Give Us A Call

( 01  Journal )

Notes from
the middle
of the work

( What this is )

Written by the people doing the work, usually while it is still unresolved. No case studies dressed as essays.

Roughly one piece a month. The studio letter carries the same writing to an inbox.

Published

41 pieces
since 2021

Topics

Strategy, identity,
product, craft

Letter

One note a month
2,900 readers

Average

Six minutes
to read

( 02  Latest )

( Newest first )

••October 19, 2026•

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!
Control room desk at night
•August 4, 2026

Twelve utilities, one door: rebuilding Copperline in public

A national energy operator formed from twelve regional companies, none of whom wanted to lose their name. We ran the whole identity process where...
Printed document open on a desk
•June 12, 2026

The brief is not the problem

Clients hand you a brief and a problem, and they are rarely the same document. How we spend the first week telling them apart.
Printed paper samples laid out
•May 28, 2026

Guidelines nobody reads

A 240-page PDF is a monument, not a tool. What we write instead, and what we stopped writing entirely.
Gallery interior with visitors
•May 9, 2026

One direction, argued

Why we present a single route rather than three, and what has to be true for that to be fair to the client.
Interface wireframes on a tablet
•April 22, 2026

Prototype in week two

The earliest useful thing is usually ugly. Getting it in front of real users before the design has an opinion.
Dispatch desk at night
•April 3, 2026

Performance is a design decision

Budgets agreed before the first commit, and the three times we broke ours anyway.
Meeting table seen from above
•March 18, 2026

What the ninety-day review found

Four years of post-launch reviews, read back in one sitting. The pattern was not flattering.
Printed grid sheets on a studio desk
•February 27, 2026

Naming without the workshop

Sticky notes generate volume, not names. A smaller, slower method that survives legal.
Camera and contact prints on a table
•February 6, 2026

Photography the client can repeat

Art direction written as instructions, so the next shoot without us still looks like the brand.

( 03  Studio letter )

One note a month. No pitch.

The same writing that appears here, plus what we are reading and the occasional thing we got wrong. Unsubscribe from the first line of any issue.

( Subscribe )

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We do not sell the list, and we do not send anything else to it.

Frequency

Monthly

Readers

2,900

Issues sent

48

Average length

600 words

( 04  Archive )

( Eight shown  ·  forty-one total )

Earlier writing, newest first.

19 Dec 2025

Working with an in-house team without taking over

Process

02 Dec 2025

The cost of a second edition

Identity

14 Nov 2025

Interviews we stopped running

Strategy

30 Oct 2025

A slower handover

Product

08 Oct 2025

Colour that survives print

Craft

21 Sep 2025

Saying no to the pitch

Studio

05 Sep 2025

What a fixed fee actually buys

Studio

19 Aug 2025

Reading the numbers out loud

Process

See the full archive

Let's make
something

last​ing