Attik

Soon after graduating from Batley School of Art in 1986, Simon Needham and James Sommerville together founded ATTIK in their hometown of Huddersfield, England. With a grant from the Prince’s Trust and a good deal of ambition, James and Simon set up shop in an attic bedroom in the house of James’ grandmother – the very room the company would be named after. They bought themselves the then-revolutionary Apple Mac and set about evolving the design sensibility that would eventually gain them a trip to Buckingham Palace.

The graphic style they made their initial reputation on was a combination of passionate energy – sheer creative freedom – and the discipline of form, in particular, the use of multiple layering. In fact, multi-layered energetic explosions typify what came to be known, especially early on, as ATTIK style. It was this style – best exemplified in the experimental books produced in NoiseLab – that grew the company from Huddersfield to London, and from London to the United States (New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles), with strong affiliates in both Asia and Australia.

By the mid-90s, the company became known for working in just about every medium conceivable, from broadcast to Web to music videos. As time went on, ATTIK began to centre its focus on brand communications and guardianship so as to maximise the effect of all marketing angles and platforms. With this shift in focus came a refining of the company’s design style – every bit as passionate and energetic, but now cleaner, less cluttered, more classic.

It was during this phase, in 2004, that Simon and James were invited to the royal residence to be honoured, in an audience with the Queen, for their contributions to British (and global) design. It pleased the Queen no end to learn that the £1,000 grant James and Simon had received from her son’s trust was the starting point for an exploration in progressive imaging that, like a work in progress, continues to surprise and provoke the world of design.