Type and Image - Graphic Thought Facility

GTF are a London based graphic design company that work with many high profile clients across the UK. They work in print, digital media, product packaging, identity and probably touch on everything else in the industry.

Above are  a series of print adverts created for Shakespeare's Globe Theatre Productions advertising a series of theatrical plays for a season called "The Edges of Rome". GTF have clearly looked into roman history and have based the idea on roman grafitti which was common on the streets of ancient rome. GTF have given the grafitti a modern look of grafitti to show that the plays are still relevant and desirable in the present.
Each poster is well linked by sharing a lot of the same composition and format.
The Shakespeare Globe Theatre logo features in the center of the left hand side of each poster and the right hand side is split in to two parts: The image covers about 2/3 of the side and then the short bit of writing sits just above it.

The other important part of the design is the use of colour and the splats of paint across the left side of the advert. Each poster has just 2 individual colours besides black white and grey. This works well to seperate each design and give them a sense of individuality as well as link them again to the modern, colourful and vibrant style of grafitti.
The designs follow an obvious pattern which must have been the order in which the plays were advertised and performed. It is easy to tell the order because of the layers of colours.
Instead of having each advert as an individual design, GTF have taken the previous design and added the next design on top of it for both the colour splat and the image in each design.
The image itself changes for each design and is related to an aspect of each story.

This is another design by GTF for Marks and Spencer Café Revive. The simple design uses cocoa powder in the shape of florar designs using stencils. The designs are used on top of coffee and on the walls of the cafe. The design is simple and really pleasing to look at because of the varied patterns and tones of the cocoa powder depending on the thickness and accuracy of the application.
The design is really clever and quite innovative, though it links to an old post I have on here from a company using the same process to put their logo on the top of cups of coffee.

As well as showing off the innovation and progression linking to Marks and Spencer, the designs are also elegant and suggest some kind of intellectual superiority.