The brief for nordhavn residences arrived as sixty pages of research, personas and mood boards. We read it twice, then replaced it with one page and three questions.

Every layout we make, websites included, is printed at actual size and pinned to a wall before a client sees it. It costs us about €40 a week and it is the best review process we have.

A 1961 harbour ferry, eleven usable painting days and a green that looked perfect in the studio and grey on the water. Notes from our first project with a hull.

Grammage, grain, shade and bulk decide whether a printed piece feels right in the hand. These are the notes every new designer in Lisbon gets in their first week.

Our last six identities each used a single type family. The constraint has made the work clearer, cheaper to run and easier for clients to keep in good shape.

Before we drew anything for kōen ceramics, three of us spent a week at their kiln in the hills above Kyoto. We came back with six rolls of film, a cracked bowl and most of the brief.

We price by phase, never by the hour, and we name our minimum fee on the first call. How that works in practice, and why we changed.