About

Oliver Barstow is an Art Director and Editorial Designer who has made books for some of the world's leading artists, museums and collectors. Approaching each project first and foremost as a reader, he develops a unique concept for each book through deep engagement with its content — one in which decisions about form, materials and production are always intimately tied to the work itself.

His projects include several books for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, among them monographs on the British painter Frank Auerbach and the Guyanese-British artist Aubrey Williams. He has made eight books for William Kentridge, including Waiting for the Sibyl (2020), which won the Best Dutch Book Design Award, and Fire Walker: William Kentridge, Gerhard Marx (2012), which won the Grand Prix in the Antalis Art of Design Award. His most recent project, Roots — Works from the Garance Primat Collection, was made for the contemporary art collector Garance Primat.

With a BA (Honours) in Literature from the University of Stellenbosch and an MFA from the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam, Barstow brings a literary and conceptual sensibility to editorial design rather than a purely formal one.

Studio Oliver Barstow was established in Johannesburg in 2010, relocated to Amsterdam in 2015, and has been based in Milan since 2023 — working closely with Italian printers whose tradition of exceptional craft is central to the studio's approach.