For our final project we were asked to write a 1500 word web essay and create a website for the content. To choose the topic of the web essay Kyle gave us a list of great names to choose from. I choose The Pentagram Partners as I had heard of the Pentagram company beforehand.
The next step was to come up with a question to base the web essay on, I used Chat GBT to help me create a question on The Pentagram Partners.
I then needed to start completing research and developing a structure for my website on Figma.
During one of our classes, Kyle introduced the exercise ‘Crazy 8’s’, this was to help us come up with a layout for the website. This exercise really helped and in fact I used a layout similar to one from the exercise.
<aside> ❓ Who are the three female Pentagram partners, and what significant roles or contributions have they made to the field of design?
</aside>
Below is a book that I used for a majority of my research for the Pentagram Company. It gave intense information on the start up, the timeline, the members etc. I also used a mix of websites that I have referenced in my bibliography.
I also used a Podcast Paula Scher was on for research but was unsure how to reference this. This podcast informed me on her most famous projects, her struggles in the industry, working for Pentagram, how she got started and more.
For my layout, I wanted the website to resemble the actual Pentagram Website, using similar fonts and layout. I have also included some screenshots from Pentagram’s website.
Pentagram is the worlds largest independent design consultancy it is a multi disciplinary design studio that covers topics such as graphics and identity, products, packaging, exhibitions and more! It is a world famous design house that is ran currently by 24 individual designers that work collaboratively or independently where they share the profit, loss and decision-making. Each designer with a different point of view, the group is less of a partnership and more of a consortium of creative minds that come together to explore creative ideas. The non hierarchical organisation will inevitable cause clashes between the determined individuals, but the Pentagram works by all the designers having a belief that “content must drive design, that good design must be informed by the world around it, that creative excellence is as important as financial performance, that good design elevates quality of life for society as a whole and that teaching the value of design is the responsibility of every practioner”. It is the only successful design studio where the creators of the work are also the owners.
Pentagram was founded in 1972 by Alan Fletcher, Theo Crosby, Colin Forbes, Kenneth Grange and Mervyn Kurlansky in Notting Hill, London. The name got given as a description of the business, “A star of five equal points, with alternating points connected by a continuous line; symbolic of alchemy”(The Pentagram Papers, ). The decision to open the studio was based on a reading by a fortune teller, they relied on the practise that “the best design is rooted in a good idea, rather than style, a principle Pentagram still follows today” throughout their workings in the studio.
However, in 1962 Fletcher, Frobes and Bob Gill announced that they will be opening a design studio, which was successful, until co founder Gill left the firm in 1967 to pursue his dreams in film and theatre. (Fun Fact, he told his young intern Charlie Watts that he was a better drummer than graphic designer and should quit the profession to drum full time in an up-and-coming band called the Rolling Stones.)
The studio continued on, the firm then started to introduce more partners such as architect Theo Crosby, Kenneth Grange and Mervyn Kurlanksy where they established the new business operative and founded Pentagram in 1972. From then the studio grew large and lost many. The company has opened multiple different offices across the world, in some of the biggest cities which are London, New York, San Francisco, Berlin and Texas. In the 1990s the first female to be offered a principle position in the Pentagram was Paula Scher.
Paula Scher is an American Graphic designer, who is one of the most influential female designers in the world. Paula began working in the 1970s as an art director, she has now been working in art for the last 50 years and is still continuing to create and design. She started her career designing record albums for major record labels like Atlantic Records, designing albums for artists such as Bruce Springsteen and Bob James. Scher earned four Grammy nominations for her designs.