We were all pretty excited to be going to Pentagram as Paula Scher, one of the most influential female figures in graphic design and a pentagram partner based in the New York office was in London at the same time as us. Unfortunately she was not at the office at the same time as us but we were told she had been there earlier that day!
However we were extremely fortunate to meet Marina Willer, on the the London based partners of Pentagram who gave us a presentation on the work pentagram does to make them the leading company for brand design as well as learning a little bit on the work she does herself. Something that stood out to me about Pentagram is that each partner has there own team and each team works on their own projects, at times some partners may work together but it is very much many different branding teams working under one name where as other companies we had visited work as one.
Marina was able to give us a really clear insight as how she designs which makes it clear why big companies such as Penguin, Fisher Price and Starbucks have turned to Pentagram to create or improve their brand identity as well as why Pentagram is one of the leading design studios with one of the best reputations. A piece of advice that Marina Willer gave us is to have originality within our work and ideas and to forever push the boundaries to make our designs better. I found this very inspirational because when I design I can tend to play it safe where as I need to push myself out of my comfort zone and experiment more and push boundaries!