Shaw Contract

Identity, Print, Art Direction, Film, Packaging, Strategy, Copywriting
Shaw Contract is one of the world’s leading flooring manufacturers, based in Cartersville, GA. Our partnership began by creating a ‘home’ inspired concept for a new product launch, and, as often happens, the creative collaboration turned into a more extensive branding development exercise. Together, Hoffman designed a dynamic, new identity for the brand, produced an on-boarding toolkit, comprehensive brand guidelines, proprietary color palette and typographic standards. Working holistically, all brand assets were crafted in consideration of each other and consciously developed for Shaw Contract’s in-house design team to seamlessly use in all future applications and communications.
With the launch of their sustainability-driven mission, Smarter Impact, we brought Shaw Contract’s pioneering community and ecological commitments to a global audience via an engaging animation platform animated by UK-based illustrator Yukai Du.
Moving away from the traditional studio photoshoot model, Hoffman introduced Shaw Contract to an art direction format that was location-based, realistic and richly layered. Instead of providing their A&D audience with standard product shots, their new direction offered branded images imbued with ideas and context. With DIALOGUE, we paired lifestyle photography with interior architectural renderings constructed by UK design studio, Recent Spaces. The seamless relationship between photography and renders allows for the product to be observed in both micro (materiality) and macro (application) perspectives, with pairings presenting a dialogue of products and their contexts.
The COMMUNITY flooring collection is a perfect case study in the brand’s photographic evolution: During the meticulous restoration of Philip Johnson’s Schlumberger Oil Company Building, we installed Shaw Contract flooring for luxury furniture craftsmen, BassamFellows, who currently use it as their central office. The product, in relationship to the precise steel-glass-and-brick architecture and as a feature of a working environment, created a compelling narrative of notable real-life applications.
Inspired by the notion of home, we began our partnership with Shaw Contract by creating the concept for the new product launch HAVEN. From education to hospitality to executive offices, we created warm and inviting spaces to demonstrate the diversity and versatility of the collection. The product would later go on to win gold at NeoCon.