A side window lights up the blue lettering mural and black floor sign.

Glyphics sign painter uses traditional tools to hand paint letters on a white wall

Large black and orange letters are wrapped around a wall.

Large blue 4 3D sign overplayed on the black mat board.

The Biscuit Factory Concept designs, wall graphics and wayfinding

Home / Projects / The Biscuit Factory

plaques+directories art direction large signs outdoor offices & co-working wall signs wooden vinyl project hand painted

A fitter gives the final clean to a large black wayfinding board.

Crunch time

THE LOWDOWN

Workspace acquires and fits out interesting and historical spaces across London, kitting them out for an ever-growing crowd of workers looking to immerse themselves in a co-working culture. They asked us to come up with an original co-working wayfinding scheme for such a building in Bermondsey: “The Biscuit Factory”.

The Biscuit Factory is based on Drummond Road, it was once – you guessed it – a biscuit factory. In fact, it was the home of global confectionary brand, Peek Freans – inventor of tea-time institutions like the garibaldi, the bourbon, custard creams, and the first ever chocolate digestive.

The Biscuit Factory is now a business centre, made up of a cafe, a gym, a climbing wall, and of course four period buildings to house a co-working space. These have been restored into offices, studios, meeting rooms or workshop spaces that retain exposed brickwork, high eaves, industrial features and large windows.

Paint pots and paint brushes from the Glyphics artists tool box

Showing the installation of a split batten on a wall.

High level co-working wayfinding plan showing graphics location.

2 black sign designs part of a series of co-working wayfinding signage.

THE SPECS

The client, Workspace, requested we come up with a wayfinding scheme from scratch that suits the commercial nature of the space with its whitewashed walls and broad walkways, but also reflects the pick and mix of tenants present at the Biscuit Factory.

We began by focusing on the need to create an intuitive journey throughout the building. We knew we wanted to work with typeface assets so we explored this idea and developed wireframes and visual designs. We focused on the correlation between old and new in the building and reflected that in our choice of mediums – deciding to overlay contemporary split batten signs on top of hand painted wall graphics.

As each of the 5 floors in the workspace were decorated, we made our way around the property with a paintbrush in one hand and a screwdriver in the other, installing bespoke wayfinding, conceptualised and designed by us.

The finished product is black wood wayfinding boards, decked out with glossy floor numbers and tenant directories, in the same colourway as the emulsion graphics in the background, making powerful statements on expansive, bleached walls. We put a fresh perspective on the practical function of wayfinding, and implemented a sense of fun to loosen the mundane and the routine, which Workspace and its tenants were delighted with.