Spin challenges preconceptions about craft with a new identity for Collect

“It’s something of a personal mission,” says Tony Brook, founder of Spin. “The idea of making people reassess what craft is. I’m edging more and more towards the possibilities of what happens when you make things by hand, it’s a different way of doing things. Too many people think craft is a wooden boat made from lollipop sticks.”

Spin has rebranded Collect, the international art fair founded in 2004 by the Crafts Council. The five-day event is held at the Saatchi Gallery in London and exhibits ceramics, glass, jewellery, wood, metal and textiles from established and emerging artists and makers selected by a panel of experts. Spin was tasked with developing a new identity for the fair to be used online, in print, wayfinding and venue dressing and across an advertising campaign. “They wanted an identity with that was international and had an upmarket feel,” says Tony. “Our response is based around the happy accident that there are two ‘l’s in the word collect, and a collection has to be more than one thing.”

The new identity, developed by Tony and design director Claudia Klat, uses a crisp sans serif typeface and Spin was keen to keep the foundations of the identity as pure as possible, reducing everything to just the essentials. The double l motif becomes a graphic tool that creates textures and patterns across the promotional materials. “The initial work we did was about surprising people and making something cool,” explains Tony. “Whatever people think about craft, it probably isn’t that.”