We produced this rather special edition of prints for Rachel Botsman. ‘Roots of Trust’ was commissioned to accompany her contribution to the 2025 London Design Biennale, reimagining a historical design artefact that changed people’s working lives. This diagram, originally created in 1855 by Daniel Callum, Superintendent of the New York and Erie Railway Company, is the first known organisational chart. Unlike top-down pyramid structures it branches out from the base in an organic network of connections and workers stations. As well as being an innovative piece of information design it is also supposed to have contributed to the decision to adopt time zones in the USA.
Due to its large size it was printed on our Columbian press. The artwork required the filing down and joining of three separate plates and, to stop the dampened paper picking up anything outside the printing surface, the voids were cleaned down with cotton buds before each printing. It took lots of tests and patience to get right but the result was worth it and, appropriately, we really appreciated Rachel’s trust in us to get it right.