Mälme Studio
Mälme is a two-person studio working with founders, publishers and institutions on identity, editorial, and unhurried digital work — one engagement at a time.
Most studios are built to ship quickly and reshape themselves to whatever the next brief asks of them. We think there is another kind of practice — one that chooses fewer projects, stays with each for longer, and measures the work by how well it ages on the wall, in the hand, and in the archive.
We spend the first two weeks of every engagement reading what you have read and sitting through the meetings you sit through. Nothing is drawn until we can describe the work back to you.
We take on four engagements a year at most. Everything else is declined early — with a short note, always, and usually with a recommendation of where to go next.
You meet us on the first call, you meet us at the handover, and the drawings in between carry the same two names. No juniors holding the bag on week nine.
Every engagement ends with a bound book of decisions — not a brand-guideline deck — so the team that inherits the work can read why a choice was made, not only what the choice was.
We answer letters from former clients for a full year after handover. If a detail breaks at month eleven, it still belongs to us — and in our experience, that is where most of the real design thinking gets done.
Week 01 — Listening
A letter, a two-hour first conversation, and a reading list. No deliverables in this phase — only a short memo at the end summarising what we heard.
Weeks 02–05 — Drafting
Three directions explored in parallel — marks, typographic systems, specimen spreads. We never present fewer than two we would be willing to live with ourselves.
Weeks 06–10 — Refining
Weeks of revisions across every surface the identity will meet — stationery, publications, signage, the web. We prefer to be told what feels wrong rather than what feels right.
Week 11 — Handover
A bound book of guidelines, the working files, and a day in the studio with whoever will carry the work forward. We answer letters for a full year afterward.
Mälme came in expecting a logo and left us with a way of describing our work that our board still quotes three years on.
A finished Mälme book is the closest I have come in twenty years of publishing to an object I would want to keep in its own drawer.
They turned the annual report into something the team actually wanted to read. The following year, we asked them back for everything else.
Fixed rates, written into the engagement letter, with no hourly meter running in the background.
A single piece of writing — manifesto, positioning, or a studio statement. Two drafts, one conversation.
Identity, editorial system, and a single-page site. Eleven weeks from listening to handover.
Full identity programme plus a book or annual, signage, and a year of retainer hours for the team that inherits it.
We reply to every letter within three working days, even when the answer is a kind no.