Dutchscot creates beautiful adaptive identity for south London creative space The Old School Club

The consultancy, founded by former GBH designers Jacob Vanderkar and Ross Goulden, was brought on board to create an identity to replace that initially created by The Old School Club founder Inma Goodhew.

The original look used what the organisation describes as a “childlike typeface”, which when used for the word “school”, was felt to misleadingly suggest the space was solely aimed at children.

The Old School Club, which is on Lavender Hill, Battersea, was started by Goodhew as a space where adults can learn craft skills.

Dutchscot was briefed to create a new identity that demonstrated The Old School Club’s range of offers, including hosting classes, a workspace for makers and a children’s party venue.

The Old School Club says: “The identity needed to work for marketing classes, workspace and events, but not be so neutral as to appear boring. The space is multifaceted, so we needed an identity that could be as flexible as possible.”

The different colours and shapes of the identity can be configured in different ways to either suggest different spaces, create patterns, spell words relating to the business or as holding devices for different messages.

The Old School Club says: “The typeface has a sophisticated but friendly appeal and also features many shape glyphs that can be used in text to further support the identity as a whole.”

Charlie Giles, The Old School Club’s marketing manager, says the idea for The Old School Club came about when Goodhew was on maternity leave, and wanted to take part in creative activities with her son.

“She wanted to recreate her childhood where importance was placed on everything being lovingly handmade, so she started a small scale project from home teaching sewing classes to other mums, and hired a nanny to look after the children”, says Giles.

The popularity of the classes necessitated a move to the Lavender Hill premises last year.