Our work / Auction Houses: Sotheby’s

Auction Houses: Sotheby’s

A longstanding image production partnership — photography, retouching, calibrated colour and design across painting, jewellery, watches, antiquities and contemporary works

The partnership

Sotheby’s brings the world’s most exceptional objects to market. The imagery that surrounds those objects – in the catalogue, on the online sale platform, across pre-sale marketing and press – is one of the first things a bidder sees, and it must be worthy of the work it represents.

Blok Design Group is the image production partner behind the bulk of that imagery: photographing, retouching, colour-matching and designing the pictures that present each lot faithfully and consistently, at the volume and pace the auction calendar demands.

The brief

Sotheby’s sells across categories and continents on a calendar that never pauses. The house needed an image production partner able to match the pace and pressure of that calendar without ever compromising on fidelity to the object.

Our approach

We built the engagement around the rhythm of the saleroom, plugging directly into Sotheby’s teams and systems rather than working at arm’s length.

A single, seamless studio

Lots photographed in one creative base are colour-matched and retouched at another while the first sleeps, so a sale assembled across London, New York and Hong Kong reads as one consistent body of work.

Senior hands on every frame

Our same specialists work with Sotheby’s sales season after season, so the house’s preferences, presets and standards are held as institutional knowledge and never lost between projects.

Discretion as standard

With unreleased lots, undisclosed estimates and private consignors, the auction world runs on confidentiality. Every project is handled under the protocols Sotheby’s requires, by specialists who have spent their careers in this world.

What we deliver

Pre-sale lot photographyPaintings, works on paper, sculpture, jewellery, watches, antiquities and decorative arts, photographed faithfully and consistently across a sale
Hero creative imageryStyled, unique shoots that present standout works with standout creativity for marketing and PR
Retouching and colour correctionObjective colour, true to the object, applied at scale and at speed
Digital preparationChannel-ready files cut to the exact specifications of catalogues, microsites and online sale platforms
Print optimisationPress-ready files calibrated for catalogue printing, with screen-to-paper fidelity preserved
Catalogue and online sale designLayouts that promote each lot on its own terms while holding the visual logic of the sale together

Results

The partnership delivers value on every dimension that matters.

Intense efficiencies in cost and production

Notably lower costs than market averages, through the scale of our team and efficiency of our systems

High volume without compromise

More than three million precision images produced over the past twelve years

A team that knows the work

More than 100 senior specialists who have worked together for over twelve years

Trusted discretion

Unreleased collections and high-value pieces handled with strict security

Creative expertise

Unmatched attention to detail, preserving the authenticity and visual impact of every object

An honest partnership

Built on reliability and responsiveness, season after season