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Identities, websites and products for 16 companies that move fast.

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No.23

Autumn 2026Three notes

What we are learning about brands that have to work in motion. Written by the people doing the work, four times a year.

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In this issue
Craft · Process · Case note
19 minutes of reading

Printed storyboard frames of a logo animation pinned in a grid on a studio wallA strategist pinning printed screenshots and packaging photos to a cork wall during an auditRows of metal type sorts, a line of capital As between lines of Ds, Cs and Ss
CoverA logo is a behaviour, not a drawing

  1. Craft6 min read

    A logo is a behaviour, not a drawing

    We storyboard a mark before we finalise it. If it cannot turn, split and settle on a phone screen, it is not finished.

  2. Process8 min read

    What we look for in a two‑week brand audit

    Every screen, receipt and email a customer sees, printed and pinned to one wall. The gaps show up by the second afternoon.

  3. Case note5 min read

    Naming a payments app in thirty days

    Four hundred candidates, eleven trademark searches and one word that sounds like money arriving on time.

Every note

30 notes since Spring 2021, newest first. Written by the people who did the work.

Showing 12 of 30

2026

  1. No. 23CraftSeptember 20266 min readA logo is a behaviour, not a drawingWe storyboard a mark before we finalise it. If it cannot turn, split and settle on a phone screen, it is not finished.Kayode AdebayoMotion Lead
  2. No. 23ProcessJuly 20268 min readWhat we look for in a two-week brand auditEvery screen, receipt and email a customer sees, printed and pinned to one wall. The gaps show up by the second afternoon.Freya LundStrategy Director
  3. No. 23Case noteMay 20265 min readNaming a payments app in thirty daysFour hundred candidates, eleven trademark searches and one word that sounds like money arriving on time.Anjali RaoFounder, Creative Director
  4. No. 22ProductJune 20264 min readDesign systems are a staffing decisionA component library only lasts if someone’s job description says they look after it. How we hand systems over to teams of three and of thirty.Tomás FerreiraDesign Director
  5. No. 21ProcessMarch 20263 min readThe brief we wish every client sentSix questions, one page, no mood boards. The brief that saves both sides a month, and the question most companies skip.Freya LundStrategy Director
  6. No. 21CraftMarch 20263 min readColour that survives a phone screenA brand colour is approved on a calibrated monitor and lived with on a cracked phone at full brightness. How we test colour where people actually see it.Kayode AdebayoMotion Lead

2025

  1. No. 20StudioDecember 20253 min readHiring designers who writeWe ask every designer who applies for a few lines about two projects and no cover letter. Those lines decide more than the portfolio does.Anjali RaoFounder, Creative Director
  2. No. 19CraftSeptember 20253 min readSetting a festival in one typefaceForty venues, nine nights and a single italic. What Noturna’s signage taught us about legibility at a run.Tomás FerreiraDesign Director
  3. No. 18Case noteJune 20253 min readBooking flows guests actually finishCasa Mareta’s direct bookings went from 22 to 58 per cent. Most of the gain came from three screens and one honest sentence about price.Anjali RaoFounder, Creative Director
  4. No. 17CraftMarch 20253 min readPhotography is half the brandWhy we brief photographers before we brief typographers, and the shot list we wrote for Halfpace’s first season.Freya LundStrategy Director
  5. No. 17ProcessMarch 20253 min readHow we price a websiteA fixed fee for each phase, set after two paid weeks of discovery. What actually moves the number, and why we never quote by the page.Anjali RaoFounder, Creative Director

2024

  1. No. 16StudioDecember 20243 min readWhy we work in two citiesLondon and Lisbon share a clock. On running one team across two studios, and why we will not add a third.Tomás FerreiraDesign Director
  2. No. 15CraftSeptember 20243 min readThe case for fewer typefacesMost brands we audit use four or five typefaces. Most identities we make use one, sometimes two. On what a second face has to earn.Tomás FerreiraDesign Director
  3. No. 14CraftJune 20243 min readWhat a launch film is actually forNot views. A launch film is the reference every later cut, post and advert is checked against. How we plan one so the next two hundred pieces look like it.Kayode AdebayoMotion Lead
  4. No. 13ProcessMarch 20243 min readNaming is mostly saying noA naming project produces hundreds of candidates and keeps one. The work is in the filters, and in agreeing them before anyone falls in love with a word.Freya LundStrategy Director

2023

  1. No. 12CraftDecember 20233 min readWhy we print every identity firstA screen flatters a new identity. Paper, at actual size and in poor light, tells the truth. Why nothing goes to a client for approval until we have printed it.Tomás FerreiraDesign Director
  2. No. 12Case noteDecember 20233 min readA bottle that sounds like waterWe recorded a mountain spring before we drew a single line, then moulded 1.4 seconds of it into the glass.Kayode AdebayoMotion Lead
  3. No. 11ProcessSeptember 20233 min readDesign reviews without the theatreEvery client sees work every Thursday, finished or not. How we run the review so that it produces decisions rather than reactions.Anjali RaoFounder, Creative Director
  4. No. 10ProductJune 20233 min readWriting the button before the pageWe write the words on buttons, errors and confirmations before we design the screens around them. The small words are where a product keeps or breaks its promises.Freya LundStrategy Director
  5. No. 09Case noteMarch 20233 min readPlain English for a legal productClausa’s clients could draft a contract in minutes and then spent days explaining it. One plain sentence beside every clause changed that.Freya LundStrategy Director

2022

  1. No. 08ProductDecember 20223 min readA design system is a promiseA component library is a list of things. A design system is a promise that those things will still be there, and still working, next year. What we put in writing before we build one.Tomás FerreiraDesign Director
  2. No. 08ProcessDecember 20223 min readThe week-one workshop, step by stepOne day, eight to twelve people, no slides. The agenda we run in the first week of every project, and what we take away from it.Anjali RaoFounder, Creative Director
  3. No. 07CraftSeptember 20223 min readMotion rules for people who don’t animateMost of the motion a brand ever ships is made by developers, marketers and editors, not by us. Six rules short enough to remember and specific enough to check.Kayode AdebayoMotion Lead
  4. No. 06StudioJune 20223 min readSmall shops, big launchesHollin sold its first 1,200 candles in six days. What two makers in a Yorkshire mill taught us about launching small.Anjali RaoFounder, Creative Director
  5. No. 05CraftMarch 20223 min readPackaging that photographs wellMost customers now see a product on a phone long before they hold it. So we design a pack for the thumbnail, the flat lay and the shaky kitchen photo, and only then for the shelf.Freya LundStrategy Director

2021

  1. No. 04ProcessDecember 20213 min readHow long a rebrand really takesFourteen weeks to design it, and between six months and two years before customers stop seeing the old one. Why we plan for the second number from the first meeting.Freya LundStrategy Director
  2. No. 04Case noteDecember 20213 min readA hotel website with nothing to sellNo offers, no countdowns and nine pages. In its first full season, Polcarrow sold 64 per cent of its rooms direct.Anjali RaoFounder, Creative Director
  3. No. 03Case noteSeptember 20213 min readWayfinding for a museum of printForty-one signs, two languages and the museum’s own presses. Why Casa da Estampa prints its wayfinding, and reprints it every season.Tomás FerreiraDesign Director
  4. No. 02ProductJune 20213 min readAccessibility belongs in the briefTreated as a final check, accessibility becomes a list of fixes nobody budgeted for. Written into the first page of the brief, it shapes the colours, the type and the product from week one.Freya LundStrategy Director
  5. No. 01StudioMarch 20213 min readWhy we started writing theseEight years in, we had a decision log on every project, a drawer of half-finished essays and the same questions from every new client. This is the first issue of Orvel Notes, and why there will be more.Anjali RaoFounder, Creative Director

Worth underlining

One line from each note in this issue. The rest is a few minutes of reading.

  1. If a movement cannot be described in one word, it will be interpreted in twenty different ways.

    Kayode AdebayoMotion Lead

    A logo is a behaviour, not a drawing

  2. The brand book describes the brand you meant to build. The wall shows the one your customers have met.

    Freya LundStrategy Director

    What we look for in a two‑week brand audit

  3. A good name does not sell anything by itself. It just stops getting in the way.

    Anjali RaoFounder, Creative Director

    Naming a payments app in thirty days
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