We enlivened traditional signage for the refurbishment and expansion of Pembroke College at Cambridge University by experimenting with material processes.

The new scheme by architects Haworth Tompkins includes a masterplan, the restoration of a number of historically significant buildings as well as a new performance space.

The new signage and wayfinding needed to be at once cohesive and sensitive to a range of building styles and surfaces. Tasked with an uppercase serif for the typography, we chose brass as the main material. This we treated in various ways throughout the building depending on the play of light and each sign’s substrate: we used brass lettering on dark stained-wood lintels, laser-cut, stencilled typography on hand-sanded brass for sandstone walls, and screenprinted directly on white walls elsewhere.

This site-specific approach enabled us to harness the studio’s knowledge of craft and materials in service of an institutional identity.