RSA Coffee House: So Many Great Stories To Tell

The RSA was born in 1754 when 11 men met in Rawthmells coffeehouse in Covent Garden, London and declared themselves to be the “Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.”

Over the course of the past two and a half centuries the organisation has proactively united people and ideas and has many stories to tell. It wanted to tell these stories to visitors to its headquarters - RSA House on John Adam Street, London - and we were briefed to use the opportunity presented by the refurbishment of The Coffee House on a lower floor to do this.

Engaging & Informing

In short, our brief was to populate The Coffee House and adjoining rooms with stories and messages which would engage 
and inform visitors; to support the RSA in its mission to “unite people and ideas in collective action to create opportunities to regenerate our world”, and to create attractive and distinctive graphics which would complement the refurbishment of the venue, which we undertook in collaboration with Company of Cooks.

Three Elements

Our focus was three-fold. First, a story wall in The Coffee House foregrounding the RSA’s founding and mission. Second, a set of 16 boards, displayed on shelving in the Gerard, Old Archive, Doctor Cross and Dame Caroline Hascett rooms, devoted to telling some of the stories from the organisation’s rich history, and, third, an updateable message board communicating regenerative soundbites in the Dame Caroline Hascett Room.

Sympathetic & On Brand

Two key considerations in the project were creating graphic elements which worked sympathetically with the new interior design scheme, in particular the new colours which had been selected for walls and furnishings, and the RSA’s visual identity standards.

Words & Images

Our solution was to combine a strong typographic approach, based on the typeface Noe Display, with stylised line illustrations, conforming to the RSA brand guideline’s dictum that they should be “conceptual, thought-provoking and powerfully simple”. Each illustration highlights the essential message of each display board and draws visitors’ attention. To differentiate the messages, and provide more visual contrast, the boards were produced using the RSA’s three core colours but with the background colour being varied across the 16 boards.

In the case of the regenerative sound bites we created a set of eight A4 message panels and sourced an updatable display. The display, coupled with a set of design templates created for each panel, enables the Coffee House Team to update the messages with new sustainability facts, data and initiatives. 

The project encompassed, design, copy editing, artwork production, print commissioning and installation liaison, design templates and project management.

 Copyright remains with the owners of the images.