Sedley Place is a British design agency based in

Clapham Clapham () is a district in south London, south west London, England, lying mostly within the London Borough of Lambeth, but with some areas (including Clapham Common) extending into the neighbouring London Borough of Wandsworth. History Ea ...

, London and employees 35 designers, graphic artists, architects, web designers and account teams.

History

The four founding partners all met at

Wolff Olins Wolff Olins is a global brand consultancy agency that specialises in corporate identity. It was founded in 1965 in London, where its main office is still based, as well as having offices in New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles. It emplo ...

Gerry Barney Gerald Lawrence Barney (born ) is a British designer, best known for his 1965 British Rail Double Arrow, which is still in use in the UK. In 1960, aged 21, Barney started his career at the Design Research Unit (DRU) as a lettering artist, a ...

, David Bristow, Kit Cooper, Terence Griffin and set up the company in 1978. All but Barney retired from the business in 1996 after Mick Nash took over as managing director. The company operated an office in Berlin from 1987 to 2004. Barney started his career at the

Design Research Unit The Design Research Unit (DRU) was one of the first generation of British design, design consultancies combining expertise in architecture, graphics and industrial design. It was established in 1943 by the poet Herbert Read, architect Misha Black ...

designing logos like the iconic

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Comm ...

logo. The agency originally started as a graphic design agency yet evolved and increased its disciplines as client demands grew. This has been central to the agency's growth, and it now covers

typography Typography is the art and technique of Typesetting, arranging type to make written language legibility, legible, readability, readable and beauty, appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, Point (typogra ...

, architecture,

interior design Interior design is the art and science of enhancing the interior of a building to achieve a healthier and more aesthetically pleasing environment for the people using the space. With a keen eye for detail and a Creativity, creative flair, an ...

corporate branding In marketing, corporate branding refers to the practice of promoting the brand name of a corporate entity, as opposed to specific products or services. The activities and thinking that go into corporate branding are different from product an ...

, packaging,

3D graphics 3D computer graphics, sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics, are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for the purposes of perfor ...

and web design. The agency took its name from the address of its original offices situated on Sedley Place adjacent to

Oxford Street Oxford Street is a major road in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, running between Marble Arch and Tottenham Court Road via Oxford Circus. It marks the notional boundary between the areas of Fitzrovia and Marylebone to t ...

and Woodstock Street in London. This street was named after Orlando Sedley, an 18th-century furniture maker who had his workshops located there. The agency relocated to its current offices in 1985 on Venn St, Clapham.

Key projects

* The Coca-Cola

Piccadilly Circus Piccadilly Circus is a road junction and public space of London's West End of London, West End in the City of Westminster. It was built in 1819 to connect Regent Street with Piccadilly. In this context, a ''List of road junctions in the Unite ...

sign as it appears today was designed and project managed by Sedley Place in 2003, originally the world's widest curved LED screen. They are now retained by Coca-Cola to produce all content for the sign. Sedley Place also designed the very first LED sign at Piccadilly Circus for Coca-Cola, replacing their previous

neon sign In the signage industry, neon signs are electric signs lighted by long luminous gas-discharge tubes that contain rarefied neon or other gases. They are the most common use for neon lighting, which was first demonstrated in a modern form in Decem ...

. * Sedley Place has worked with Diageo for over twenty years developing brands including

Johnnie Walker Johnnie Walker is a brand of Scotch whisky produced by Diageo in Scotland. It was established in the Scottish burgh of Kilmarnock, East Ayrshire in 1820, and continued to be produced and bottled at the town's Hill Street plant, once the world's ...

(Blue, Gold, Green and Black labels), Cardhu, Talisker, Tanqueray *

VAG Rounded ''VAG Rundschrift'' or VAG Rounded (''Rundschrift'' is German language, German for 'round typeface', short of ''abgerundete Schrift'', 'rounded typeface') is a geometric sans-serif typeface that was designed as a corporate typographic voice for ...

Typeface was created by Gerry Barney, as part of a rebranding project for VW dealerships. This font, now in the public domain, is widely used and featured on all Apple laptop and computer keyboards released before 2015 when it was replaced by

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

. * From a simple verbal brief to create a spinning bottle for the Asian market the unique Revolve Bottle was created for

Chivas Brothers Chivas Brothers is a Scottish company that distills Scotch whisky. It is owned by Pernod Ricard since 2001. The company was founded in 1786, with its home being in the Strathisla distillery at Keith, Moray in Speyside, Scotland, and is the o ...

* Working with Michael Wolff (of Wolff Olins) Barney penned the now well known

Hed Kandi Hedkandi is an English record label, events and music brand owned by Ministry of Sound. Its back catalogue includes both artist albums and dance music compilations. History The Hedkandi label was founded in 1999 at radio station Jazz FM's En ...

record label logo

Clients

*Aspria *

Audi Audi AG () is a German automotive manufacturer of luxury vehicles headquartered in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. A subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group, Audi produces vehicles in nine production facilities worldwide. The origins of the compa ...

*Bar Coda *Blackwood Distilleries Ltd. *

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a cola soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. In 2013, Coke products were sold in over 200 countries and territories worldwide, with consumers drinking more than 1.8 billion company beverage servings ...

*Cumbria Tourism *

Diageo Diageo plc ( ) is a British Multinational corporation, multinational alcoholic beverage company, with its headquarters in London, England. It is a major distributor of Scotch whisky and other spirits and operates from 132 sites around the world ...

* DLB *Hope & Greenwood *Inn on the Lake *IMTV *LeisureCorp *

Leo Burnett Leo Burnett (October 21, 1891 – June 7, 1971) was an American advertising executive and the founder of Leo Burnett Company, Inc. He was responsible for creating some of advertising's most well-known characters and campaigns of the 20th cen ...

* Lowe Group *Luxe Interior *

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation, doing business as McDonald's, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain. As of 2024, it is the second largest by number of locations in the world, behind only the Chinese ch ...

*McKinney Rogers *Moorfield (Accor/Mercure Hotels) *Nina Campbell Ltd. *

Royal Mail Royal Mail Group Limited, trading as Royal Mail, is a British postal service and courier company. It is owned by International Distribution Services. It operates the brands Royal Mail (letters and parcels) and Parcelforce Worldwide (parcels) ...

*The

Gleneagles Hotel Gleneagles Hotel is a hotel near Auchterarder, Scotland. It was commissioned by the Caledonian Railway and opened in 1924. The bandleader Henry Hall performed at the hotel before the Second World War during which it served as a military hos ...

*The World ResidenSea * Hine Cognac Thomas Hine & Co. *

TBWA TBWA Worldwide is an international advertising agency whose main headquarters are in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. Since 1993, the agency has been a unit of Omnicom Group, the world's second largest advertising agency holding ...

*Tom Jago * John Vincent Power *

Volkswagen Volkswagen (VW; )English: , . is a German automotive industry, automobile manufacturer based in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Established in 1937 by German Labour Front, The German Labour Front, it was revitalized into the global brand it ...

William Grant & Sons William Grant & Sons Ltd. is a family-owned company that distills Scotch whisky and other selected categories of spirits based in Bellshill, North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It was established in 1887 by William Grant, and is run by Grant's desce ...

Former employees

Sedley Place has employed a number of notable British designers: * Thomas Manss * Michael Johnson *Petra Weisz *Adrian Burton *Paul McPherson

References

{{Reflist

External links

Sedley Place
Design companies of the United Kingdom