Overprint

Four people, one room, too many drawers

Overprint started in 2019 as a two-person print shop that kept being asked to design the things it was printing. We never quite got the balance back, and that turned out to be the point.

How we work

  1. 01

    We read the whole thing.

    Before anything is drawn we read every page of what already exists — the manuals, the minutes, the complaint emails. Most briefs are answered somewhere in the material the client already owns.

  2. 02

    We make the ugly version first.

    The first pass is deliberately unstyled and deliberately shown. It is faster to argue about structure when nothing is beautiful enough to defend.

  3. 03

    We build for the handover.

    Every system ships with the rules written down and the failure cases drawn. If it only works while we are holding it, it does not work.

  4. 04

    We print it.

    Screens flatter. Anything that will end up on paper gets proofed on paper before it gets approved, at the size it will actually be read.

The people

  • Nell Braithwaite

    Nell Braithwaite

    Founder & Design Director

    Started Overprint in 2019 with a second-hand two-colour press and a client who needed a menu. Works mostly on identity systems and does the studio's colour proofing, badly and enthusiastically.

  • Tomás Reguera

    Tomás Reguera

    Principal, Editorial & Print

    Fifteen years of long documents — quarterlies, catalogues raisonnés, one very difficult dictionary. Believes most editorial problems are pacing problems and will explain this at length.

  • Aiko Serizawa

    Aiko Serizawa

    Principal, Interface & Motion

    Builds interfaces for collections that are larger than their catalogues. Came to design through archives, which is why she reads the data model before the brief.

  • Wes Okonkwo

    Wes Okonkwo

    Studio Producer

    Keeps the schedule, the estimates and the relationship with the bindery downstairs. Rewrote how the studio prices work it has not done before, and wrote about it.

Clients & collaborators

Hollow Bay Transit AuthorityArdent MaterialsThe Quarto ReviewNorthline BroadcastWren Institute of PhotographyMarrow & Pike BinderySable & AshCross Grain CooperativeThe Providence AthenaeumHalcyon Editions

What we can take on

  • Identity & Systems

    Marks, alphabets and the rules that keep them alive after we leave. Systems built to be handed over, argued with and used by people who were not in the room.

    Ardent Materials

  • Editorial & Print

    Long documents that have to be read, not admired. Grids, tables, footnotes, paper weights and the unglamorous decisions that make four hundred pages survive a first sitting.

    A Field Guide to Concrete

  • Objects & Packaging

    Things that get picked up, opened, spilled on and thrown away. Design that has to answer to a shelf, a hand and a recycling stream in that order.

    Sable & Ash

  • Interface & Motion

    Screens that hold difficult material. Archives, catalogues and broadcast systems where the interface's job is to get out of the way of the collection.

    Northline Broadcast

We take three or four projects a year and we book roughly two quarters ahead. Early conversations are free and usually useful even if we are not the right studio.

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