Blocco

A stationery house with forty products and no photographs. Every notebook, roll of tape and box is covered in a pattern from one library, and the library is small enough that the range looks like a family from across a shop floor.

Client
Fictional, self-initiated
Sector
Stationery and paper goods
Scope
Mark, pattern library, packaging, retail, screen
Method
After Sottsass and Du Pasquier
Built
CSS gradients, no image files
01

The mark

One word, set tight, with a dot doing the work an ascender would. The dot is the only part that ever changes colour, and it takes whichever shout the product is wearing.

Primary lockup with a pattern flag

The dot
Replaces the final letter. It is a full circle with a black keyline, never an outline or a ring.
Colour
The dot takes the shout of the pattern beside it. On its own it is pink.
Keyline
Three points at every size. It is what lets the mark sit on any pattern in the library.
Never
Never set the mark on a pattern without the keyline, and never fill the dot with a pattern.
02

The library

Seven marks, four shouts, and a rule that a pattern uses exactly two colours. That gives more combinations than the range will ever need, and every one of them is already approved.

Mark
Mark ink
Ground

Fixed
The seven marks and their scale. A pattern is never enlarged or rotated to fit a product.
Chosen
Two colours, from the four shouts plus cream and black.
Squiggle
Always black, on any ground. It is the one mark that does not take a colour.
Adjacency
Two patterns never touch without a black keyline between them.
Dots
Grid
Chevron
Bars
Terrazzo
Squiggle
Arc

The closed set, seven marks

03

Colour

Four shouts, a cream and a black. The shouts are all roughly the same value, which is why they need the keyline. Without it they vibrate against each other and nothing reads.

Mint#3FD3B8Writing goods. Notebooks, pads, refills.
Gum#FF7BACThe mark's dot, and anything sold as a gift.
Sun#FFC93DPrices, offers and the shop front.
Grape#7557F3Filing and storage. The dullest category gets the loudest colour.
Black#111111Every keyline and all type. Three points minimum.
04

Typography

A geometric sans that goes very heavy and very light and skips the middle, plus a monospace for anything a shop assistant has to read off a label.

Product
Outfit 800
Layflat A5
Section
Outfit 600
Ruled, dotted or plain
Copy
Outfit 300, 16 / 26
Sewn in sections so it opens flat and stays open, which is the only feature worth putting on the front of a notebook.
Label
DM Mono, tracked
A5 · 160 pp · 100 gsm · £14
Weights
Only 800 and 300. The middle weights are not licensed, so nothing can drift towards ordinary.
Tracking
Display is set at minus five per cent. The mono is the only thing tracked open.
On pattern
Type never sits directly on a pattern. It sits on a white panel with a keyline.
05

The range

Three notebooks from the writing line. Identical construction, identical label, and the pattern is the only thing that tells them apart on a shelf.

Layflat A5Ruled · 160 pp · £14
Layflat A5Dotted · 160 pp · £14
Layflat A5Plain · 160 pp · £14

Writing line, three of nine

06

Applications

On tape the pattern wraps with no label at all. On a box it becomes a band. In the shop it is the only thing doing the selling, because there is nothing to photograph.

Tape, 15 mm, four of the library

Desk setTwo pads · one tape · one folder

Gift box, 210 × 160 mm

WritingFilingTapeBasket

Forty things
for a desk

Sewn notebooks, paper tape and box files, made in one factory in Lombardy and patterned in seven ways.

Shop the range

Website

New
patterns
in

Seven marks, four colours, and a shelf that finally matches.

From £4

Point of sale card, A4

07

What breaks it

Memphis looks like it has no rules, which is exactly why it needs written ones. Remove any of these four and the range stops looking like a range within a season.

×
Do not butt two patterns Without a keyline between them the eye cannot find the edge, and both patterns turn to noise.
× Layflat A5
Do not set type on pattern Type belongs on a white panel. On a pattern it is legible in the studio and gone at arm's length in a shop.
×
Do not use three colours Two per pattern. A third makes every product look like a different brand from the one beside it.
×
Do not rescale a pattern Every mark has one size. Scaled up for a big product it stops matching the small ones, and the family breaks.