Origin works from one room at Lime House, in Al Quoz. Five desks, one long table, a lamp for checking print, and a wall we keep repainting. We have been offered a second room twice. Both times we said no, and we would again.
The reason is not rent. One room means everyone hears every project. When a printer calls about a Toki tin, the person drawing the Sunbase tube hears the answer, and the next proof goes better for it.
North light
The windows face north. North light is steady all day, with no hard sun across the table. We judge every swatch and proof by daylight, and this light shows ink the way a shelf will.
I check colour at the window end of the long table, between ten and three. A green that looks right there will look right in a shop. A green that only works under the lamp goes back to the printer.
The lamp is for the evening and for checking finish: a gloss lid, a foil edge, an embossed name. It is not for deciding colour.
Toki cups on the long table, the print lamp behind them.
In one room, nobody has to forward me the printer's email. I hear the problem when it arrives, and I can answer it before lunch.
Robin Valmadrid
Packaging and Printing Designer
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Origin®
The wall
The long wall holds the work in progress: proofs, contact sheets, dielines, swatches taped next to the pack they replace. There are never more than four projects on it, because we take four at a time.
Clients see it on calls. We turn the laptop round and walk the camera along it, so a founder sees their pack next to the others, at the size it really is. It is the quickest way to show where a project stands.
When a project ships, it comes down, and the tape takes some paint with it. So we repaint. A clean wall tells us the next project has room.
What one room costs
It is loud on shoot days. When Carlisle has a product set on the studio floor, the rest of us work at the far end of the long table, and calls move to the yard.
It also caps the studio. Five desks means five people, and five people can do four projects properly. We have turned down work to keep it that way, and the work we kept was better for it.
One room is a limit we chose. Most days it is the reason the work holds together.
