People Make the Brand — Beth Johnson

On this week's Talking Thursdays, we're joined by Beth Johnson, a British designer based in New York, currently Design Director at Uncommon and previously at Collins, Gretel, Johnson Banks, Pentagram and Apple. Beth grew up in Middleton Cheney, in a village of four pubs, a post office and some sheep, with a painter for a dad and a mum working in education and supporting vulnerable children. Creativity and a sense of purpose were there from the beginning, and she traces those threads through campaigning to save Southbank's skate park, an Apple internship she nearly didn't apply for, and arriving at the UN to find that her first logo would be for an entire convention. (No pressure! 😱) She talks about designing with your audience, about giving people enough space to see themselves in the work and make it their own. For Sun Day at Collins, that meant a half-drawn sun that thousands of people helped complete. For Guinness at Uncommon, it meant documenting real communities across all 50 states, working with photographers including Alex Webb and Jim Goldberg to find the stories already there. And for OFFF Barcelona, it meant turning the creative community's actual bacteria into a living festival identity. James contributed to that one without realising. She talks about words and pictures, about ideas that can outlive their execution, and about keeping enough naivety to approach a new project without deciding in advance what won't work. There's a conversation about holding onto your values inside a studio, about trust and the space people need to play, and about finding energy outside design, from photography and scuba diving to salsa and keeping plants alive. As always, it's followed by a conversation with our founder, James Horwitz. — Credits Beth Johnson Instagram - @elizabethfjohnson Website - bethjohnson.design Two Times Elliott Instagram - @twotimeselliott Website - www.xx.studio James Horwitz Instagram - @jameselliott.h