The Studio · On Our Practice
The studio.
Ashcroft-Pemberton is an interaction-design studio in Clerkenwell, working — slowly — on small parts of the interface that other studios consider beneath them.
What we believe.
The interface is, at its smallest scale, a series of quiet promises a product makes to a person. The button promises that something will happen. The line promises a place to rest. The placeholder promises, briefly, what the form would say if asked. These promises are the substrate of every digital relationship; we treat them with the seriousness we believe they deserve.
Most of what we do is, by industry standards, too small. A single button. A single line. A single word in grey. We accept this as a feature of the practice rather than a bug. The studio's view is that to do small work well is, paradoxically, to do large work — and that the cumulative dignity of an interface is built, finally, from the dignity of its constituent parts.
We are not — to be plain — a fast studio. We are not, as a rule, in a hurry. The work happens at the pace at which the work happens.
The rhythm of the engagement.
The studio accepts no more than four engagements a year. Each follows roughly the same arc.
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i.
The brief, slowly.
Every engagement opens with a period of listening — typically two to four weeks of generative interviews, lit review, and (where appropriate) a short retreat. We do not begin drawing until we have something to draw about.
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ii.
Foundations and provenance.
Every studio choice — colour, weight, cadence, opacity — is sourced. We can, on request, tell you where every value in a piece came from. Frequently: a museum, a recording, a manuscript, a sleeping retriever.
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iii.
Iteration as listening.
The studio prototypes early and often, in HTML and on paper. Decisions are tested in the room they will live in — matte glass, OLED, Crane Lettra — and frequently against weather.
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iv.
The artifact, finally.
Every engagement produces a single, defensible thing. We document the journey. We do not ship before we are ready. We acknowledge that this is, occasionally, inconvenient.
We charge by engagement, not by hour. The day rate, in our view, is unhelpful when the work is research-led — and the studio has, in any case, never met an hour it could divide.
Who is in the studio.
The studio is intentionally small. We work with the same hands across engagements and have, over time, acquired the rhythm of a quartet.
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J. V. Ashcroft-Pemberton
Founder · Principal Interaction Designer
Jordan founded the studio in 2019 after seven years at larger practices. Trained in interaction and typographic design. Reads in three languages, designs in one. Subject of a quietly recurring nominative tic: the hyphen is not optional.
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M.
Lead Researcher
M. runs the studio's discovery practice — generative interviews, lit review, and the difficult business of asking questions that are oblique enough to yield the answers we need. Cuts the studio's certainty by about a third, which is the right amount.
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T.
Typographer in Residence
T. holds the studio's typographic conscience and the keys to the print room. Hand-pulls every letterpress proof. Has, on more than one occasion, been moved to tears by a kerning pair.
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Walter
Retriever in Residence
Walter is a golden retriever, age thirteen and a half, whose respiration informed the cadence of Whilst™. Sleeps in the print room. Paid in Wensleydale. Currently semi-retired.
Where the work happens.
The studio occupies the upper floor of a converted carriage house in Clerkenwell, reached by an unmarked door at the end of a mews. The kitchen has, over the course of three engagements, become the studio's true reading room: above the sink hang four letterpress prints — a participant quote from each of Threshold™, Caesura™, Latent™, and Whilst™ — with a fifth, from Initial™, on the door of the print-room.
There is a corner we have come to call the scriptorium: a single reading table, a brass lamp, a copy of de Hamel, and silence. There is a print-room with a small platen press. There is, beneath the press, Walter's bed.
The studio is not currently open to the public. We are, however, happy to receive correspondence by post.
- By post
- 14a, the lower mews
london, ec1
united kingdom
Three doors out of the studio.