Original Design Studio — Est. 2019Remote-first

Brands people recognise.
Products people understand.

We build distinctive identities and make websites and digital products easier to use. Explore the 40 principles behind our work, free to use in yours.

An Original by design poster with a lifted tracing-paper layer revealing its typographic sketches, alignment guides and red corrections.
01The principles

Ten disciplines. Forty laws. Published in full.

Not content marketing — the standard we review our own work against. Every principle carries its reasoning, a do-and-avoid list, and a test you can run yourself.

02Principle of the day

Access / Principle 02

Make important meaning available through text, shape or another visible cue.

Explore this principle →

How to apply it

  1. 01

    Explain errors in text

  2. 02

    Distinguish chart series beyond hue

  3. 03

    Make links recognisable within prose

Check your work

Remove colour temporarily. Can you still identify errors, selected items, links and chart series without guessing?

03Services

The work of applying them.

Seven disciplines we take on commercially. Every engagement opens with a review, because the stated problem and the actual problem differ more often than not.

04Selected work

Projects, and the reasoning behind them.

06Blog

Essays, teardowns and field notes.

Start

Tell us what you are making, and what is in the way.

A short brief is enough to begin. We reply within two working days, and we will tell you honestly if we are the wrong studio for it.