Unit Editions - Adrian Shaughnessy and Tony Brook

After meeting Adrian Shaughnessy, myself and fellow class mates attended his and Tony Brooks talk regarding their recently published book Studio Culture. I was unaware of the book until a number of colleges introduced me to their copy. Although I was only able to have a quick look through it, I was intrigued to know about how and why it was produced. As Adrian had published a number of books in the past (including How To Be a Graphic Designer Without Loosing Your Soul), I was certain Studio Culture was an important booklet to my collection. As the talk began, Tony Brook introduced himself and explaind a brief background to his working history. He explained that he was fascinated with graphic design and feels inspired and motivated by just talking about the subject.

In his words, Tony described himself as a ''Design Addict''. Tony was co founder and creative director for design studio Spin, which is now highly regarded as one of the best agencies in the country. He explained that he has always felt upbeat and highly motivated with a book. The design and feel of a particular paper weight or how the cover is printed inspired him greatly towards publication. Tony explained while designing the book Logo, Spin had lost profit when being published. Tony felt this was a learning curve but was intrigued to produce more publications.

Adrian began to explain his background and how his involvement with Tony had begun. Co founder of Intro in 1989, the London based agency had mainly worked on Music sleeves. Clients such as Bobby Newton, Fabric and Depeche Mode helped Intro become a high class agency. After fifteen years, Adrian had got restless and explained that he found it difficult to work on projects with guidelines and demands from other people. Adrian explained ''I got frustrated with no information to people on the grubby areas in design. What do I do if a client hates six weeks of work and refuses to pay?'' After publishing his first book Sampler: Contemporary Music Graphic, he then went on to publish How To Be A Graphic Designer Without Loosing Your Soul.

As both Tony and Adrian had relative careers, they had ironically met in a pub, which led to them both discussing publication and the areas they could both explore. From here, Unit Editions was slowly coming together. They explained the book is about how studios all around the world are organised differently. They document twenty eight leading studios with interviews from creative directors and designers and the book documents how studios work and how organised they are within deadlines and dealing with briefs. Unit Editions , founded by both Adrian and Tony are currently developing more books to be published in the future.