— 01Soul · deck
Threshold
For The Lantern, Vol. III · 32 plates
SetCormorant
Plates32
Run800
We make objects that other people set words inside — decks, documents, catalogues, dashboards. The work is slow and the books are open. This page is what the room looks like, what has been made in it this year, and how to engage the studio for the year ahead.
The studio's work is in templates: the disciplined, unromantic objects that other people pour content into. A deck. A document. A landing page. A dashboard. The question we keep asking is whether the object holds when the writer is tired and the reader is tired, which is most of the time.
We work in three registers — soul, genkan, cockpit — named for the rooms they belong to. A register is not a style; it is a set of rules about restraint. Choose the register first, and most of the design has already been made. What remains is the writing.
One thousand no's for every yes; the artifact is what survives the refusing.
Inkstone Press came to us with a literary trade paperback whose returns were running at twelve per cent — high enough that the next edition was at risk. The editorial was excellent. The artifact was not.
We re-set the book on a single column at a 56-character measure, in Cormorant at fourteen on twenty-three. We cut the running heads, moved the chapter numbers into the margin, and let the white space do work. Three months after the second edition shipped, returns were at three per cent and average read-through had risen by twenty-six per cent. The book had not changed; the room had.
Three currently in galleys; close by mid-July.
Working Drawings, pre-orders. Trade run autumn.
Across all engagements; not counting drafts.
Half on existing clients; half on the press.
The studio takes one in four. The rest become recommendations.
M. Tanaka (typography), A. Kerr (editorial).
| Year | Client | Role & artifact | Register | State |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26·Q2 | The Lantern | Volume designer · 32-plate quarterly | Soul | Shipped |
| 26·Q2 | Inkstone Press | Editorial & type · 2nd edition | Soul | Shipped |
| 26·Q2 | Postern Labs | Information design · SRE console | Cockpit | Shipped |
| 26·Q1 | K. Mori & Co. | Annual · 96-page bound report | Soul | Shipped |
| 26·Q1 | Atrium Press | Identity & site | Genkan | Shipped |
| 26·Q1 | Vellum (in-house) | Product shell, dark mode | Genkan / dk | Shipped |
| 26·Q3 | — in galleys | Working Drawings · studio book | Soul | In-press |
| 26·Q3 | — under NDA | Mission control · agent ops | Cockpit | In-progress |
| 26·Q4 | — under NDA | Catalogue · spring trade | Genkan | Briefed |
The room is open by introduction. If you have a project that needs the kind of slowness we work in — write to the studio at the address opposite. We answer every letter, even the ones we decline. The decline tends to be the more useful one.