Paperzine - News

How and why did you set up KentLyons, and how long ago?
I met James [Kent, co-director] back in 2001 when I was freelancing. Eventually the freelance work got too much for one person (and I didn't have all the skills needed to do the work to the quality I wanted to do), so I approached James about setting up a freelance collective. We formed the London Design Collective, working from spare rooms at home. Gradually we realised working from home was holding us back, so in 2003, we formed KentLyons, and got a studio. Over time we developed a team of designers and developers and project managers - there are now 12 of us.



What did you study, and why that subject?

I studied English and Philosophy. Wildly non-vocational – I liked reading and arguing, so it seemed a good choice at the time. James was much more sensible – he graduated from Ravensbourne with a 1st in Visual Communication, alongside people like Fred Flade, Tony Phillips and Daniel Eatock. I imagine he was compelled to do it; he's the most natural designer I've ever met, he just can't not design.



You work across a range of media and seem to easily span print and digital – what’s the secret of your success?

Both me and James come from a print background, but we got into digital pretty early on. It's an important way to communicate with people, as is print, so we think it’s crucial to be good at it. We're lucky to have a team of excellent designers who relish the challenge of print and digital, and a team of excellent developers who refuse to view any design as impossible to build. It makes for a good mix. We like to be doing new things and getting challenged. Just recently we designed some office spaces for Sky, and a massive event at Earls Court. It's nice to be a bit out of your comfort zone – as long as we're trying to communicate with people, and striving to make things that are beautiful and useful in equal measure, we are happy.

Which KentLyons projects have been standouts for you?

I really like it when a project spans a range of media, when we can take a simple, creative idea and bring it to life in a variety of ways. Get London Reading was a good one for that. We created an identity and a simple idea - get Londoners into books about London. We created marketing materials, and then a website which plotted books on a map, so you could see what books referenced your way to work, or your neighbourhood. We then went to different locations and installed quotes from these books in the places they talk about - as though they had fallen from the pages of the book and landed on the streets of London. And lastly we created an app that allowed people to see, via augmented reality, the literature that was surrounding them. The app got a decent amount of attention, the website got thousands and thousands of visits, the installations were seen by thousands of Londoners, and continue to get blogged, generating a long tail of interest in London-based books. Plus, it looked great.



Can you tell me something about the Dickens newspaper and app you’ve created for the author’s bicentenary year?

The Dickens project is a similar one to Get London Reading. We created the identity for Dickens 2012 for Film London, and had a lot of fun working on the brand and exploring the tension between Dickens then and now –his writing still feels relevant today, but is forcefully of its time. This was reflected in the identity, with classical typefaces but modern, bright , bold colours. We wanted to explore this further – to let a modern audience experience Dickens in the format he was originally published in – newsprint. We also wanted to explore how you would read him today, if he was publishing in the same way. Any newspaper today would have a presence on iPad, so we wanted to explore how this would work as a reading experience, and what it might mean for the text. After coming up with the idea, we took it to Film London and the Dickens Museum, who agreed to include it in their programme of events. The first of the newspapers, Night Walks, will be handed out at the commemorative ceremony on Feb 7 [the 200th anniversary of Dickens’s birthday] at Westminster Abbey, and there’ll be five more editions after that. All the newspapers and the app are free, and hopefully people will enjoy them, and get something from them. From our perspective, it's an idea that demanded to be made, which is why we've done it.

Which brand would you most like to work with and why?
I have no specific brands I'd like to work for, although I got a Braun watch for my birthday. I think maybe they’re sorted for design, but if they're reading this, they should get in touch.



What is something you consider absolutely essential to your work and life?
Music. We listen to music constantly at work, and I love hearing new things. It propels you through the day, inspires great ideas, and makes drudgery entirely tolerable.


www.kentlyons.com