A colour, VFX and finishing studio leaves Soho — and is given a space built the way they build an image: controlled light, true neutrals, nothing left to chance.
In 2022 Coffee & TV moved from Soho to the Skipper Building in Farringdon — a colour, VFX and finishing house relocating at the moment the industry was asking why anyone should come into a studio at all.
The answer had to satisfy two readings at once. A members'-club ease for the clients who sit in on a grade and stay for the afternoon; and the discipline a finishing facility runs on — reference-grade screening, edit and grade suites, neutral surfaces, light you can trust.
Mid-rebrand, they arrived with a saturated identity and a clear instruction: make the front of house feel like somewhere you'd choose to be, and let the back of house disappear into pure function.
The threshold does the persuading. Before anyone reaches a desk they pass through a room built to behave like a living room — deep linen seating, bouclé, leather, and lamplight standing in for the overhead glare a grading suite spends its life avoiding.
Planting does the work of walls. A freestanding shelf on polished chrome columns separates lounge from workspace without closing either down, layered with the studio's own books, awards and objects so the personality reads as theirs, not styled in.
The palette was the client's, carried from the rebrand. On the social floor we let it run — burnt orange wrapping the work snugs, chrome eyeball lamps and arc sconces holding a deliberate 1970s reference.
An existing glass-block wall stayed: daylight pulled deep into the plan, and a nod to the building's own past. The discipline is knowing where the colour stops — it never bleeds into the rooms where an image is being assessed.
The bar is the social anchor — the fixed point a long edit or a client review orbits around. It runs as a barista counter through the working day and turns to service in the evening, deliberately the most generous object on the floor.
A commissioned mural runs floor to ceiling beside it: the loudest gesture in the building, placed exactly where energy should gather and nowhere near a calibrated screen. Marble, fluted timber and brushed steel keep the counter composed enough to live with all day.
Built with theatre specialists and a dedicated AV team, with grade-standard desks set in alongside. Neutral surfaces, controlled spill, seating sized for the long session — the back of house is treated as an instrument, not a backdrop.
The point is self-sufficiency: a studio that can finish, grade and present without an image ever leaving the building.
01 — WELLBEING, BUILT IN
Daylight pulled deep through glass block, planting at every turn, lamplight over glare, and quiet snugs for focus. For a team that spends its days in dark suites, comfort and light were treated as structure — not afterthought.
02 — SUSTAINABILITY AS DEFAULT
Inherited features kept rather than stripped, robust natural materials specified to last, and procurement steered toward responsible sourcing — fitting for a client that became the first B Corp-certified studio of its kind.