Pentagram uses the plant life surrounding Grenfell Tower to embody the non-profit, Grow to Know

In the aftermath of the 2017 Grenfell Tower tragedy, political inaction has been rife, with responsibility for the disaster still yet to be taken. Whilst campaigners still push for justice and hundreds still grieve, something has surprisingly blossomed from such a frightening context: guerrilla gardening. 

Grow to Know, founded by local Tayshan Hayden-Smith, is a non-profit organisation that is cultivating creativity and community by widening access to gardening and green spaces in the local area surrounding Grenfell. Tayshan had no gardening experience prior to the events, but began growing in a liminal concrete space underneath the Westway dual carriageway in North Kensington – just below the tower. Having started as a way of healing, protesting and bringing the community together, the Grenfell Garden of Peace opened in 2020 as a non-profit aiming to bring both joy and justice to Grenfell. 

Turning to Pentagram for a new identity that reflected Grow to Know’s evolving ethos, ambition and mission, Marina Willer and her team created a flexible and, importantly, adaptable identity that truly championed the non-profit. “We were looking for some kind of mark making using elements from nature, to represent the life in the gardens that they create out of derelict spaces,” the Pentagram partner tells It’s Nice That.

Taking Tayshan’s description of the garden’s purpose as a space to create a new blueprint for the community, Marina practically and physically translated that metaphor into cyanotype prints, a process which uses sunlight to make outlines and shapes. “They are printed directly from leaves and flowers from such spaces,” Marina says. “A selection of those prints became the family of symbols to represent the project,” celebrating life, growth and community healing. 

The striking cyanotype prints not only represent the non-profit and garden space through its content but embody the hands-on, manual work that the organisation is promoting – an approach that Marina and her team are acquainted with. “I always work with my team to create very unique identities that are relevant to the specific purpose of the project,” she says, often opting for more unusual methods of creation. But the reverence of this project is one felt more acutely. “The plants are chosen from the area around Grenfell Tower,” Marina ends, “our studio is in the neighbourhood and we felt that it was our duty to contribute to this cause, and create something of memorable meaning.”