Throughline Start a project

We make things that belong together.

Lisbon on the left and Osaka on the right, joined by one railway line that crosses the whole picture.
A pale pinboard with paper tickets, a sketched route map and colour chips, joined by one length of red string.

Every project starts with one question: what runs through this?

Before we draw anything, we spend a week looking for the one idea the project keeps returning to. It might be a gesture, a material, a rhythm or a promise. We write it as a single sentence, pin it to the wall, and check every later decision against it.

The sentence also tells us when to stop. If a page, a package or a room does not carry the line, it comes out, however nice it looks.

A cardboard scale model of a gallery hall with arched windows, lit by two tiny projectors, beside a ruler and a craft knife on a cutting mat.

A logo, an interface, a room and a film should feel like one thing.

Most studios give the logo to one team, the product to another and the space to a third, and the pieces meet for the first time at launch. We keep the same few people on all of it, so the blue on a door in Osaka is the blue on a screen in Lisbon.

It makes the start slower. It saves everyone the meeting where someone asks why the app and the shop look like strangers.

Awards, stamped

Twelve stamps from juries who judged the work. Eight of them belong to a project and appear on its page too.

  • Golden Rail AwardsGold, Identity, 2024Kinetic
  • Fieldstone Interaction PrizeWinner, Financial products, 2025Kinetic
  • Kiln Craft PrizeSilver, Data and software, 2025Northwind Atlas
  • Lanternlight Spatial MedalGold, Exhibition design, 2023Verdant Hall
  • Hallmark Heritage PrizeCommended, Cultural spaces, 2024Verdant Hall
  • Open Reel Film AwardsWinner, Branded film, 2025Parallel Hours
  • Pencil and Plum Type AwardsSilver, Packaging typography, 2024Oddfellow Records
  • Civic Design CommendationCommended, Public information, 2023Tidepool
  • Iberian Design GuildStudio of the year, 2024
  • Osaka Design CouncilBest small studio, 2023
  • Lisbon Makers GuildWorkshop of the year, 2025
  • Small Studio CharterCharter mark, 2025

Inside the studio

The rooms and corners where the work happens: the risograph and its ink tubs in Lisbon, the window over the rail line in Osaka, and the pinboards that travel between the two.

A risograph duplicator with two ink tubs on top, a paper feed tray and a fan of two-colour prints in the output tray.
A yellow tram climbs a narrow tiled street in Lisbon under overhead wires and washing lines, with the sun low behind the rooftops.
Looking down on a green table: a fan of coloured paper sheets with overprint swatches where they overlap, three ink tubs, a tube and a squeegee.
A window looking over an Osaka evening, a lit castle keep and a rail bridge beyond, with a red paper lantern hanging in front of the glass.
A wall chart of five coloured transit lines with station dots and clusters of sticky notes at the interchanges.
A fan of colour swatch strips below a halftone proof with registration marks and a loupe, and an offset test print where two inks have slipped.
A big station clock on a green post beside a blank blue enamel sign plate, with a green train streaking past behind.
A desk seen from above with scissors, a ticket punch, a ruler, a pencil, stamps, an ink pad and a half-torn ticket.
A gallery wall of huge cut-out shapes, an arch, a ring, a bar, a quarter disc and a half disc, standing on guide lines like a type specimen.
A coffee cup with a leaf of foam and a spoon on its saucer beside a folded paper map with a green route line ending at a coral pin.

The line so far

  1. 5 lines identity, product, space, film, software
  2. 37 stops made projects launched since 2016
  3. 2 cities Lisbon and Osaka, eight hours apart
  4. 16 weeks brief to launch, on average
  5. 94% per cent on time launched on the day we agreed

Come and find us

A sketch map of the streets around the Lisbon studio: the station, a dotted walking route and a pin on the door.

Lisbon

Portugal

Open weekdays 09:30–18:00

Rua da Boavista 41
1200-066 Lisboa
  1. 0 min Leave Cais do Sodré by the river exit.
  2. 2 min Walk up Rua da Boavista. The tram wires hum overhead.
  3. 3 min Pass the bakery on the left.
  4. 4 min The second door. Ring twice and someone will lean out of the window.
Open in maps
A sketch map of the streets around the Osaka studio: the station, a dotted walking route and a pin on the door.

Osaka

Japan

Open weekdays 10:00–18:30

Kitahama 2-1-1
Chuo-ku, 541-0041
  1. 0 min Take exit 26 at Kitahama station.
  2. 1 min Follow the canal to the picture framer.
  3. 2 min Up to the third floor.
  4. 2 min The door with the paper lantern.
Open in maps

Got a journey in mind?

Plan it as a ticket. Watch the fare and the timetable move as you choose. Tear to send.

Plan your project