Practise
Practise
Practise


Passport Colour Photo Tests: Auckland, Tokyo, London, LA, 1997—ongoing

Practise is a graphic design practice based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa (Auckland, New Zealand) and Providence, Rhode Island (United States).

Originally founded in London by James Goggin and Shan James in 1999, the studio’s work includes design, creative and art direction, and occasional editing and naming, of publications, exhibitions, magazines, identity systems, record covers, environments, websites, posters, motion, campaigns, videos, typefaces, patterns, signs, and symbols for art, advertising, architectural, civic, cultural, fashion, food, hospitality, music, and publishing clients across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australasia.

“Practise” is a verb, but sounds like a noun (in British spelling, at least). Our name deliberately plays with this duality, suggesting that a graphic design studio might operate equally as a useful service (noun: a professional practice) and as a space for research, speculation, contemplation, and experimentation 
(verb: repeatedly performing activities and learning from them, e.g. “practise makes perfect”).

James Goggin is a British and/or Australian graphic designer from London via Sydney, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Arnhem, Chicago, Providence, and Auckland. He received a masters in Graphic Design from the Royal College of Art in London and founded Practise upon graduation in 1999. Alongside Practise, James has worked as a consultant to Tate Modern and Tate Britain, art director of British experimental music magazine The Wire, and Director of Design and Publishing at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. He also designs type for various projects and clients, with a number of fonts available from Swiss foundry Lineto.

Having served as a visiting thesis critic at Rhode Island School of Design from 2012 to 2016, James subsequently taught full-time in the RISD Graphic Design BFA and MFA programmes as an Assistant Professor (later Associate Professor) between 2016 and 2021. He now continues his longstanding relationship with RISD as a thesis advisor. James has previously taught at Werkplaats Typografie in Arnhem, The Netherlands, and at ÉCAL (École cantonale d’art de Lausanne) in Switzerland.

James has exhibited at museums and institutions worldwide and run workshops, lectured, and visited as critic at architecture, art, and design schools in Europe, the US, and Australasia. He contributes writing to a range of international publications, serves on the editorial board of (and art directs) Chicago-based architecture magazine Flat Out and the advisory board of New York art and culture magazine Feeeels, and was inducted as a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale in 2010. Works by Practise are included in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago Design Archive, the Design Museum of Chicago, and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Shan James is a half-Chinese New Zealand fashion, textile, and graphic designer via Hong Kong, London, Arnhem, Chicago, Providence, and Auckland. She studied architecture and painting in Auckland and ran a womenswear label with JG in London called Shan James from 1998–2002. The label was stocked by respected retailers all over the world, including Harrods in London, Barneys in New York, and Journal Standard in Tokyo. Shan’s work has been exhibited in the UK, US, and Japan, and featured in publications including British Vogue, Elle, the Evening Standard, and the Sunday Telegraph.

Shan has played a key design and management role within Practise since its founding, and has been instrumental in nurturing the sympathetic and productive relationships with long-term clients that Practise is known for. She has a special interest in colour and all the ways it is used, and is an expert in book design and production management. 

When Shan isn’t designing, she’s often in her kitchen developing recipes, then styling and photographing the dishes, posting on Instagram under the name 15 Kitchens. Shan’s recipes and food writing have appeared in a variety of design, culture, and food publications, including Feeeels, Grlsquash, and Of Juliet.

Practise Studio, 2020


Contact
Email Studio
Call +1 646 504 2635

Elsewhere
Instagram
Twitter

Some Clients

  • Art Institute of Chicago

  • Arts Club of Chicago

  • Arup

  • Barbican Art Gallery

  • British Council

  • Camden Arts Centre

  • Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts

  • City of Chicago

  • David Kohn Architects

  • David Zwirner

  • Design Museum (London)

  • Flat Out magazine

  • Ghostly International

  • Harvard Committee on the Arts

  • Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture, Chicago

  • Institute of Contemporary Art Miami

  • Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia

  • Kate MacGarry

  • Krannert Art Museum

  • Kunsthalle Basel

  • Letterform Archive, San Francisco

  • London Development Agency

  • MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge MA

  • MIT Press, Cambridge MA/London

  • Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

  • Phaidon, London/New York

  • The Renaissance Society, Chicago

  • Rizzoli

  • Studio Gang Architects

  • Tate Britain

  • Tate Modern

  • Tate St Ives

  • Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago/Paris

  • Transport for London

  • University of Chicago

  • Verso

  • Victoria & Albert Museum

  • The Wire magazine

  • White Cube

Some Teaching, Lecturing

  • AIGA, Chicago

  • ArtEZ Institute of the Arts, Arnhem

  • Auckland University of Technology

  • Barbican Art Gallery, London

  • Beursschouwburg, Brussels

  • CalArts (California Institute of the Arts), Valencia

  • Casco Office for Art, Design and Theory, Utrecht

  • Central Saint Martins, London

  • Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills

  • ÉCAL (École cantonale d’art de Lausanne)

  • Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland

  • Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn

  • Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam

  • Golden Age, Chicago

  • Harvard University, Cambridge

  • Hochschule Darmstadt

  • Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst Basel

  • IASPIS, Stockholm

  • Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia

  • ISIA (Istituto Superiore Industrie Artistiche), Urbino

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge

  • Norsk design- og Arkitektursenter DogA, Oslo

  • Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles

  • Pratt Institute, New York

  • Royal College of Art, London

  • School of the Art Institute of Chicago

  • School of Visual Arts, New York

  • Split Fountain, Auckland

  • STGU, Warsaw

  • Typography Summer School, New York

  • Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

  • Werkplaats Typografie, Arnhem

  • Yale University School of Art, New Haven

Some Exhibitions

Some Writing

Colophon
This website and the works shown here are copyright © 1999–2021 Practise. Designed by Practise, running on WordPress with Lay Theme. Typeset in Recollection Text (Vincent Chan, Matter of Sorts). 

Practise


Passport Colour Photo Tests: Auckland, Tokyo, London, LA, 1997—ongoing

Practise is a graphic design practice based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa (Auckland, New Zealand) and Providence, Rhode Island (United States).

Originally founded in London by James Goggin and Shan James in 1999, the studio’s work includes design, creative and art direction, and occasional editing and naming, of publications, exhibitions, magazines, identity systems, record covers, environments, websites, posters, motion, campaigns, videos, typefaces, patterns, signs, and symbols for art, advertising, architectural, civic, cultural, fashion, food, hospitality, music, and publishing clients across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australasia.

“Practise” is a verb, but sounds like a noun (in British spelling, at least). Our name deliberately plays with this duality, suggesting that a graphic design studio might operate equally as a useful service (noun: a professional practice) and as a space for research, speculation, contemplation, and experimentation 
(verb: repeatedly performing activities and learning from them, e.g. “practise makes perfect”).

James Goggin is a British and/or Australian graphic designer from London via Sydney, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Arnhem, Chicago, Providence, and Auckland. He received a masters in Graphic Design from the Royal College of Art in London and founded Practise upon graduation in 1999. Alongside Practise, James has worked as a consultant to Tate Modern and Tate Britain, art director of British experimental music magazine The Wire, and Director of Design and Publishing at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. He also designs type for various projects and clients, with a number of fonts available from Swiss foundry Lineto.

Having served as a visiting thesis critic at Rhode Island School of Design from 2012 to 2016, James subsequently taught full-time in the RISD Graphic Design BFA and MFA programmes as an Assistant Professor (later Associate Professor) between 2016 and 2021. He now continues his longstanding relationship with RISD as a thesis advisor. James has previously taught at Werkplaats Typografie in Arnhem, The Netherlands, and at ÉCAL (École cantonale d’art de Lausanne) in Switzerland.

James has exhibited at museums and institutions worldwide and run workshops, lectured, and visited as critic at architecture, art, and design schools in Europe, the US, and Australasia. He contributes writing to a range of international publications, serves on the editorial board of (and art directs) Chicago-based architecture magazine Flat Out and the advisory board of New York art and culture magazine Feeeels, and was inducted as a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale in 2010. Works by Practise are included in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago Design Archive, the Design Museum of Chicago, and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Shan James is a half-Chinese New Zealand fashion, textile, and graphic designer via Hong Kong, London, Arnhem, Chicago, Providence, and Auckland. She studied architecture and painting in Auckland and ran a womenswear label with JG in London called Shan James from 1998–2002. The label was stocked by respected retailers all over the world, including Harrods in London, Barneys in New York, and Journal Standard in Tokyo. Shan’s work has been exhibited in the UK, US, and Japan, and featured in publications including British Vogue, Elle, the Evening Standard, and the Sunday Telegraph.

Shan has played a key design and management role within Practise since its founding, and has been instrumental in nurturing the sympathetic and productive relationships with long-term clients that Practise is known for. She has a special interest in colour and all the ways it is used, and is an expert in book design and production management. 

When Shan isn’t designing, she’s often in her kitchen developing recipes, then styling and photographing the dishes, posting on Instagram under the name 15 Kitchens. Shan’s recipes and food writing have appeared in a variety of design, culture, and food publications, including Feeeels, Grlsquash, and Of Juliet.

Practise Studio, 2020


Contact
Email Studio
Call +1 646 504 2635

Elsewhere
Instagram
Twitter

Some Clients

  • Art Institute of Chicago

  • Arts Club of Chicago

  • Arup

  • Barbican Art Gallery

  • British Council

  • Camden Arts Centre

  • Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts

  • City of Chicago

  • David Kohn Architects

  • David Zwirner

  • Design Museum (London)

  • Flat Out magazine

  • Ghostly International

  • Harvard Committee on the Arts

  • Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture, Chicago

  • Institute of Contemporary Art Miami

  • Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia

  • Kate MacGarry

  • Krannert Art Museum

  • Kunsthalle Basel

  • Letterform Archive, San Francisco

  • London Development Agency

  • MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge MA

  • MIT Press, Cambridge MA/London

  • Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

  • Phaidon, London/New York

  • The Renaissance Society, Chicago

  • Rizzoli

  • Studio Gang Architects

  • Tate Britain

  • Tate Modern

  • Tate St Ives

  • Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago/Paris

  • Transport for London

  • University of Chicago

  • Verso

  • Victoria & Albert Museum

  • The Wire magazine

  • White Cube

Some Teaching, Lecturing

  • AIGA, Chicago

  • ArtEZ Institute of the Arts, Arnhem

  • Auckland University of Technology

  • Barbican Art Gallery, London

  • Beursschouwburg, Brussels

  • CalArts (California Institute of the Arts), Valencia

  • Casco Office for Art, Design and Theory, Utrecht

  • Central Saint Martins, London

  • Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills

  • ÉCAL (École cantonale d’art de Lausanne)

  • Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland

  • Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn

  • Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam

  • Golden Age, Chicago

  • Harvard University, Cambridge

  • Hochschule Darmstadt

  • Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst Basel

  • IASPIS, Stockholm

  • Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia

  • ISIA (Istituto Superiore Industrie Artistiche), Urbino

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge

  • Norsk design- og Arkitektursenter DogA, Oslo

  • Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles

  • Pratt Institute, New York

  • Royal College of Art, London

  • School of the Art Institute of Chicago

  • School of Visual Arts, New York

  • Split Fountain, Auckland

  • STGU, Warsaw

  • Typography Summer School, New York

  • Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

  • Werkplaats Typografie, Arnhem

  • Yale University School of Art, New Haven

Some Exhibitions

Some Writing

Colophon
This website and the works shown here are copyright © 1999–2021 Practise. Designed by Practise, running on WordPress with Lay Theme. Typeset in Recollection Text (Vincent Chan, Matter of Sorts).