01
Kgosi Roastery
Food and drink / 2025Six single origin coffees, one shelf, and eleven competitors within arm's reach. We built a system where the roast is legible at two metres and the name is legible at ten.
Johannesburg / Est. 2021 / Two people
Brands that
behave like
they mean it.
We are a two person creative studio. We decide what a company is, draw the thing that says so, and build the places it lives. Every price is published before the work starts.
Taking work from October
- Kgosi Roastery
- Marula Capital
- Thabile
- Keyes Art Foundation
- Sesi Health
- Cederberg Cellars
- Umoya Studios
- Ntsika Group
- Braam Provisions
- Lehae Property
01The position
Most studios sell you a look. We sell you a decision, and then draw it.
The hard part of a brand is agreeing what the company actually is. Once that is written down on one page and signed off, the design follows quickly and nobody in the review argues about blue. Skipping it is what turns a nine week project into a nine month one.
The two people who present the work are the two people who make it. Nothing is handed to a junior after the pitch, because there is no junior to hand it to. The trade is capacity, and we will tell you honestly when the next slot opens.
02Selected work
Five years of decisions, four of them shown here.
02
Marula Capital
Financial services / 2025A fifteen year old advisory firm with two billion under management and a website that looked like a side project. We rebuilt the identity around the one thing the competition could not copy: the track record.
03
Thabile
Beauty and personal care / 2024A formulator with four finished products, no name, and a manufacturing slot booked for eleven weeks' time. We named it, packed it, and had it selling before the slot closed.
04
Keyes Art Foundation
Arts and culture / 2024A gallery identity has one job that most gallery identities get wrong: to disappear behind the work on the wall and reappear on the invitation. Ours is a typeface, a grid, and almost nothing else.
03What we sell
Eighteen services, every one of them priced in public.
The catalogue on this site is the same catalogue our quotes are built from, so nothing can be advertised here that cannot be priced there.
- 01BrandDeciding what the company is, and drawing the thing that says so. This is where a project should start, and it is the work that makes everything after it cheaper.4 services
- 02DesignThe identity applied to physical objects: packs, print, documents and the building itself. Specified so a printer can quote it and a crew can install it.4 services
- 03DigitalSites and stores, designed and built by the same two people. Nothing gets presented that cannot ship.4 services
- 04ContentThe photographs and the words a brand needs constantly, made in batches so you are not commissioning them one at a time.4 services
- 05ConsultingTime and judgement, for companies with a team of their own who need direction rather than production.2 services
62
Projects delivered
9
Industries worked in
5
Years in practice
96%
Clients who return
04In their words
What they said afterwards.
We asked for a logo. They talked us out of it in the first meeting and gave us a system instead, and the system is what got us onto a shelf.
Kagiso Sithole
Founder, Kgosi Roastery
Kgosi Roastery / Food and drink
The first version they showed us was mostly numbers and white space and I hated it. Six months later it is the reason we are shortlisted for things we used to be told we were too small for.
Refilwe Dube
Managing Partner, Marula Capital
Marula Capital / Financial services
I had a manufacturing date and nothing else. They ran the whole thing backwards from that date and we did not miss it by a day.
Thabile Ngwenya
Founder, Thabile
Thabile / Beauty and personal care
The workshop was worth the whole fee on its own. It was the first time in six years that all nine practice managers agreed on anything in writing.
Dr Nomsa Khumalo
Clinical Director, Sesi Health
Sesi Health / Healthcare
05How it runs
Five phases. Nothing is drawn in the first two.
This is the actual schedule, not an idealised one. The single largest cause of a project running over is waiting for an approval, which is why we ask early who is giving it.
- 01
Listen
Week oneWe start with the business, not the logo. What it sells, who buys it, what the person deciding is actually weighing up, and what has already been tried. Nothing is designed in this phase.
- 02
Position
Weeks two and threeOne written page: what the brand stands for, who it is for, and what it will not do. Everything after this is measured against that page, which is what keeps a project from drifting.
- 03
Make
Weeks four to eightTwo directions, drawn far enough apart that choosing between them is a real decision. One is developed. You see it applied to the things you will actually use, not floating on a grey background.
- 04
Hand over
Week nineFiles, fonts, a written system, and the artwork ready for the printer. Whoever picks it up after us can apply it without phoning us, which is the point of writing it down.
- 05
Stay
Ongoing, optionalMost clients keep us on a retainer for the work a brand generates after launch. Some do not, and take it in house. Both are a good outcome.
06The studio
Angel Maile
@angelmaileFounder and Creative Director
Angel runs the design side of the studio: identity, art direction, and everything that ends up on paper.
Bonolo Mathabela
@bonolomathabelaFounder and Managing Director
Bonolo runs strategy and the digital build, and is the one who tells you what a thing will cost before it starts.
07Journal
How we think, written down.
Strategy / 14 July 2026
A brand is a decision, not a look
Most rebrands fail in the meeting, not the studio. If nobody has decided what the company is, no amount of drawing will settle it.
The studio / 2 June 2026
Pricing creative work without flinching
We publish a catalogue and quote fixed prices before starting. Here is why hourly billing is a bad deal for both sides.
Craft / 21 April 2026
The case for one typeface
Our own identity is two colours and one family. Not because we ran out of ideas, but because we could not defend the third thing.
08Also from us