Colophon

I design things people read from the front to the back: magazines, newspapers, book series, museum catalogues, and programmes that get folded into a coat pocket. I started as a junior on a daily, where a page that was late did not run, and I have kept the habits. I ask how the press behaves before I ask what the page should look like.

I run a studio of one in Lisbon, on the third floor above a ship chandler in Cais do Sodré, and bring in the people each job needs. Most of my clients have been printing for longer than I have been alive, and most of them come to me with a press, a paper, and a staff they cannot change. I find those limits useful. They settle a lot of arguments before anyone has to have them.

I also teach one term a year at the Escola do Livro in Porto, where I make students set a page of tide tables before they are allowed to choose a typeface.