Tell us about the Bread Collective? What do you do?
We are a network of creatives coming from a variety of different disciplines, working across a a range of media, with a strong emphasis on typography and the handmade. We’re made up of graphic designers, illustrators, photographers, animators, film-makers, mural-painters and prop-makers and we find that our most exciting work comes from a cross-pollination of ideas and a mixture of outputs.
What is unique about Bread Collective compared to other creative collectives in East London?
Perhaps that we are a multi-disciplined studio, almost in a similar way to a large creative agency but with a smaller, more flexible team. We also work across a combination of projects including for the community, big brands and our more experimental personal work. We are probably most well-known for our large-scale typographic murals, which have a large visual impact and are widely seen by the public.
What were your most successful projects/exhibitions so far?
Some of our most successful projects have been the ones where we have had the opportunity to work on a large scale, such as our murals for the Southbank Centre, our recent graphics take-over at The Power of Summer pop-up cinema at Battersea Power Station. Our other favourites have been projects where we have been able to combine our various skills, for example our branding for Such & Such design shop, where we created all outputs to launch their new brand from the website to a lightbox for their shop window.
We have been really pleased with the reception we’ve had for our installation for vitaminwater at shine bright studio. We had decided to use the opportunity to experiment, so we were really happy to see that it worked as we had intended.
Tell us a bit more about your current project?
The brief from Vitaminwater was to create an interactive installation that would fill the #shinebrightstudio space. In the past we’ve focused on hand-painted 2D graphics, so we knew this project was going to push us outside our comfort zone. We had recently visited our friend Daniel Harris at The London Cloth Company who had been using 3M reflective thread in woven fabrics, and it was a material that instantly got us thinking of a way to incorporate it in to a project.
After some research, we found 3M reflective material was available in a tape product and from there we thought about constructing patterns which led on to dazzle camouflage. We’re massive fans of camouflage in general, but ‘dazzle camo’ has been a favourite for a while. We love the bold geometric shapes and clean lines, it’s also great to hand paint. The interactive element came from hiding large 3D letters in the patterns and inviting people to photograph the installation with a flash – which, in turn, would reveal the hidden word. The installation was part of the Shinebright studio so the flash effect fits really well.
Who are your favourite artists in the area?
We feel very lucky to be working an area which is filled with so many creative people making new and exciting work – it’s difficult to list them all. Friends in the area whose work we love range from the amazingly talented painter Conor Harrington, to entrepreneur and print-maker Zeena Shah.
What are you future plans?
We love being asked to work on a large scale, or being invited to create something with multiple outputs, perhaps even something we haven’t done before. It’s often challenging but it results in our most interesting work.
Social links:
Twitter: breadtweets
Facebook: www.facebook.com/breadcollective
Website: www.breadcollective.co.uk
