Editorial
Fathom Quarterly · 2026
The Slow Issue
A 220-page magazine about doing less, better. Set in a single typeface across four weights, with a grid you can feel but never see.
View projectArt director, editorial & identity
Design that readslike a held breath
An independent art director working in print, identity and the occasional screen, for a handful of projects a year, each given more attention than is strictly reasonable.
- 6
- Projects a year
- 14yr
- Independent
- 9
- Awards
Selected work
Three we are proud of
Identity
Maison Rivé · 2025
Salt & Stone
An identity for a coastal ceramicist, drawn from the marks a kiln leaves. The wordmark took eleven versions; the eleventh was the first one, refined.
View projectBook design
Peridot Press · 2025
Marginalia
A series of essay collections where the footnotes are the design. Reading them is meant to feel like being lent someone’s annotated copy.
View projectStudio
Small on purpose, slow by choice
I work alone, from one desk, on a small number of projects a year. That is not a stage before growth; it is the whole plan. The work I care about needs the kind of attention that does not survive being spread across a team of ten.
Everything starts on paper and ends at a press. I set my own type, I commission the photography, and I do the press check in person, because the difference between good and finished happens in the last ten per cent, and that is the part everyone else skips.
One desk, six projects a year
Print-first, from grid to press check
One typeface, used to its limit
Edited hard. The red pen is a design tool
6
Projects a year
14yr
Independent
9
Awards
1
Desk
How I work
Read, sketch, set, press
The order rarely changes. Most of the thinking happens before a single line is drawn, which is why the drawing goes quickly.
01
Read
Weeks with the material before a single layout. You cannot design a thing you have not properly understood.
02
Sketch
On paper, at speed, badly. Twenty rough directions to find the one worth taking seriously.
03
Set
The grid and the type, built once and honoured throughout, so the whole thing reads as one hand.
04
Direct
Photography and illustration commissioned to the idea, held to a standard, never bought off a shelf.
05
Refine
The unglamorous middle: kerning, widows, the tenth pass that nobody will consciously notice.
06
Press
On stock, with ink, checked in person. The design becomes an object here or it does not become one at all.
Practical
Before you enquire
Editorial and identity work generally starts around £18,000 and most land between there and £60,000, depending on extent and how much of the production I manage. I quote the whole thing, not an hourly rate, because good work should not be penalised for being done efficiently. Tell me the budget and I will tell you honestly what fits.
Contact
Tell me what you’re making
What it is, roughly when, and what you can spend. All three, ideally. The third one saves us both a fortnight of politeness.
Enquiries
studio@marfa.design
Studio
By appointment, Lisbon
Telephone
+351 21 099 4420
Elsewhere
Instagram · Are.na