A studio that would rather finish nine things than start ninety.
We have turned down more work than we have taken, which is the only reason the work we take gets the room it needs. Everything below is the arithmetic behind that sentence.
- Founded
- 2014
- Bench
- Eleven people
- Projects a year
- Nine
- Based in
- Rotterdam
A studio shaped by the work it keeps.
Eleven people at one long table: designers, a writer, an editor and one engineer who tells the rest of us when a drawing will not survive contact with a browser. Nothing leaves the room until somebody has argued against it and lost.
- Founded
- 2014, in a borrowed loft
- Bench
- Eleven hands, one editor
- Discipline
- Identity and editorial
The people who pitch are the people who draw.
No account layer, no handover after the kickoff. The four below are who you meet in week one and who you are still speaking to at launch.
Marit Vandenberg
Founder and Creative Director
Idris Okonkwo
Principal Brand Designer
Lena Sørensen
Editor and Type Lead
Caleb Moretti
Engineering Partner
Ten years, and the parts that changed how we work.
Not a timeline of wins. These are the five moments that changed a habit, which is the only kind of milestone worth writing down.
- 2014
Two desks and a borrowed kettle
A side practice between two people who kept turning down good briefs to wait for the right one. The first wordmark we drew still hangs above the printer, mostly as a warning.
- 2017
We took the colour out
We stripped our own identity back to black, white and one grey, and the work got sharper for it. Constraint became the house style: structure first, contrast second, decoration almost never.
- 2019
The first year-long retainer
A ferry operator signed for twelve months and we hired three people to meet it. That was the year we learned to write our process down and to argue in the open rather than over a table.
- 2022
Systems instead of pages
We stopped handing over flat comps and started handing over rules. The work began outliving the projects that paid for it, which is the only measure of a system that matters.
- 2026
Nine projects, on purpose
We capped the year at nine engagements and published the number. Turning work down in public is uncomfortable exactly once, and then it is the easiest thing the studio does.
Three clients, asked a year later.
They argued us out of the project we asked for and into the one we needed. Four years on, the system is still on every hull.
Ida Sundqvist
Managing Director
Worked on
Identity and wayfinding
Two designers have joined us since launch and neither of them needed anyone to explain how the thing works. That is the whole review.
Tomás Ferreira
Founder
Worked on
Packaging system
We expected a design partner and got somebody who ran the launch with us, including the parts nobody enjoys.
Amara Boateng
Editor in Chief
Worked on
Editorial system
Whichever of these you are, the first reply comes from a partner.
You have a brief
Even a half-written one. The version you have not tidied up tells us more than the version you have.
- A paragraph about what is actually wrong
- A fixed figure and a date within a week
- Next opening is January
We answer every enquiry ourselves, including the ones we turn down.