in different colour combinations – some of them deliberately more quirky and pop-influenced – later in the year.
Bryan Edmondson has long been a familiar figure within the UK graphic design community, with a track record of generous collaborations with other creatives, including Dutch design legend Wim Crouwel, interactive pioneers Field, star photographer Rankin, and Peter Saville and Anna Blessmann. He’s good with the things that designers use, such as paper and type.
Edmondson studied graphic design at Newcastle Polytechnic (now Northumbria University), where he harboured ambitions to form his own agency – Fabien Baron’s company in New York was an early role model. After graduating with a first in 1992, Edmondson worked for Roundel, followed by stints at Williams and Phoa, and Imagination, where he worked on the identity for Modo papers.
Edmondson’s work in Imagination’s ‘Brand Development team’ (prior to setting up SEA in 1997), gave him a taste for identity design, working for names such as Coca-Cola and Samsung. ‘I learnt quite a bit in terms of strategic work as well as how to pitch an idea to the likes of Ford, the car giant,’ he says. He also liked the fact that identity design draws deeply on his core skills in design and typography.
SEA is best known for a spare and uncluttered approach to corporate ID, which Edmondson describes as his ‘love / hate thing’. Some of his recent branding jobs have been complex and detailed, such as SEA’s makeover for Regatta, and the W Hotel Residences in London. He describes the Regatta brief as a ‘mammoth task’: over the past decade the outdoor clothing company had used several agencies with different approaches. SEA’s challenge has been to replace the inevitable visual clutter with a simpler, more direct identity, from garment branding to a TV campaign. As Edmondson puts it, ‘It’s a grown-up project.’