​​A design language built on nuance – translating Laurencin’s aesthetic into contemporary form.

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For the first solo exhibition of Marie Laurencin’s work in London since 1947, we developed a visual identity that responded to her distinctive visual language – intimate, stylised, and emotionally charged. While her avant-garde peers leaned into rupture and abstraction, Laurencin’s work remained insistently decorative and psychologically rich. The identity aimed to honour that divergence without resorting to pastiche.

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Typography played a central role. We selected a contemporary typeface that resists strict classification – soft curves and quiet elegance echoing Laurencin’s own language of ambiguity and finesse. The title was set with formal control – balanced, but with a subtle spatial tension that echoed Laurencin’s compositions. A single painting became the visual and emotional centre of the identity. Chosen for its compositional balance and tonal subtlety, the portrait reflects Laurencin’s approach to figuration: not realist or abstract, but suspended in a liminal space of femininity and feeling. Its powdered palette – greys, creams, rose and teal – informed the colour system. A muted teal, drawn directly from the painting, became the chromatic anchor across printed and environmental materials.

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The exhibition graphics were integrated with restraint – precise, intentional, and designed to hold space for the work rather than explain it. The system extended Laurencin’s world into the present not through reinterpretation, but through careful translation – tracing the emotional syntax of the work, rather than imposing our own.

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Artist: Marie Laurencin

Graphic Art Direction: Billie Temple
Galleries: Nahmad Projects