Calverts is a design and print cooperative, whose independence from corporate pressures allows for the increasingly rare autonomy to produce work that is subversive, socially progressive and crucially, beautiful.
It was founded in 1977 by a group of printers who had been made redundant from an arts organisation. With no redundancy package, they took control of the printing presses to kickstart their own venture.
Arthur, one of Calvert’s 12 members, reminisces, ‘This was the days of Ken Livingstone’s GLC, of punk rock and a kind of DIY attitude in the air. It was around the time I moved into Sanford coop in New Cross. It was cheap and we didn’t have a landlord – it was brilliant’.
The original founders ruminated about their future over pints in the North Star pub, like all good revolutionaries.
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