A small practice with a long attention span
Prism Studio designs brand systems, packaging and digital products from two studios and one shared set of standards. We work in tight teams, stay on a project until it ships, and hand over tools our clients can actually use.
How we got here
Prism began in 2014 above a letterpress shop, with two designers, one borrowed proofing press and a stubborn belief that identity work should come with instructions. The first year was packaging for a family-run tea importer; the second added a ferry network, a music festival and a scientific journal that had not been redrawn since the seventies.
Today we are a team of 4 leads supported by a rotating bench of typographers, illustrators and motion designers. We have delivered work for 140+ clients across Lisbon and Toronto, and we still print everything before we sign it off.
Engagements usually run eight to sixteen weeks. Each one ends with a working system — components, files, guidance and a walkthrough session — rather than a PDF that quietly ages in a shared drive.
What we hold to
Clarity before decoration
We start with the argument a brand needs to make, then find the form that makes it obvious. Ornament is earned, never assumed.
Systems that survive contact
A logo is the smallest part of the job. We ship type scales, grids, motion rules and writing guidance so your team can keep building without us in the room.
Craft at production scale
We prototype on the real substrate — press proofs, folded dielines, live device builds — because a design only exists once it survives manufacturing.
Fewer clients, deeper work
We take on eight to ten engagements a year. That limit is how we keep senior designers on every file from kickoff through launch week.
The team
Every project is led by one of these four, and the lead stays on the file from discovery through launch.
Founded Prism in 2014 after eight years leading identity work in London and Lagos. Maya sets the creative direction on every engagement and still draws the first sketches herself.
Type-obsessed and press-trained. Tomas leads identity and editorial projects, and has a standing rule that no logo leaves the studio until it has been tested at 12 pixels.
Builds the design systems behind our product work. Priya writes the tokens, reviews the accessibility contrast pairs and speaks fluent enough React to argue with engineers politely.
Keeps schedules honest and printers on side. Daniel scopes every project, runs the press checks and is the reason our estimates rarely move more than a week.