We started in a kitchen in Osu. We have not, in spirit, moved very far.

Studio Gull began in 2017, the year Ama left a London agency to teach typography part-time at the Ghana Institute of Journalism, and Sebastian quit a Berlin publisher to take a sabbatical that, eight years later, has not formally ended. They had both lost some interest in the way design was being made — pitch decks instead of work, dashboards instead of taste — and were trying to figure out a way to make a living that didn't ask them to stop noticing things.

The studio has grown slowly and on purpose. We've never been more than four people on payroll. We work with the same small group of collaborators, year after year — Yaa, who letters; Tomasz, who animates; Esi, who writes; Rune, who builds. We talk to each of them most weeks.

We are interested in books that get re-read, identities that don't get refreshed every three years, and websites you could load on the moon.

Our work has been recognised by the Type Directors Club, the D&AD Wood Pencils (twice), the Granshan competition, and — the one we mention more often than any of those — the Accra Book Fair Reader's Pick, 2022, voted on by people who actually buy books. We hold a Wednesday studio lunch most weeks. You'd be welcome if you were in town.