FUEL are Damon Murray and Stephen Sorrell a graphic design and publishing company established in 1991.
With a focus on contemporary art and photography, FUEL have developed long-term relationships with a number of artists, galleries and publishers, specialising in the design and production of catalogues and monographs.
As a natural development of their design practice, the imprint FUEL Publishing produces books in close collaboration with artists and authors. All books are edited and designed by FUEL in the Spitalfields studio where they have worked since 1992.
FUEL also own the Russian Criminal Tattoo Archive. This unique collection comprises more than 795 original sheets of pen and ink drawings, sketchbooks and posters by Danzig Baldaev, the negatives and exclusive rights to over 600 photographs of Russian prisoners by Sergei Vasiliev, and more than 1,000 photographs from the Arkady Bronnikov collection of Soviet Police Files. In addition to providing the material for the critically acclaimed Russian Criminal Tattoo series of publications (2004-2018), works from the archive have been exhibited widely including Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin (2012) and the Saatchi Gallery, London (2013).
From the start FUEL have produced their own work outside the area of commercial design. FUEL magazine (1991-1994) was the initial outlet for their ideas, a number of which were developed into short films Original Copies (1996). The book Pure Fuel (Booth-Clibborn Editions, 1996) expanded their approach into a broader format. This was followed by Fuel 3000 (Laurence King, 2000). These publications examined accepted notions of graphic design, illustrating ideas and preoccupations to explore themes of authorship.
