noThrow design Shop and Studio Design
noThrow design is an Eco Design collective based in Barcelona and London, building and creating products using sustainable materials, applying the “circular economy” business model. Their studio and showroom is located in the Gracia neighborhood, where not only do they sell their own products, but also offer different products from other local designers as well.
I was given the opportunity to intern with them for several months in 2020-2021. The idea was to find an accessible, more suitable and sustainable way for them to combine, tag and advertise their different products in their showroom, consistent with their newly updated web and circulating products sold by the other local designers.
How Could I Help?
After an extensive review of the local market and walking through ideas with the main designers, we decided on a style that would not only suit their taste and style, but would also offer them the possibility to be able to ticket and label the new designs that come in and out of the store with consistency and without wasting either energy or excessive printing and ink and paper. The concept had to be similar to the swing tags, posters and to the recent material that had already existed in the shop in order for the clients to be able to continue to identify with their products.
My suggestion was to use a large and small stamp to create a type of “outline” or “graph” which would then give consistent structure but also give the opportunity for the written information to be modified for each individual and each individual designer or from noThrow themselves.
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- concept one
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- concept two
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- concept three
Final Choice
A determined grid and two different sizes of large rubber stamps was decided upon.
Mock up Examples with Grid
noThrow Packaging Design
To continue with the modified poster and swing tag design, the packaging also needed to be adjusted. The following proposals were as follows:
Final Packaging Concept
Simple and clean, this can easily be adjusted to a wall poster as well, using the stamped or printed grid.
Brand Manual noThrow design
The compiled information studied and received was then used to create a small brand manual: not only for myself, but also for the clients and the current and future designers and interns working with them. It also gives the brand a stronger backing of their already decided brilliant philosophy of design.
*A simple modified change was made on the secondary logo, as requested by the directors of noThrow, which had been their intention for quite some time. The modification can be seen in the brand manual, found in the link above.
WorkPod Brochure
As the interests rose in noThrow design’s “WorkPod”, I was given a text and asked to design a brochure or PDF for their clients. I was given the option to choose the style and design. Given the nature of noThrow’s sustainability ethos and the pictures with the color of the wood, I choose a set of greens while using Futura and Open Sans, from the brand manual.
I was a bit hesitant regarding the second page as I wasn’t exactly sure what they wanted to precisely convey to the client. Given the sustainable design, was the interior material important? The windows? How and where it could be built? Was their ethos important to mention? I therefore sent this as the first draft to show an example.
They then mentioned they would prefer a sketch, floor plan or 3D image if possible, rather than several pictures of the same design.
Here they liked the concept and the set up, but preferred all colored photos and a better version of the 3D sketch. Therefore they used their references and sent me some created via SketchUp.
Final Brochure
This was the final result with the colored photos and the 3D SketchUp render of the noThrow design’s Work Pod. I chose to use a trifold brochure- giving the option to fit in all of the information in two pages, but also giving the reader an opportunity to take in each section of the explanation, along with the best choices of photos.
All the information regarding their products, shop, design and contact can be found at the following website: