The archive · Design & Visual · Product decision · 2024
Ventura Foreman gets a deliberately 'not quite right' identity for its workwear studio
When craft-led workwear studio Ventura Foreman needed a brand but refused to be one, Studio Blackburn built an identity that is deliberately a little bit wrong.
Ventura Foreman · Studio Blackburn
What it had to solve
Robert Ventura and Sophie Foreman's Woolwich studio had sewn workwear for clients like Paul Smith, Burberry, Matches Fashion and Michelin-star Trinity for a while without any coherent visual identity. When it finally needed one, the founders wanted an identity that was not a 'brand': the practical, authentic, DIY roots had to stay visible.
How it works
Ventura Foreman is a husband-and-wife design and manufacturing studio in Woolwich, south London, that makes serious workwear in-house for clients including Paul Smith, Burberry, Matches Fashion and Michelin-star restaurant Trinity. The studio had operated for a while with no coherent brand, and when it finally asked London's Studio Blackburn for one, the brief was unusual: they wanted an identity, but explicitly not a 'brand'.
Studio Blackburn's answer was an identity built to feel 'not quite right'. The wordmark puts the place first — 'Woolwich LONDON, UK Ventura Foreman' — so functionality and location outweigh the founders' personalities; a single utilitarian typeface, ABC Marfa Medium by Dinamo, does all the talking; there is no fixed colour palette because colours follow the clothes and fabrics; labels and even the photography are art-directed to be a little bit off.
The imperfection was the point: a clean, simple and familiar system with something slightly wrong in it reads as handmade, authentic and DIY — exactly the values of a studio that makes everything itself. D&AD archived the project in its awards archive under Graphic Design, and design press reviewed it as a rare identity that succeeds by refusing to become a brand.
Why it lands
- The brief itself was the idea: an identity that is not a brand forced the designers to show authenticity through the system rather than claim it in words.
- Putting Woolwich above the company name restates the workwear ethic — place and function over personalities — in every single application.
- Refusing a fixed palette ties the identity to the garments and fabrics, so the brand can never outrun the product.
- Deliberate imperfection makes the work memorable in a category where craft studios usually reach for minimal, polished neutrality.
What it did
The identity was applied across labels, packaging, boxes and print collateral, and design press (BP&O) reviewed it as a brand that works precisely because it refuses to be one. D&AD archived the project in its awards archive under Graphic Design.
What you can take
When a client's whole ethic is 'not a brand', don't polish them into one: build a system whose deliberate imperfections — place over name, function over gloss — perform the honesty.
Since then
The identity went live across labels, packaging, boxes and print collateral in early 2024. BP&O reviewed the rebrand in March 2024, praising the 'Woolwich LONDON, UK Ventura Foreman' wordmark for putting 'place over people; functionality over personality', and the project entered D&AD's awards archive under Graphic Design.
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