Studio · Denver, Colorado
Nine people who
draw for a living.
We started in a rented room on Larimer Street with two people and one client. We are nine now and the room is bigger, but the way we work has not changed much. We do the strategy and the drawing with the same hands.
We work mostly with companies that make physical things: freight, instruments, food, transit, care. Their surfaces are unforgiving and they tell you fast when something does not work. A logo that only survives a slide is not finished.
We take four to six projects a year. That is not a positioning statement, it is arithmetic: nine people cannot do more than that without handing the drawing to somebody else.
2016
First client, still a client
9
People, all in one room
30
Identities delivered
4–6
Projects a year, on purpose
We prefer
this order.
Always
01
We find out what you are.
Interviews with the people who answer the phone, a look at everything you already have, and a written position you can argue with.
Two to three weeks
02
We draw.
Fewer directions than you expect, each finished enough to judge. We test on the hardest surface first, because everything easier comes free after that.
Four to six weeks
03
We hand it over properly.
Files, rules, and a working session with whoever will actually use them. We stay reachable after, and we do not charge for the phone call.
One week, then open
The hands
on the pen.
Denver · since 2016
DR
Dana Reyes
Founder, strategy
MA
Milo Achterberg
Founder, type and mark
JO
June Ostrowski
Design director
TB
Theo Balfour
Senior designer
PR
Priya Raman
Designer, systems
HW
Hal Winters
Naming and copy
NF
Nora Fenn
Production and files
SO
Sam Okoro
Studio manager
Why bring it
to us.
Four honest reasons
We draw for the hardest surface first
A mark that holds on a repainted truck door, on stitched workwear, and on a fax-quality bill of lading will hold anywhere else without another thought. Most identities are drawn the other way around, and that is why they thin out in the field.
The person who pitched it draws it
There is no strategy team upstairs and a studio downstairs. Nine people, one room, and the same hands from the first interview to the last file.
You get the rules, not just the art
Every mark leaves here with drawn minimum sizes, stated tolerances, and named surfaces. Your sign supplier does not have to call us, and neither do you.
We take four to six projects a year
It means we say no more than we say yes. It also means nobody on your project is running three others at the same time.
Tell us what
you are working on.
A few sentences about the company and what you need. We read every message. Reply within two business days.