Backbone Buro

Backbone is a curatorial buro that selects contemporary art and collectible design and places it in private and public interiors.

The buro had no digital presence at all. I designed the whole thing from zero: how the collection is organised, how an artist is introduced, how the buro tells its own story, and how a visitor goes from looking at a piece to asking about it.

The works carry the colour. The interface stays quiet around them.

A warm off-white ground, light large type, small letter-spaced labels and hairline rules, so ceramics, textiles and painting are never competing with the frame around them. The wordmark sets BACK, BONE and BURO on a three-row grid of letters; it opens the homepage and then hands itself over to the header.

Buying art is a conversation, not a checkout. There is no cart to fill: every path leads to an enquiry, for a single work or for a whole selection.

• Gallery

  The collection filtered by medium — ceramics, painting, works on paper, design, sculpture — and by artist, with sorting and three grid densities that morph into each other instead of jumping.

• Selection

  Visitors save works as they browse and send one enquiry for all of them. A selection has its own link and a printable sheet, so it can be passed on to a client or a partner.

• Artists

  Each artist gets a portrait, biography, exhibition history and catalogue next to their works in the gallery.

• Buro & Events

  The buro’s own story and approach, and a record of exhibitions and fairs, each event with its own page and photographs.

• Search

  One search across works, artists and pages, by title, name or material.

The same design serves two audiences.

A Russian site with a full English counterpart, and an international edition in English with its own collection, prices in dollars and a Dubai line. Layout, type and components are shared; only the catalogue differs, so the two can’t drift apart.