Pearl Studio

Pearl Studio is twelve people in a Kwun Tong industrial building doing brand identity, packaging and editorial design. It was founded in 2017 by two designers who had done their time in agencies and wanted a studio where the work could be slow enough to be good.

Clients are a mix of Hong Kong food brands, cultural institutions, publishers and the occasional international project that arrives because someone saw a book the studio designed. The studio takes on a deliberately limited number of projects a year and turns down work that does not fit — including well-paid work, which the founders will tell you about candidly.

There is no account management layer. Designers speak to clients directly, present their own work and manage their own timelines, which is either liberating or terrifying depending on temperament. The studio runs a Thursday critique that everyone attends and nobody skips.