I completed several projects for the Crown Suppliers but this was the largest. The HA pale blonde ash range represents some of the best quality, craftsman-made office furniture they produce. I worked with the client and the experienced catalogue photographer Nick Walker to design, construct, light and shoot a room-set.
We designed the set on a split level so that all furniture is displayed well, items further back still stand out, a colleague prepared visuals in advance. We realised we’d need lots of room so we booked the largest space available in Holburn photographic studios.
In the first day of the week of the shoot models were cast, a representative selection of furniture items selected and props hired as carpenters commenced construction of our room-set. Next day furniture started to arrive so we checked each item in order to choose and take detail shots as room-set construction was completed around us. On day three our selected models were photographed posed in the completed set. ‘Birds-eye’ overhead views of the models posed as at work were also shot as the room-set was being taken down. Some final detail images were taken on day four before the furniture and props were collected and the set disassembled. Everything had been carefully planned then built, furnished, photographed and completed within four working days.
In my final layouts photographs fill each page. Typography is structured and tightly gridded in an asymmetric layout around detail shots or outline drawings. Main feature from cover to cover, edge-to-edge, is our large images of the full room-set.
Not all of the furniture range was available for us to photograph. A written description cannot easily replace an image in such circumstances. So on the final spread simple line drawings, based on an isometric grid, give an immediate indication of the style, shape and scale of the complete office furniture range.
Stuart Russell 