Be nice
to the Lady
We handcraft cultural storytelling
through brand identity and editorial design.
We handcraft cultural storytelling
through brand identity and editorial design.
Part research book, part design manifesto, this project imagines how graphic design can support the message of a grassroots NGO helping people cope with the cost of living and homelessness in a country on the brink of collapse.
Unbreaking Britain emerged from a sense of disbelief at witnessing the dramatic decline of the UK's economy, public institutions, and standards of living over the past decade.
The book features over 150 pages covering five real-world, tactile design outcomes. Each chapter presents design solutions aimed at addressing social, political, and economic problems through awareness, engagement, and action.
With a background in journalism and a deep fascination with current affairs, this work, produced entirely by us, sits at the intersection of graphic design and social commentary — inspired by a hands-on, DIY punk aesthetic and the rebellious energy of designers like David Carson, Jamie Reid, Corita Kent, and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
The visual language of Unbreaking Britain was built on one guiding principle: letting the human hand be visible in every piece. In an era of AI-generated imagery and sterile digital design, this project leaned fully into analogue methods, such as photocopying, collage, watercolour, broken glass, and plaster typography.
The motif of hands became central to the identity, appearing across illustration, photography, and typography. It felt only natural: a project about collective action, made entirely by hand.
Most of the work was created with minimal digital intervention. A photocopier became the primary tool — images were copied, scanned, degraded, and layered repeatedly until they carried the raw, imperfect texture the project demanded.
The approach was guided by what felt realistic for a small social movement: affordable, accessible, and attention-grabbing. The challenge was to produce work that improved upon the often under-designed communications of real NGOs, while respecting their constraints.
The book was printed on 150gsm off-white paper, an intentional choice that mirrors the analogue aesthetics of the overall project. Although paperback, the pages are held together by a sturdy red hard cover, featuring a hand-sawn logo printed on paper and bound at its centre with royal blue string. This decision brings the colours of the Union Jack flag — which permeate the project — to the front cover in a restrained and sophisticated way.
Andale Mono was chosen deliberately for its functional presence and paired with hand-made typography developed specifically for this project. Created using letter moulds, plaster, and a hammer, this process employs a metaphor of something in pieces. Rooted in early digital and journalistic contexts, monospaced typefaces carry an institutional, factual tone. Where punk aesthetics often lean into expressive, fractured typography, Andale Mono provides the necessary balance within the overall composition.
A handcrafted collage series translating Murakami's surreal storytelling into textured, immersive book covers.
This series reimagines the covers of three of Haruki Murakami's most evocative novels: Kafka on the Shore, After Dark, and Sputnik Sweetheart. Through handcrafted collage, mixed media, and an instinctive approach to composition, the project visually interprets the liminal spaces, shifting identities, and surreal atmosphere that define Murakami's literary universe.
Murakami's writing is deeply cinematic and dreamlike, often leaving meaning open-ended, allowing the reader to linger in interpretation. The covers follow the same principle—rather than offering a literal depiction, they evoke a mood, a sensation, an invitation to step into these ambiguous worlds.
Each piece is crafted by cutting and rearranging analogue textures, layering fragments of memory, and playing with scale and contrast, much like Murakami stitches together reality and subconsciousness in his narratives.
The ocean, the stone, and the deep forest reflect fate, memory, and a sense of ungraspable transformation. The composition feels both expansive and enclosed, much like the novel's protagonist, who is both searching for and escaping something.
Nocturnal, fragmented, and voyeuristic. The collage captures the unease of Tokyo's night, where characters drift in and out of reality. Neon lights, signage, and distorted figures create a sense of liminality and a world that exists between wakefulness and dreams.
A meditation on longing and distance, the composition echoes the novel's themes of love, absence, and the search for something just out of reach. The fragmented elements—postcards, a satellite, and shifting landscapes—suggest a world where reality bends, much like the elusive connections between the characters.
Murakami's novels exist in a space between the tangible and the intangible—where the subconscious seeps into reality, and where objects, places, and people hold a quiet but powerful significance. The approach to this series was driven by the belief that collage functions in a similar way to the mind itself, piecing together stored imagery, emotions, and symbols into something new.
The process was highly experimental and tactile, embracing the fluid, layered nature of collage. Each composition began with hand-cut fragments sourced from magazines, scanned textures, and printed materials, arranged and rearranged in multiple iterations until the balance of elements felt right.
Since Murakami's narratives are rich with recurring motifs and layered storytelling, the design process mirrored this complexity. The same set of cut-out imagery was reconfigured multiple times, allowing unexpected relationships between elements to emerge naturally. What was initially background might become foreground, a detail might take center stage, and a small shift in placement could alter the entire emotional weight of the piece.