About — Wenika Studio, est. 2014
Small studio,
long view.
We are seven designers, writers and strategists working around one long table in Lisbon. We take on eight to ten projects a year, so every client works directly with the founders.
We started with one client and one rule: never make anything we would not keep.
Inês Duarte and Tomás Reis met at a letterpress workshop in Porto. A year later they opened Wenika in a former bakery in Lisbon’s Santos district, with a borrowed softbox and a single client: a family-run olive oil press that still uses the label they designed.
Twelve years on, the studio is still small by choice. We work with founders, family businesses and independent hotels who think in decades, and we stay with most of them long after launch day.
Four rules we keep.
Fewer, better things.
Say it in one sentence.
Design for the tenth look.
Stay close after launch.
Seven people, one long table.
Meet the four who lead each project. You will work with at least two of them from the first call to launch day.
Inês Duarte
Founder & Creative Director
Draws every mark by hand before it touches a screen.
Tomás Reis
Founder & Strategy Director
Writes the one-sentence brief. Rewrites it nine times.
Mara Okafor
Design Lead
Runs packaging and print, and the studio’s paper library.
Jun Park
Art Director
Keeper of the softbox and the black seamless.
Founded in Lisbon
People in the studio
Brands launched
Countries shipped to
Kind words from juries.
Type Directors Club — Certificate of Excellence
Maison Alder
European Design Awards — Gold, Packaging
Northfold Coffee
Brand New — Best of the Year, Shortlist
Pale Harbour Hotels
D&AD — Wood Pencil, Art Direction
Studio Ostra
Clio Awards — Bronze, Launch Campaign
Vela Audio