Design Thought Leader

As Creative Directors our philosophy is to [give] designers as much freedom as possible, and only intervening when they go off track. Yet it is only possible to adopt a hands-off approach when you work with good people. If you employ second-rate designers then you have to intervene all the time.

It’s the same with the authors or the external designers we decide to work with on books. Editing is like being a Creative Director, it only works if your intervention is wanted and respected, so we’d only want to work with people who felt that our editorial or design interventions were welcome. If we were consonantly at war with an author or a designer then it probably wouldn’t be the sort of book we’d want to publish—although a bit of creative friction can often help reach a deeper and richer outcome.

Adrian Shaughnessy and Tony Brook
Founders, Unit Editions