Lace and FashionMap Archives
UnArchived
2024
Visual Identity
Shortlisted for the Lace and FashionMap Archives award
The brief for this project asked to create a Visual Identity for the Lace and FashionMap Archives, located in the Nottingham Trent University’s Bonington Building. My response to the brief was a geometric, rhythmic pattern inspired by common stitching techniques. The identity combines the rich cultural history of Nottingham’s lace industry with the celebration of global high-street fashion in the 2000s, by using Ellery, an elegant serif typeface with the clean modern lines of Neue Haas Grotesk.
The identity began with research into the history of Nottingham’s lace industry and the visual language of traditional stitching. I explored archival imagery, existing lace patterns and handmade marks before reducing these references into a simple graphic system.
The resulting patterns combine repetition, rhythm and movement, creating a flexible visual language that connects the history of lace with the energy of contemporary fashion.
A visual system built from the rhythm and repetition of machinery stitching.
The identity was designed to work across the archive’s physical environment, from walls and windows to signage and printed material. The graphic language expands and contracts across different surfaces, creating a sense of movement while maintaining a consistent visual identity.
