Best for: Companies and institutions looking for partner-led brand design with deep creative roots — particularly arts and culture, civic organisations, publishing, technology, and global brands that want craft and strategic thinking from the same senior hand.
Pentagram’s partner-led model is genuinely unlike anything else in the industry — every project is owned by a named partner with decades of category experience, which shows in work that spans the Guggenheim and Gates Foundation to Fisher-Price and SNL without ever feeling generic. The honest caveat is access: their breadth and reputation attract institutional and cultural clients first, which makes them a harder fit for companies looking for digital-first brand building.
Reviewed by Chelsea Greene
The Full Read
Pentagram was founded in London in 1972 by Alan Fletcher, Theo Crosby, Colin Forbes, Kenneth Grange, and Mervyn Kurlansky — and the organisational idea they established then is the same one running the studio today. Every partner is a practicing designer. Every partner owns the business. Every client is served directly by a partner, not handed down to a team they’ve never met.
That structural commitment is rare enough to mention at the top. Most studios at this scale run on a model where senior designers win the work and junior teams execute it. Pentagram’s partners do both. The result, over five decades and across 24 partners in four cities, is a body of work that’s harder to summarise than almost any other firm in the industry.
Pentagram’s design craftsmanship is iconic. Their strategic thinking combined with groundbreaking creativity sets them apart. The portfolio spans brand identity and strategy, products and packaging, exhibitions and installations, digital experiences, data visualisations, original typefaces, signage and environmental graphics, motion and sound. Sectors range from arts and culture to civic institutions, finance, technology, fashion, publishing, and transport. Named client work includes Mastercard (Michael Bierut and Luke Hayman), MIT Media Lab (Bierut), Sundance Institute (Paula Scher), Gates Foundation (recent rebrand), Public Theater (Paula Scher, ongoing since 1994), and dozens more across 50 years of published archive at pentagram.com/work.
The honest caveat: Pentagram has no presence on independent review platforms. There are no Clutch reviews, no verified client testimonials in a queryable format. Feedback is difficult to quantify because most of the record lives in design press, award shows, and the work itself. That is reflected in the 2/3 Reviews score — not a quality concern, but a transparency one.
Net-net: A benchmark choice for organisations that understand what senior-led, partner-committed design produces. If you’re hiring Pentagram, you’re hiring the partner. That matters.
What Pentagram Does
Work spans 15 disciplines and 18 sectors — unusually wide for a studio of this size.
Pentagram is the only major design studio where the owners of the business are the creators of the work and serve as the primary contact for every client. The 24 partners work independently and collaboratively — bringing in other partners when the scale or discipline demands it.
This shapes the engagement in a specific way. You don’t get an account manager. You get a designer-owner who built their career around work at this level. The tradeoff is that partner time is finite and selective. Pentagram doesn’t take every project that can afford them.
Selected Work
A snapshot of recent named projects. Full case studies on the agency’s site.
Gates Foundation
Brand Identity · Brand Strategy
A rebrand and identity system for a world-renowned nonprofit entering a new chapter of impact.
Guggenheim
Brand Identity · Visual Identity
Visual identity for the constellation of global art museums.
Folger Shakespeare Library
Brand Identity · Signage & Environmental Graphics
Visual identity and signage for the world’s largest Shakespeare collection in Washington, DC.
Saturday Night Live — Season 50
Brand Identity · Motion Graphics
A new identity and opening title sequence celebrating a landmark season for the legendary sketch comedy show.
Natural History Museum
Brand Identity · Brand Strategy
Moving the Museum from catalogue to catalyst with a renewed identity.
St Paul’s Cathedral
Brand Identity
Brand identity for the London landmark known as ‘The People’s Cathedral’.
Vertical
Brand Identity · Visual Identity
Visual identity for the pioneering British eVTOL (Electric Vertical Take-off and Landing) manufacturer.
MoN Takanawa: The Museum of Narratives
Brand Identity · Naming · Verbal Identity
Brand identity, naming and verbal identity for a radical new cultural destination in Tokyo.
Hire Pentagram If You Need…
- Partner-level attention throughout — no junior handoffs at any stage
- Brand identity with genuine craft rigour across print, environmental, digital, and motion
- Arts, cultural, civic, or institutional work where design heritage matters
- A studio with 50 years of demonstrated category breadth and verified senior output
- Typographic and identity work at the highest level of the discipline
Skip Pentagram If…
- Your budget is below $150K — partner time is priced at the premium it deserves
- You need deep product or UX thinking alongside the brand — Pentagram is design-first, not product-first
- You want a single integrated studio for brand, web build, and digital performance
- You need fast turnaround or a startup-pace engagement model
Independent Verification
Press
Dezeen — Mastercard rebrand coverage
Fast Company — Mastercard identity process
Fast Company — Sundance Institute identity
Platform Ratings
DesignRush — Google Reviews 4.5 · 17 reviews
Clutch — not yet reviewed
Pentagram has no meaningful public review footprint on third-party platforms. This reflects the nature of their client base and engagement model, not the quality of work.
If Pentagram Isn’t the Right Fit
COLLINS
More commercially aggressive, better suited to consumer brands and upmarket repositioning. Stronger when cultural impact and category leadership are the goal.
Prophet
Strategy-led consultancy for large companies going through change or repositioning. More consultancy-oriented, less craft-driven.
Ragged Edge
Bold, London-based challenger agency. Lower budget entry, faster pace, stronger fit for brands that want to take creative risks without the partner-tier price point.
Frequently Asked Questions
When you hire Pentagram, you work with a named partner throughout. That partner designs the work, leads the strategy, and is your primary contact from brief to delivery. Associates support the work, but the partner does not disappear after the pitch.
Yes — the portfolio includes non-profits, cultural institutions, and purpose-driven organisations alongside global corporates. Budget is the constraint, not organisational size. The $150K+ minimum reflects partner-level time, not client scale.
Both — but with a budget floor. Arts, culture, and civic work — historically where the most iconic output lives. Consumer and technology work is strong, but the studio’s sensibility and deepest archive point to cultural institutions, publishers, and organisations with a long-term identity horizon. a third of recent reviews come from sub-50-employee companies. The constraint is budget, not size.
Paula Scher (Public Theater, Sundance, Citibank), Michael Bierut (Mastercard, MIT Media Lab, Verizon, The New York Times), Natasha Jen, Emily Oberman, Giorgia Lupi, Eddie Opara, and Marina Willer are among the most widely recognised. Each partner has a distinct body of work and client relationships.
New York, London, Austin, and Berlin. Each office has its own partners and independent client relationships.
Ready to see if Pentagram fits your project?
Visit the agency’s site to view their full portfolio, or compare them against the rest of our top picks.