Kensington Leverne<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
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COLOUR-CODING TWO MUSICAL LEGACIES<\/p>\n
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Colour does much of the heavy lifting. Island\u2019s signature Pantone 109C yellow is joined by Pantone 671C pink, referring to the label\u2019s progressive and folk period between 1967 and 1970. EMI takes a more recognisably British route, although not quite the souvenir-shop version: red, white and Yves Klein blue loosely dismantle the colours of the Union Jack. The palettes extend through colour-matched ALPI wood joinery, stainless-steel wall elements and bespoke artwork frames, turning branding into something closer to a material system.<\/p>\n
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The art collection works in much the same way, threading musical history through the architecture rather than separating it into a dedicated gallery. In the Island Records area, British Jamaican sign-painter Jorge Jacobs has produced a hand-painted mural originating from Jamaica\u2019s Nurse Signs collective. Elsewhere, archival and contemporary material sits beside commissioned works, building a visual record of the labels\u2019 shifting cultural worlds while keeping the workplace firmly in the present.<\/p>\n
![\"island](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786615811_283_island-records-emi-kings-cross-headquarters-spatial-mixtape-interesting-projects-studio-eye-designbo.jpeg\")
the redesigned headquarters brings art, music and workplace design together under one roof<\/p>\n
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A LISTENING ROOM, A KIOSK, AND VERY LITTLE CORPORATE GREY<\/p>\n
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At the centre of the headquarters, an immersive listening room is equipped with bespoke RN1 and M210 studio monitors by British hi-fi manufacturer TPI Aerospace and anchored by a work from Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller. Island\u2019s breakout area has its own custom High-Output sound system, while a purpose-built kiosk displays artist merchandise and streetwear collaborations with names including Aries Arise, Always Do\u2026 and Corteiz. Gallery, record shop and office begin to overlap \u2014 apparently nobody told the fit-out it had to choose just one.<\/p>\n
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Interesting Projects describes the headquarters as a \u2018spatial archive\u2019, using exhibition-making and curatorial thinking to frame almost a century of musical production while leaving room for whatever comes next. Together with Studio Eye, the studio has treated art, sound, colour and material as active parts of the workplace rather than decoration applied once the desks were installed. The result is an office built around the mythology of Island and EMI, but also around the people still producing it: less corporate backdrop, more inhabited cultural catalogue.<\/p>\n
![\"island](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786615811_185_island-records-emi-kings-cross-headquarters-spatial-mixtape-interesting-projects-studio-eye-designbo.jpeg\")
artworks are integrated throughout the headquarters rather than treated as decoration<\/p>\n
![\"island](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786615812_966_island-records-emi-kings-cross-headquarters-spatial-mixtape-interesting-projects-studio-eye-designbo.jpeg\")
the interiors blur the boundaries between office, gallery and cultural space<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WHEN THE OFFICE BECOMES PART GALLERY, PART RECORD SLEEVE \u00a0 Island Records and EMI have unveiled their redesigned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":853654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[3806,449,458,459,64,63,460,134,4340,2904],"class_list":["post-853653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-architecture-in-the-uk","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-renovation-and-restoration-architecture-and-design","tag-where-people-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=853653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/853654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=853653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=853653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=853653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"island](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/island-records-emi-kings-cross-headquarters-spatial-mixtape-interesting-projects-studio-eye-designbo.jpeg\")