Independent studio · Lisbon000010020030040050060070080090100
BLOCKWORK
Building the grid
Studio
Ten years of proofs
We opened the plan chest and laid out a decade of press proofs. What changed, and what never did.
- KindStudio
- DateMar 2026
- Read8 min
Studio
Ten years of proofs
We opened the plan chest and laid out a decade of press proofs. What changed, and what never did.
- KindStudio
- DateMar 2026
- Read8 min
Studio
Ten years of proofs
We opened the plan chest and laid out a decade of press proofs. What changed, and what never did.
- KindStudio
- DateMar 2026
- Read8 min
Ten years, 140 projects, one plan chest. Last month we pulled every drawer out and laid a decade of press proofs across the studio floor in order, from the first job to the last.
It took two days and most of the floor. Nobody could reach the coffee machine. It was the most useful thing we have done all year.
The first drawer
The early proofs are embarrassing in the way early work should be. Too many colours. Gradients on things that should never have had gradients. A restaurant menu in four typefaces, one of them a script that looked like a ransom note at small sizes.
But the habits were already there. Every proof carries handwriting in the margins: pencil arrows, colour bar readings, the printer's initials, a date. Even in 2015 we were checking the work at the press, in person, and writing down what we saw.
The proofs are the only honest record of a studio. Presentations show what we wanted; proofs show what we shipped.
What changed
Walking the floor from left to right, the changes are easy to see:
- Fewer colours. The average palette shrank from six inks to three by 2019, and has stayed there.
- Bigger type. Headlines doubled in size; body text went up a point and a half.
- More white space. Margins grew on nearly every format, especially packaging.
- Better paper. We moved from bright coated stocks to uncoated and recycled boards, and learned to design for them.
The work became calmer and louder at the same time. Fewer elements, each one more confident.
What never did
Some things did not change at all, and those are the things we now write into every brief.
Square corners. There is not a single rounded rectangle in ten years of proofs, on any format. One blue, or something very close to it, appears in more than half the projects, usually as the one colour that has to work everywhere. And on every single proof, someone from the studio was standing next to the press when it ran.
What we are keeping
We decided three things on the floor that week. First, the plan chest stays. Digital archives are searchable, but nobody browses a server the way we browsed those drawers. Second, every new hire spends their first afternoon going through it, drawer by drawer, with whoever has been here longest. Third, we will do this again in five years, and we expect to be embarrassed by some of what we are making now.
That is how it should be. A studio that is not slightly embarrassed by its old work has stopped learning.
Lay the work out, look at all of it at once, and the next ten years become obvious.
Ten years, 140 projects, one plan chest. Last month we pulled every drawer out and laid a decade of press proofs across the studio floor in order, from the first job to the last.
It took two days and most of the floor. Nobody could reach the coffee machine. It was the most useful thing we have done all year.
The first drawer
The early proofs are embarrassing in the way early work should be. Too many colours. Gradients on things that should never have had gradients. A restaurant menu in four typefaces, one of them a script that looked like a ransom note at small sizes.
But the habits were already there. Every proof carries handwriting in the margins: pencil arrows, colour bar readings, the printer's initials, a date. Even in 2015 we were checking the work at the press, in person, and writing down what we saw.
The proofs are the only honest record of a studio. Presentations show what we wanted; proofs show what we shipped.
What changed
Walking the floor from left to right, the changes are easy to see:
- Fewer colours. The average palette shrank from six inks to three by 2019, and has stayed there.
- Bigger type. Headlines doubled in size; body text went up a point and a half.
- More white space. Margins grew on nearly every format, especially packaging.
- Better paper. We moved from bright coated stocks to uncoated and recycled boards, and learned to design for them.
The work became calmer and louder at the same time. Fewer elements, each one more confident.
What never did
Some things did not change at all, and those are the things we now write into every brief.
Square corners. There is not a single rounded rectangle in ten years of proofs, on any format. One blue, or something very close to it, appears in more than half the projects, usually as the one colour that has to work everywhere. And on every single proof, someone from the studio was standing next to the press when it ran.
What we are keeping
We decided three things on the floor that week. First, the plan chest stays. Digital archives are searchable, but nobody browses a server the way we browsed those drawers. Second, every new hire spends their first afternoon going through it, drawer by drawer, with whoever has been here longest. Third, we will do this again in five years, and we expect to be embarrassed by some of what we are making now.
That is how it should be. A studio that is not slightly embarrassed by its old work has stopped learning.
Lay the work out, look at all of it at once, and the next ten years become obvious.
Ten years, 140 projects, one plan chest. Last month we pulled every drawer out and laid a decade of press proofs across the studio floor in order, from the first job to the last.
It took two days and most of the floor. Nobody could reach the coffee machine. It was the most useful thing we have done all year.
The first drawer
The early proofs are embarrassing in the way early work should be. Too many colours. Gradients on things that should never have had gradients. A restaurant menu in four typefaces, one of them a script that looked like a ransom note at small sizes.
But the habits were already there. Every proof carries handwriting in the margins: pencil arrows, colour bar readings, the printer's initials, a date. Even in 2015 we were checking the work at the press, in person, and writing down what we saw.
The proofs are the only honest record of a studio. Presentations show what we wanted; proofs show what we shipped.
What changed
Walking the floor from left to right, the changes are easy to see:
- Fewer colours. The average palette shrank from six inks to three by 2019, and has stayed there.
- Bigger type. Headlines doubled in size; body text went up a point and a half.
- More white space. Margins grew on nearly every format, especially packaging.
- Better paper. We moved from bright coated stocks to uncoated and recycled boards, and learned to design for them.
The work became calmer and louder at the same time. Fewer elements, each one more confident.
What never did
Some things did not change at all, and those are the things we now write into every brief.
Square corners. There is not a single rounded rectangle in ten years of proofs, on any format. One blue, or something very close to it, appears in more than half the projects, usually as the one colour that has to work everywhere. And on every single proof, someone from the studio was standing next to the press when it ran.
What we are keeping
We decided three things on the floor that week. First, the plan chest stays. Digital archives are searchable, but nobody browses a server the way we browsed those drawers. Second, every new hire spends their first afternoon going through it, drawer by drawer, with whoever has been here longest. Third, we will do this again in five years, and we expect to be embarrassed by some of what we are making now.
That is how it should be. A studio that is not slightly embarrassed by its old work has stopped learning.
Lay the work out, look at all of it at once, and the next ten years become obvious.