The British School of Upholstered Furniture was founded in 2017, a fact that belies the years of experience that exist in the partnership of Greg Cupitt-Jones & Gareth Rees, the founders of the school. Gareth and Greg are widely recognised by the industry as master craftsmen and this is something that we wanted to address within the visual identity.

Primarily the BSUF visual identity would need to attract new students to the school, who had traditionally been a +30 female audience. However, there had also been a growing interest from a younger, more design aware audience who would be a key target for the future. The visual identity would also need to be relevant to the recognised trade bodies of the industry and need to carry a degree of gravitas.

For the students who study at BSUF, the dream is to become a maker. We placed this dream front and centre of the identity and considered the visual vernacular of the maker — the tools, the techniques and not least, the marker’s marque.

Inspired by this, we set about creating a marque that would have instant recognition and could also be applied to all manor of materials in the same way that a maker’s marque might be traditionally branded into a piece of furniture. We also wanted the marque to capture a new audience and not lean to heavily on the traditions of the maker’s vernacular.

The monogram emerges out of the negative space utilising a san serif font and resembles an abstract, 3 dimensional shape shrouded in fabric.