Meet the Duo Designing for “the Visionaries of Our Time”

Elizabeth Karp-Evans and Adam Turnbull of creative studio and publishing house Pacific are in the middle of a year-long collaboration with Julie Mehretu and Mehret Mandefro on the African Film and Media Arts Collective, a BMW-funded initiative spanning six countries. The project pairs international artists with local filmmakers for on-the-ground workshops and will culminate in an exhibition at Zeitz MOCAA in 2026. “We’re designing the identity, documenting each stop with local photographers, and producing short films,” Turnbull says. “It’s the full expression of what our studio does.”

Since founding Pacific in 2016, the duo has moved between publishing, design, and cultural storytelling with an unusually collaborative and artist-first approach. They’ve worked with the Studio Museum in Harlem on a major rebrand, partnered with Toyin Ojih Odutola on exhibition catalogues, and recently designed and provided art direction for Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, the Met Costume Institute’s widely distributed publication on the occasion of their annual exhibition and Met Gala. 

Whether developing websites, books, or visual identities, their work often begins with a question: how can design support, rather than overwrite, a creative vision? Below, they speak on collaboration, authorship, and why boutique publishing still matters.

Tell us about the duality of operating as both a design studio and a publisher.

Elizabeth Karp-Evans: We’re working in a very creative space that’s led by, I would say, an artistic bent. So a lot of the creative work we do at the agency, the design studio is informed by our love and understanding of art, and really being able to envision many different things from that lens. And then on the publishing side, it’s much more a space for art. We publish art books primarily and some cultural books, but here’s some crossover.

Adam Turnbull: With publications, we’re in dialogue with an artist in a similar way that we are with the project with Julie. Or if we’re branding a museum, for example, we know that the museum is in service to artists. So art and artists kind of surround a lot of the work that we do. With publications, we really like working with an artist and kind of hearing their thoughts on design and coming from less of a design perspective and it can be more of hearing ideas, more freedom.

What was a project that represented a turning point for the studio?

AT: A major turning point for our studio was when we rebranded the Studio Museum in Harlem. Our studio was fairly new and it was a project on a really grand scale. We developed everything for it, from the brand, the strategy, the brand identity, a custom font. There was an incredible amount of work to align with the vision of Thelma Golden and everyone involved with the museum. That project went on to win design awards for branding. That was really a pivotal moment for the studio.

Superfine was a milestone in bookmaking, certainly. 

Why is that?

AT: The sheer scale and volume of it, you know, I think they printed 30,000 copies of the publication. It’s on display at the Met, with the exhibition, the exhibition at large. Torkwase Dyson designed it; working with Andrew Bolton and Monica Miller was incredible.

EK: It’s definitely a milestone in terms of visibility, like Adam said. So many people came to the Met for that exhibition. Also, with Andrew and with Monica, there’s a guarantee of vision, scholarship, and those are the people that we get really excited to work with. We look to work with people who we understand to be the visionaries of our time. I really feel that way about Julie Mehretu, Thelma Golden, Andrew Bolton, and Monica Miller—all of those people are real leaders in the culture and globally. It is exciting to have those opportunities, and we don’t take them for granted.

How does your status as an independent publisher and creative studio better position you to work with visionaries and talents like the ones you do work with?

EK: We get to move through the art world, the culture world, the fashion world, the design world. The projects themselves are the connective points. But really, we’re following the ideas that we’re interested in, and things manifest in the world is second to that. So maybe the right thing to do with a client is make a film, maybe it’s to make a book, maybe it’s to build a website, maybe it’s to rebrand. Maybe it’s all those things. But at the heart of all that is the ideas and points of connectivity that we see between creative people.