Farewell Company – Good Road to Travel

Farewell Company – Good Road to Travel is the result of a one-week collaboration between Canadian-born South Africa-based designer Ben Johnston, and graphic and product designer Taarique Latiff. Combining branding, typography and product design into a ‘gentleman’s travel kit’ for a leather goods company, the project serves as a slick showcase of the pair’s design skills. We sat down with Johnston to find out they brought the branding to life…

Computer Arts: Tell us a bit about yourself…
Ben Johnston: I’m a Canadian-born 26-year-old self-taught designer who grew up in Cape Town, South Africa. After a brief stint in industrial design, I started focusing on traditional graphic design, with a preference for creating typographic/lettering illustrations from scratch. My industrial design experience gives me the ability to break the confines of 2D and 3D, enabling me to bring my designs to life.

CA: How did Farewell Company – Good Road to Travel come about?
BJ: Together with my knowledge in graphics and branding and Taarique's skill with product design and materials, we had spoken about doing a series of projects together for a while, and finally we got around to it. We both had a free week from other work and deadlines, so we decided to take advantage of that and create the whole project from concept to completion of the goods, shot and edited in seven days. The products will also be for sale.

CA: Seven days - that's pretty fast... How did the process go?
BJ: We met up and decided on the concept on the first day. I then went to the drawing board on the logo and had that finished by day two. Next up was finding samples and having everything made up. We made some of the stuff ourselves and also hand-stitched the wallets etc. All-in-all the project went from an idea to 'live' in seven days.

CA: What was your favourite part of the project?
BJ: After day two, I could step away from the computer for the whole week and actually work with my hands for a change. So I would say that was really great. Normally, apart from a few concept sketches, I very rarely ever seem to get away from the computer screen. It's a love/hate thing. I also really enjoy working with new materials, so whenever the chance arises I do some exploring. Some of the process can be seen on my instagram: benjohnston25.

CA: Did you hit any creative hurdles?
BJ: This particular project went really smoothly with only one or two hiccups. I think the combination of it being self-initiated and us already being friends as well as having a similar style and concept in mind, made it go very quickly. We ended up really liking the idea of 'one-week' projects, so this will definitely be the first of a few more projects. I think the idea of 'Graphic Furniture' is up next.

You can see more of Ben Johnston's work here, and Taarique Latiff's work here.