SAI

SAI represents fourteen makers working in wood, clay and metal. The work covered the identity and the art direction that has to hold fourteen practices in one frame.

Brief

A collective identity usually flattens its members. SAI needed the opposite: a frame strong enough to be recognised and neutral enough that each maker still reads as themselves.

Approach

The system is a container, not a style. A fixed frame, a fixed caption position, and a mark that shifts weight with the material behind it. Photography is set to one lighting standard, so fourteen studios can shoot in their own space and still align.

System

• One frame, applied across fourteen practices

• A lighting and background standard for maker photography

• Caption typography carrying material, dimension and maker

• Exhibition signage drawn from the same grid

Outcome

The collective has shown twice under the system. Makers send their own photography now, and it arrives usable.