About
Contour is an independent design studio — maps, signage, letterpress, and illustration — founded in 2016, drawing everything by hand before it is finished digitally.
Contour started in 2016 when a single cartographer got tired of turning down hand-drawing work — signage, letterpress jobs, brand illustration — in favor of template-based park maps that looked identical from one client to the next.
Every commission still starts on paper, whether that's a trailhead map, a run of letterpress cards, or a brand's botanical mark. We sketch, ink, and only bring work into digital tools once the composition is right by hand.
Five stages, same order every time.
Site or subject visit
Someone from the studio visits in person — a trailhead, a shop, a client's own reference shelf — and sketches what actually matters, not just what a template would include.
Pencil composition
The piece is composed by hand before anything touches a screen — scale, layout, and which lines carry the most weight.
Ink pass
The pencil layout is inked, lettered, and checked against reference photos for anything the first visit missed.
Digital finishing
The inked drawing is scanned and cleaned up digitally — color, print prep, or a web-ready version, depending on what the client needs.
Proof check
Before final delivery, a printed or physical proof is checked by hand to confirm nothing reads wrong once it's out of the studio.
Four people, one drafting table.
R. Okafor
M. Lindqvist
D. Amaral
S. Whitfield
Have a project that needs a hand?
We work directly with parks departments, campuses, shops, restaurants, and small brands — no agency middleman, one person assigned per project start to finish.