As Birmingham celebrates World Craft City status, Unfound Studio taps into the city’s industrious heritage and commercial clout to brand Kinrise’s newest workspace.
This month, Birmingham became the first English city to be named a World Craft City – a prestigious title awarded by the World Crafts Council in recognition of its global contribution to traditional and contemporary craft.
It’s a well-earned badge for a city long shaped by design and making, from the Jewellery Quarter’s goldsmiths to the new generation of makers redefining the Midlands’ creative economy. Just a 10-minute walk from the Jewellery Quarter, one new project offers a sharp, site-specific take on this legacy.
81 Colmore Row is a freshly reimagined heritage building by workspace developer Kinrise, sitting proudly at the intersection of commerce and creativity. To bring its brand to life, Kinrise enlisted Birmingham-born studio Unfound, whose identity work subtly balances modern elegance with the grit and graft the city is known for.
Kinrise, which specialises in converting historic buildings into vibrant workspaces, has a history of placing design at the heart of regeneration. For 81 Colmore Row, their ambitions were threefold: to play a role in Birmingham’s renewal, inspire growing companies to establish a local presence and drive leasing for the space.
For Unfound, this brief called for more than a logo refresh. “We knew there were stories to uncover here,” says Creative Director Jay Topham.
“We went to the Birmingham archives – a really cool way to start a project – and found old building plans, records, and even an architecture manual revealing the building was originally built for a silversmith.”
That manual was a treasure trove, revealing that the building had also housed the Royal Bank of Scotland and once featured sculptures by two Italian goldsmiths. These discoveries became the conceptual backbone of the identity.
At the heart of the new brand is a custom coin illustration that references both the silversmith and banking heritage. It’s a nod to the building’s past but also a bold symbol of its future.
“We used the coin to express the idea of ‘coining legacy’,” explains Jay. “It subverts the idea of collecting for the sake of it and reframes legacy as something you make, not just inherit.”
This idea is further captured in a line of messaging that anchors the brand: “Futures aren’t for collecting. They’re for making.” It’s a sentiment that captures Birmingham’s working-class ingenuity and its ambitions as a growing centre of enterprise.
Visually, the team worked to strike a balance between historic weight and contemporary clarity. The logotype employs a serif typeface with subtle cuts and marks within the glyphs, making a quiet nod to the carved stone lettering found on the building’s façade. The identity is elegant but grounded, modern but never sterile.
“Kinrise is famous for beautiful, design-led spaces,” says Jay. “But Birmingham is a proud, working-class city. Luxury means something different here. The biggest challenge was creating a duality — respecting the city but bringing a little bit of the Kinrise flare.”
That sense of place is central to Unfound’s broader approach to cultural and place-based storytelling. Unfound co-founder Tebo Mpanza says: “As a studio with roots in Birmingham, we’ve lived and worked through the city’s evolution, and we know first-hand just how much potential it holds. Yes, it’s gritty. But it’s also home to some of the UK’s most exciting enterprise stories.”
That duality is at the core of the 81 Colmore Row brand. Even the decision to use the address itself as the name was deliberate.
“We agreed with Kinrise to use the Colmore name rather than its previous name, ‘Chatwin’,” explains Jay. “Colmore is a premium postcode, the centre of commerce, and we wanted to celebrate that equity.”
Birmingham Design Festival was in full swing as the identity launched, and the city’s craft credentials are now globally recognised, so the timing of the rebrand couldn’t be better. Unfound’s work speaks directly to the identity Birmingham is forging, not just as the UK’s second city but as a first-choice destination for creative and commercial talent.
“Birmingham often sits in a bit of a grey area – and I’m not talking about the weather,” jokes Jay. “It’s well connected, full of history and personality, and there’s a real appetite for something new.
But as a city, it’s humble. Its design reflects that. It’s honest. It just needs a platform to tell its story.”
With 81 Colmore Row, Unfound has built a platform not just for the building but for the city itself.
Through craft, context, and clarity, they’ve created a brand that honours the past while confidently looking ahead. In doing so, they’ve helped coin a new narrative for Birmingham that’s proud, present, and ready to be made.
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