Brands are more than identities, they are atmospheres, narratives, and sensorial experiences. My work turns vision into visual worlds that feel timeless, editorial, and alive.
(01) About
Oriel is a London studio for crypto and digital design. The work sits at the point where a project has to look like itself: name, mark, site, and the culture that gathers around it. How people show who they are, who they sit with, and what they value — on a screen and in a room.
Most of the interesting questions here are cultural, not technical. A launch needs a public face before anyone reads the whitepaper. A community needs a tone of voice before it has a gathering. A site has to feel considered the first time someone lands on it, and still feel that way six months later when they come back with friends.
It is a small practice on purpose. One person, a short list of projects, nothing handed off to a production line. You deal with the person doing the work, from the first conversation to the last detail. References come from designers, contemporary art, architecture, independent type, and the quiet design of a well-run room.
The studio works with founders, collectives and brands who care how something feels as much as how it functions. Early ideas are welcome. The brief can be a paragraph. The output is identity, digital, and the culture around it — made to last longer than a news cycle.
(i) Small on purpose
A short list of projects at a time. Fewer clients, more attention, and a single point of contact.
(ii) Online and in the room
Communities form on screens and around tables. The work has to hold in both: feed, site, invitation, evening.
(iii) Built to last
Launches move fast. Identity should not. Fewer, better decisions that still make sense in five years.
(iv) Taste before volume
Restraint is a design tool. If it would not sit well in a good room, it does not go on the site.
(02) Disciplines
The public face of a projectIdentity, launch and presence. How a project looks and sounds before anyone explains the technology — so the first impression is cultural, not technical.
Sites and stories on a screenWebsites, interfaces and motion for things that live online. Designed to feel considered rather than loud, and to work as well on a phone in a taxi as on a laptop at a desk.
Name, mark and voiceNaming, logos, typography and tone. The handful of decisions that make something recognisable in a feed, on a site, and across a table.
Community around the workEditorial, gatherings and the writing around a project. How it holds people once they arrive, and how it stays interesting after the launch week ends.
(03) Approach
Work starts with a conversation, not a deck. The aim is a single, argued direction — type, colour, voice, and how the project should feel in a room as much as on a screen — then making everything from that one point of view.
A short call or a coffee in London. What the project is, who it is for, and how it should feel when someone first meets it.
References, type, colour and tone. One direction, argued well, rather than a menu of options to vote on.
Identity, site and launch material made together, so the name, the screen and the invite speak with the same voice.
Guidelines and light support as the community grows. The work should keep working once it is out in the world.
InfluencesArchitecture, contemporary art, independent type foundries, digital culture, and the quiet design of a well-run room.
(04) Studio notes
On identity
In crypto, the technology often arrives first and the culture is left to catch up. The studio works the other way round. Name, mark and tone are treated as the public face of the work — the thing someone remembers after a conversation, not the thing they have to Google.
On gathering
People gather on servers, in group chats, and in actual rooms. The same voice has to work in all three. Editorial, invitations and the small rituals around a project matter as much as the homepage. If it only works as a screenshot, it is not finished.
On London
London is where art, architecture, nightlife and digital culture sit in the same week. The work is made for that overlap: projects that feel at home online and still hold up when you walk into a room. Clients can be anywhere. The practice is here.
(05) Selected directions
Directions the studio works in. These pictures are references for those worlds, not a client list.
(01) Launch
How a project looks and sounds before anyone explains the technology. Naming, mark, colour, launch site and the first pieces of social — so the culture is there on day one, not bolted on after the product ships.
Start a project →
(02) Digital
Sites and stories for things that live on a screen. Art direction, interface and motion, designed to feel considered rather than loud — and to hold up when someone opens them on a phone at a table, not only on a studio monitor.
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(03) Identity
The few decisions that make a project recognisable, online and off. A name you can say in a room, a mark that still works at the size of a stamp, type and a tone of voice that do not need a paragraph of explanation.
Start a project →
(04) Culture
How a project holds people once they arrive. Editorial, invitations, the writing around a launch, and the small rules of a community — so the culture is designed with the same care as the identity, not left to whoever shouts first.
Start a project →
(06) Portfolio
Finished work. Original illustration, campaign stills and promo film.
(01) Illustration
Two original illustrations from the same world: a character in a field of mushrooms under stars, and a world carried on the head of the character. Colour, character and atmosphere as a language of their own — the kind of world that can live on a drop, a site, or in a room.
(02) Illustration
Two original illustrations from the same world: a character in a field of flowers under a crescent moon, and at a stone threshold facing the light. Colour, character and atmosphere as a language of their own — the kind of world that can live on a drop, a site, or in a room.
(03) Marketing illustration
Original illustration made for a project's marketing. A still built to hold in a campaign — colour, object and place as one image, rather than a mark dropped onto a background.
(04) Promo video
Original logo and promo film made for a project's marketing. Motion as a short piece of campaign work — a mark that moves, built to live in a feed, a launch, or a room. Click the film for sound.
www.lockin.family ↗(07) Marketing
Art and film, key opinion leaders, partnerships and market-maker introductions. Complete the form. We review each enquiry and accept only the work that fits.
There is another way
to see this studio.
Same work, different hours. Good ideas tend to arrive late — over a long dinner, on a quiet train, or at a desk after midnight — so the site has a night mode too. Hold the glass, or use the pill at the bottom of the page.
(08) Contact
For founders, collectives and brands across crypto and digital culture who want the public face of a project to feel as considered as the work itself. Early ideas are welcome. A few lines about what you are making, who it is for, and when, is enough to start.
Good fit
New launches, rebrands, community projects, and sites that need a point of view rather than a template.
Studio
Oriel, London. Working worldwide. In person in London for conversations that are better over a table than over a call.
Still up?