Greenspace creates the power of &

Greenspace rebrands architects Pilbrow & Partners, capturing the spirit and strengths of its founder and partners.

Since its establishment in 2013, architecture practice Pilbrow & Partners has garnered a reputation for continually pushing beyond client expectations to create the exceptional.

Not defined by a particular style or approach, the studio output is personified through the passion and energetic spirit of its founder Fred Pilbrow, and in equal measure, the technical and executional excellence of its partners and team.

Fred Pilbrow says, “We established Pilbrow & Partners seven years ago and asked Greenspace to reflect our particular approach to architecture through a new identity for the studio.”

Greenspace began work in 2019, working closely with the practice to develop the evolution of its brand strategy, identity and communications.

Following numerous interviews with the practice partners and clients, and with insights gathered from direct collaboration, Greenspace encapsulated the brand legacy idea, ‘The power of &’. 

This strategic idea provided the creative platform for a new, more confident tone of voice for the practice alongside a more distinctive visual identity for its communications. 

In developing the brand strategy, Greenspace’s Lene Nielsen says, “Pilbrow & Partners embodies the idea that it is very much stronger than the sum of its partnership. Fred is a supreme draughtsman, able to draw an idea in pencil better and faster than most people can convey in words.”

Nielsen continues, “We learned that alongside Fred, the practice partners are a formidable team of architects and urban planners, supported by specialists in planning, environmental analysis, parametric modelling, digital visualisation and model making.”

The Greenspace design team was inspired by the strategic idea of ‘The power of &’ and from this created a simple, ampersand-inspired symbol comprised of two conjoined letter P’s, distilled from the practice’s name, Pilbrow & Partners. 

The design team developed a rigorous, type-driven approach to communication, that combines complementary design principles like; sophistication and playfulness, tradition and modernity, surprise and logic.

When it came to creating communications for the practice, Greenspace discovered one of the gifts of the English language — the sheer number and range of nouns, adverbs and adjectives that start with the letter ‘P’ — many of which provided ideal word combinations that describe the intricacies of the architectural process such as: Pencil & Paper, Paint & Pixel, Practice & Perfection, Planning & Participation and so on.

Fred Pilbrow says, “We are enthusiasts: interested in and engaged with every aspect of design from the technical to the emotional, from the physical to the social. Greenspace’s concept to stress ‘and, and’ rather than ‘either, or’ felt entirely appropriate and, like the best ideas, obvious once stated. Greenspace’s identity for Pilbrow & Partners feels like a well-fitting garment within which our practice’s work feels beautifully situated.”

The new Pilbrow & Partners identity has been developed across a number of creative applications covering environment, digital and print. The outcome is a distinctive, flexible and contemporary identity system that aims to surprise and delight though the power of language, type and colour.