(Project 07 / 10)
Craft — Identity, Art Direction
Stroud, UK — 2024
Sola Ceramics
Handmade tableware, photographed in use.
(Overview)
Sola is a two-person ceramics studio in Stroud making stoneware tableware for restaurants, shops and its own online store. As restaurant orders grew, the studio needed an identity and photography that would hold up on a chef’s menu credit as well as in a shop window.
Ceramics brands often photograph pieces alone on seamless white, which makes handmade work look like it came from a factory. We art-directed every shoot around use: plates stacked mid-service, bowls with food in them, shelves in the actual studio.
The identity is deliberately quiet: a lower-case wordmark, one stamp, and the clay colours of the glazes. Because each piece is different, the brand around it stays the same.
Every piece is different. The brand shouldn’t be.
(Packaging)
Stamped by hand, posted without plastic.
Online orders ship in moulded pulp inserts cut to the studio’s four standard sizes, inside a plain box stamped with the mark in iron-oxide ink. A rubber stamp costs less than one print run and means the studio never holds stock of printed boxes.
(Gallery)
Swipe — 05
01 / 05
(Wholesale)
Restaurants and shops order from a one-page trade sheet with lead times, minimum quantities and glaze samples. The same photography is supplied to stockists so the work looks consistent wherever it’s sold.
Outcome: wholesale stockists grew from [X] to [Y] in the year after launch.
Chefs now send us photos of our plates on their pass. That’s the brand doing its job.
Credits
- Client
- Sola Ceramics, Stroud
- Identity & packaging
- Morrow Studio
- Art direction
- Morrow Studio
- Photography
- [Photographer name]
- Food styling
- [Stylist name]
(Overview)
A two-person ceramics studio in Stroud making stoneware for restaurants, shops and its own store. It needed an identity that holds up on a menu credit and in a shop window.
Every shoot is art-directed around use — plates mid-service, bowls with food in them — never pieces alone on seamless white.
Every piece is different. The brand shouldn’t be.
(Packaging)
Stamped by hand, posted without plastic.
Moulded pulp inserts in four standard sizes, inside a plain box stamped in iron-oxide ink. A rubber stamp costs less than one print run.
(Gallery)
Swipe — 03
01 / 03
(Wholesale)
A one-page trade sheet with lead times, minimums and glaze samples. Stockists get the same photography, so the work looks consistent wherever it’s sold.
Outcome: stockists grew from [X] to [Y] in the year after launch.
Chefs now send us photos of our plates on their pass. That’s the brand doing its job.
Credits
- Client
- Sola Ceramics
- Identity & packaging
- Morrow Studio
- Photography
- [Photographer]
- Food styling
- [Stylist]
