Ten plain questions. Forty-eight hours. One honest answer.
If you think we might be the right studio for your commission, the most useful first step is to fill in this brief sheet. It takes about ten minutes; it tells us almost everything we need to know to write you a serious reply.
Three things worth knowing.
Before you write the brief, three things worth knowing about us so that you do not waste a Tuesday afternoon. First, we are small — four practitioners total — and we take six commissions a year. The studio is genuinely sometimes full, and when it is we say so on the contact page. Second, we charge in days, not seats; a typical engagement is forty to ninety billable days spread across three to four months. Third, we do not pitch competitively. If you are running a multi-studio pitch we will quietly bow out.
If, given those three things, you still think we might be the right hands, here is what we would like to know.
Answer them in your own voice.
You can paste the answers into an email, write them on the back of an envelope, or send them as a PDF. Length is not a virtue; clarity is. We have read brilliant briefs in two hundred words and forgettable ones in twenty thousand.
If your filing system prefers attachments, email the answers to studio@designlabyrinth.example with subject "Brief sheet". The form on this page also posts to that inbox.
What happens next.
One of the four partners reads every brief, usually within forty-eight hours. We write you back with one of three responses, and we try very hard not to write you a fourth that is fundamentally "thanks, we'll be in touch". Vagueness is a kind of cowardice.
| Response A — Yes | We think we are the right hands. We attach a one-page proposal with rooms, weeks, and a fee. You decide; we hold the slot for two weeks while you do. |
|---|---|
| Response B — Not us, but | We do not think we are the right hands, but we name a studio, foundry or freelancer who probably is. We send the introduction email if you want. |
| Response C — Not yet | We think the brief itself is not yet ready — the archive is unclear, the deliverable is hand-wavy, the budget contradicts the timeline. We write back with the specific questions we cannot answer from what you sent. |
What things tend to cost.
We publish indicative ranges because the alternative — making clients fill in a brief sheet to find out we are too expensive — is rude. These are 2025 numbers; we revise them on the studio's birthday in February.
| Atelier engagement | £ 64,000 – £ 110,000 · six to eight weeks · a single bespoke model with operator interface. |
|---|---|
| Constraint-first pipeline | £ 120,000 – £ 240,000 · ten to fourteen weeks · a model plus the validators, samplers and tooling that turn it into a working pipeline. |
| Identity programme | £ 180,000 – £ 420,000 · twelve to twenty weeks · bespoke typeface or signage system, generative components, and the constraint book that polices them. |
| One-off commission | £ 12,000 – £ 40,000 · one to four weeks · a single drawing, study, or model card. |
| Studio retainer | £ 8,500 / month · minimum twelve months · one of us on call for an existing pipeline we have shipped previously. We rarely have slots. |
We do not work for equity, do not work for credit, and do not discount in exchange for case-study rights. Case studies are negotiated at the end of the work, on the merits of the work; the price is the price.
Or write a paragraph. Whichever.
If the ten-question structure feels heavy, ignore it and send us one good paragraph. We are reading for the same thing in either case: whether the work in your head is the work we want to draw.