Making sense of art and design industries

by Crownbranch

Pentagram is a design firm led by 24 esteemed designers, who still practise design despite their ownership role within the firm. The firm’s impressive portfolio and international reach have made Pentagram well known within design industry and it is currently the world’s largest independently owned design studio. The studio’s portfolio goes back to the 70’s and includes work in graphic design, corporate identity, architecture and interior design to name a few.

The design studio is based in London with offices in New York, Berlin, San Francisco and Austin. This also reflects the firm’s clientele list and the markets that Pentagram operates in locally and internationally, with most of its clients based in the United States, UK and other parts of Europe. Some of Pentagrams noteworthy clients are The Victoria & Albert Museum, 21st Century Fox, Sotheby’s, Rolls Royce and Vanity Fair. Pentagrams client list also shows how many different markets they operate in and the reach the design studio possesses.

It is not an easy question to answer when it comes to what markets and on what basis Pentagram competes in the design industry. Opposed to design organizations who operates in a single or a few different markets, e.g. Ikea and furniture/interior design, Pentagram operates in multiple different markets. It could be fair to say that they “dip their toes” into many different markets and design disciplines.

The fact that Pentagram operates in so many different markets also makes it difficult to identify any direct competitors. You could rather look at alternatives within a single market e.g. architecture or packaging design to find design firms who could be viewed as competitors.

Something unique about Pentagrams approach to the design industry is the structure in which they operate. They explain this further on their website:

“Our structure is unique. We are the only major design studio where the owners of the business are the creators of the work and serve as the primary contact for every client. This reflects our conviction that great design cannot happen without passion, intelligence and — above all — personal commitment, and is demonstrated by a portfolio that spans five decades and all industries.” (Pentagram, 2019)

As stated above, the personal involvement from the firm owners in contact with the firm’s clientele and creating the design, is something that is rather unique. Although it is not uncommon for owners of design firms to have a background in design or be designers themselves, it is certainly more normal for owners to delegate this type of work to other designers and rather focus on more managerial tasks as the organization grows. According to their website’s biography page each owner is responsible for leading a team of designers who specialize in the same fields as the owner that is leading them. For example, owner Sascha Lobe specializes in graphic design and architecture and Domenic Lippa is well known for his work in identity, typography and print.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagram_(design_firm) https://www.pentagram.com/about https://www.pentagram.com/about/sascha-lobe https://www.pentagram.com/about/domenic-lippa