We are delighted that our British Library exhibition, Beyond the Bassline, has been featured as a Guardian Highlight for 2024.
It was a true pleasure to work on this show alongside our collaborators Freehaus, the British Library, and the many talented designers and artists who helped bring it to life. A special thank you to the team at the British Library, who are always a joy to partner with – we can’t wait for our next collaboration with you!
We’re thrilled to be part of an exciting new chapter for the Royal Society of Arts as they launch RSA Spark—a dynamic online learning platform that brings together their renowned Student Design Awards, Pupil Design Awards, and Catalyst Awards. This innovative programme is focused on driving sustainable design solutions, and we had the privilege of developing its name, tone of voice and shaping its visual identity.
Currently in its testing phase, RSA Spark will launch its pilot courses in January, and we look forward to sharing more updates with you soon.
There’s still time to experience Beyond the Bassline: 500 Years of Black British Music at the British Library, but the clock is ticking! Dive into the rich history and vibrant stories that have shaped the soundscape of Britain. The exhibition closes on August 26th—make sure you don’t miss this journey through 500 years of musical heritage.
We are very pleased to see so many great reviews for Beyond the Bassline: 500 Years of Black British Music at the British Library. Wallpaper magazine has established itself as an influential voice in the design and lifestyle sectors so it's an absolute delight to see our work features on their website. Read the review here.
Beyond the Bassline at the British Library is now open. You can visit the exhibition until the 26 August 2024.
We are just one month away from the opening of Beyond the Bassline at the British Library. This is the first major exhibition to document the 500-year musical journey of African and Caribbean people in Britain. Inspired by the British Library’s sound archive, the exhibition explores the people, spaces and genres that have transformed the landscape of British music.
We are thrilled to announce our first collaboration with the design studio Freehaus, and we look forward to sharing it with you soon.
There are a few things we are passionate about and although the list is not exhaustive; design, food and sustainability are on the podium.
We want to help London restaurants and bars to build a strong visual narrative. With our new brand design offer ‘Food Stories’ we will create a connection with your customers and start the culinary experience before the first mouthful.
Interested to find out more? Get in touch with us
New year, New work.
We worked on some fantastic projects last year and have some VERY exciting ones in the 2024 pipeline. In the meantime, why not have a peak at our design for the Engineers Gallery for the Science Museum?
We are really sorry to hear about the British Library cyber-attack. The outage is affecting their website, online systems and services, as well as some onsite services including their Reading Rooms and public wifi.
You can still visit the exhibition 'Fantasy' if you buy your ticket in cash directly at the British Library. We strongly encourage you to go and keep supporting the Library in these challenging times. We hope everything will return to normal soon for the British Library users and staff.
Digital Storytelling will be closing on Sunday but you still have a few days to jump into brave new digital worlds with some of the best examples of experimental narratives. We worked in close collaboration with Plaid London to design a space that feels engaging and colourful, avoiding any pre-conception and pastiche representations of digital design. On the contrary, we wanted to explore how digital storytelling is making stories more organic involving the visitors in the narrative and decision making.
'Digital Storytelling' is a small exhibition with a large impact that allows visitors at The British Library to discover the world of digital and interactive stories.
Judging by this article from The Guardian, we did a great job in displaying content that presented challenges in a traditional exhibition space. We would like to thank our long term collaborators PLAID, DHA Designs, Clay Interactive Ltd, Susan Dymond and the team at the British Library.
Today is the opening of ‘Isaac Julien: What Freedom is to Me’, the first major UK exhibition by one of today's most compelling artists and filmmakers. We designed the marketing campaign and the exhibition graphics in collaboration with the Tate Britain. Keep your eyes peeled in the next few months and you might spot one of our posters on the underground.
In 2022, we joined All in Awe, an organisation that connects charities with creative professionals.
It is a great pleasure to be featured as a collaborator of All in Awe in Disegno Magazine. We spoke about altruism and the value of design for non profits.
"Over the last few years, I have been shocked to see unsustainable projects awarded prestigious accolades from the design industry. When Design Week asked me if I wanted to take part in this year’s judging panel, I got really excited – feeling that it was an opportunity to raise this on-going issue within the design industry.
Designers have a key role to play in sustainability. We are essentially at the starting point of the product life cycle, and it is our responsibility to ensure we reduce the impact on the environment. We are here not only as designers but also as communicators and we need to challenge what is being done right now. We need change and we need it fast. If not us, who? And if not now, when?"
Margot Lombaert, Creative Director
We have been working flat out for the last months and we are very excited to share new projects and exciting news with you. Here is a very short summary of what happens over the last months:
-> In September we worked on the design of the official COP26 art exhibition ‘Art + Resilience’
-> In October we uncover our design for the Al Thani Collection that opened at the Hotel de la Marine in Paris
-> In November we launched new displays Horniman Museum talking sustainability with the younger audience of the museum
-> In December we won a new exhibition with Drinkall Dean for the British Library. We are very excited by this major show opening in October.
-> In January we started designing the campaign for ‘Walter Sickert’ a new exhibition at Tate Britain
> In February we finalised the last graphics for the exhibition ‘At Home’ for the International Design Biennale of St Etienne opening in April.
-> And now we are working on a new permanent gallery for the Science Museum.
A lot of work but we are loving every seconds of it! It’s fantastic to feel the country getting dynamic again. We have also embarked on self initiated projects and making the most of the buzzing cultural life in London. Speak soon for more details on all these new projects!
We’ll start this week on very exciting news… Our work for the exhibition Nero: The Man Behind the Myth at the British Museum has been longlisted for a Dezeen Award 2021. We couldn’t be happier to see the work we did with Drinkall Dean and DHA Designs featured on this prestigious list. Also a huge thank you to the museum team who have been very supportive throughout the project and the challenges of the pandemic. If you haven’t been there yet, here is your reminder not to miss this fabulous exhibition. Follow this link to book your tickets
#NeroExhibition at the BritishMuseum opened yesterday. After an 18-month roller-coaster – during which we sometimes doubted that the objects would see the gallery light – we are finally there. We want to thank our lovely team and all the talented people we collaborated with during this strange year. We will share more insights into one of Rome’s most infamous rulers in the next couple of days and hope to see your lovely photos of the exhibition soon.
Today is the birthday of one of our favourite heroes, the legendary Sir David Attenborough. Sir David spent his life travelling the world and recording Nature's most beautiful treasures. Today he urges us to protect our planet, highlighting the emergency of climate change.
"By making the right choices in the next 10 years, we can begin to rewind the world, and create a rich, thriving, sustainable future for ourselves on Earth."
It's our responsibility to rise and be heroes of our planet – the power is in our hands.
We are delighted to announce that 'Nero: the man behind the myth' at the British Museum will be opening on the 27th of May. We started designing this exhibition back in 2019, but the project got delayed because of Covid. So we are super excited that we can finally share some sneak peaks with you. We are currently on site installing some really large scale graphics and they look fabulous. We will post more soon ...
Beautiful design is only good if it considers its impact on the environment. We deeply care about the environment and so do our clients. We are proud to have worked with Ballantynes of Walkerburn, a company truly committed to sustainability. Beyond their ongoing reductions in waste materials, they refitted their factory in 2015 to be more energy efficient. Their 30kW solar array provides more carbon free electricity than they use, protecting the serene environment around them without compromising on production. The new packaging material is also of the highest sustainable standards with FSC certified cardboard and a branded tape 100% recyclable.
It’s with an immense joy that we opened BBC News this morning to read that the ‘Right to repair’ law will come in this summer.
“Manufacturers will be legally obliged to make spare parts for products available to consumers for the first time – a new legal right for repairs. […] The new rules will be estimated to reduce the 1.5 million tonnes of electrical waste said by the government to be generated in the UK each year and to contribute to reducing carbon emissions overall.”
Let’s keep going in the right direction by changing our consumption habits and by demanding laws that protect the environment. We’ll get there together!
Today is International Women’s Day, a celebration of the social, economic, scientific and cultural achievements of women throughout the world. This day of celebration is also a reminder of how much there is still left to do. The fight for women’s rights is not only about gender equality but mostly about class and ethnicity.
Last year we had the great opportunity to work with the British Library on the design of their exhibition Unfinished Business: The Fight for Women’s Rights. It has been a fascinating journey working with the curators and learning more about the stories of female and male activists who made a difference in fighting for equal rights. The exhibition is currently closed due to Covid restrictions, but you can still take part in the discussion through the British Library’s online events.
We would also like to thank Design Week and Creative Boom who gave us the opportunity to speak about the exhibition and our approach to its design. We can only encourage you to visit this inspiring exhibition once it reopens in a few months.
Let’s get this #UnfinishedBusiness Finished!
We absolutely love live performances and going to the theatre has always been one of our greatest joys. Designing the visual identity of theatre company P’trus is as close as we can get to fulfilling our theatre needs right now! It was a pleasure to work with the team at P’trus and and we hope to be able to travel to Montreal soon to see them performing live.
Our latest project for P'trus, a theatre company based in Montreal is now online.
We are on the lookout for a new business manager to join our team and help our studio to grow and to reach new clients. We are a small studio and would only need help one or two days a week. If you are interested (or know someone who is), please email us at hello@lombaertstudio.com with a short introduction, your CV and day rate. Our studio is located in East London but work can be done remotely.
Thanks
How often do you think about sustainability? Do you see it as an integral part of a project, or a nice ‘bonus’? Our process is all about experimentation and play, but if there is one thing we do not joke around on, it’s the environment. We still see too many design projects that do not take sustainability seriously using single use plastic, unnecessary wrapping or materials that cannot be recycled; this is simply unacceptable.
As designers, we have a responsibility to be part of the solution and only create products of the highest standards in terms of sustainability. In the end, it’s our lives that we protect.
Even if this isn't the start we were hopping for, we wish you all a Happy New Year.
We see 2021 as a turning point for the studio, with new challenges and a focus on pushing our branding and digital services. We are very excited by the opportunities ahead and hopeful about the future, where we can all be together again.
Mostly let’s finally tackle climate change. We are at a turning point and this is the year to take action as individuals while also supporting politicised actions. If you have a project about the environment and its protection, please get in touch with us; we would love to be involved. Let’s make this planet green again!
Here is a sneak peak of some of our experiments for Ballantynes of Walkerburn, a Scottish based family business. We hand-drew bespoke letters to form the logo and make it truly unique to their brand. The proportion, weight and width of the letters were inspired by British vintage signs. The added curves brought more personality to the design, avoiding the stereotype of bold modernist typefaces.
We had a fantastic time working with Ballantynes of Walkerburn and will share more of the design very soon.
We are delighted to be featured on Creative Boom for our work on 'Unfinished Business: The fight for Women's Rights'.
We are taking this opportunity to announce that the exhibition will now be extended until August. We are very excited that more people will get an opportunity to discover the fascinating stories presented in the exhibition.
The twelfth edition of Biennale Internationale Design de Saint-Étienne explores the theme of bifurcation through six physical exhibitions and a series of events.
We are delighted to take part in the festival alongside our long term collaborators Plaid London. We will design the exhibition 'Domesticité' curated by Catharine Rossi, Jana Scholze and Penny Sparke. Opening 28 April.
A couple of days ago we spoke with Design Week about our thought process behind the design of 'Unfinished Business: The Fight for Women's Rights'. Thank you to Design Week to give us the opportunity to speak with Plaid about this fantastic exhibition.
Our new exhibition 'Unfinished Business' opened today at the British Library. It highlights the many voices of the women’s rights movement in the UK through integrated displays of photography, books, paintings, film and immersive audio visual pieces. The exhibition also focuses on contemporary activist groups and aims to provide visitors with a momentum to dig deeper and get involved.
The exhibition design focuses on creating a welcoming and inclusive environment, attempting to embody the feeling of movement and activity. It is an environment which offers respite to some of the more sensitive materials on display, creates spaces for reflection and contemplation, as well as collective and celebratory areas.
Unfinished Business: The Fight for Women's Rights at the British Library was due to open in October 2020. As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, the exhibition has been delayed and is now opening on the 23rd of October. We are looking forward to sharing with you images of this fantastic exhibition.
