The thing about working with culture, creativity, and independent retail is that typically, there is no big budget involved. It is a lot of fun, though.

Zumbido is, as you guessed, a low-budget project, so we had to assist the client with most of the choices, from furniture and interiors to coffee equipment. Unfortunately, they didn't have a budget for an architect, which made things a little bit more complicated, and we had to improvise a lot.

Being low-budget also means a greater effort to create a comprehensive visual system that can be easily scaled at a low cost and be used by someone playing all the instruments: selling books, brewing coffee, doing admin work, updating the website, creating Instagram content, cleaning the bathroom. Everything must be printed on a budget home printer and be available as Adobe Express templates for simplified editing.

Are you a craftsperson or a supplier of raw materials interested in promoting and raising awareness about the sustainability of your products?
Would you like to be able to track and certify the provenance of the materials/products you use?
Finding it hard to promote your work and grow your business?
In 2026, from March to December, the TransparencyChain team will organise a free learning programme and pilot project to certify craft products using blockchain, to help you with that!

Papercraft royalty Oupas! Design made Miguel's own Action Figure to celebrate the end of Barbot Bernardo's six-month strategic support project and the beginning of a new cycle for their studio! How cool is this?

Curiosity drives innovation, and for Zé and Rute, innovation is finding old machines and understanding how they can still be useful to solve production problems. This curiosity has led to technical refinement, new ways of operating the equipment and the discovery of new solutions to the various production challenges and opportunities that arise, both in Ideal & Co, and client work . Having fun while doing it is also part of the formula: it is not uncommon to arrive at the workshop and see Zé enthusiastically showing off the machines, moulds and other equipment they bought from an old shoemaker or glove factory: “What can I do with this?”

It was the last days of summer, which in parts of the north-west of the peninsula already feel like autumn, when we finally visited Os Casares, an incredible space in Ribeira Sacra, in the heart of neighbouring Galicia.

The Casares project was conceived by Lola Fernandez, the owner of what was once her family’s cattle farm and is now an important artistic and cultural centre with a strong community focus, seeking to strike a balance between rural and urban life, art, craft and agroecology, themes that are also central to what we do here at Saber Fazer and Barbot Bernardo.

Our friend Dörte de Jesus, editor-in-chief of the wonderful The Lissome, spent a few days in Porto earlier this year and interviewed Alice for the latest edition of the Magazine.

In the four pages dedicated to Saber Fazer, you can read about Alice’s vision for craft education and the importance of structured, rigorous and high-quality curricula, as well as the importance of bringing visibility to craft and craftspeople, local resources and other topics central to what we do here at Saber Fazer and Barbot Bernardo.

We believe that even complex concepts, when simplified, taught in an accessible and inclusive way, and with proper follow-up, can be applied effectively in day-to-day practice.

With TransparencyChain, we are not just developing and testing a blockchain-based provenance tracking platform: we are empowering craftspeople, small suppliers, and vocational educators, creating the tools they need to thrive in a digital age.

We are supporting our friends at VIC NIC / Navalha with the promotion of the Portuguese chapter of the Adventurous Music Plateaux (AMP), a LIVEMX project by the Plateau Foundation (Poland).

Hosted at the iconic and much loved VIC Aveiro Arts House, a place steeped in stories and history, the event is a two-day celebration of collaboration, experimentation, and live creation.

AMP LIVEMX is part of a wider European network of events exploring the intersections of music, technology, and community.

The subject of this first Time Machine, a series of posts honouring past projects of Barbot Bernardo's founders,  is one of my dearest: the collab we proposed to our dear friend Álvaro Tavares Ramos, which consisted in a limited edition bicycle.

We wanted to create a bicycle beautiful and timeless, with a design interpreting the values and aesthetics of O Editorial, a curatorial project (and now communication agency) founded by Álvaro.

We first met the musician and producer Hugo Branco (AKA Fulano47), the mastermind behind this incredible project, a couple of years ago, when he commissioned us with the task of designing a communication strategy for all the facets of this project honouring the Branco family legacy and build a strong visual identity for their Break in Case of Emergency project (which you can see in this post).

We were in the early days of the too-hot-for-Atlantic-folks eastern Mediterranean Summer, when two of our team members, Miguel and Antonio, travelled to Nicosia for the 2025 edition of the bi-annual ABR Fest, FKA the Afrobanana Festival.

The motif for such a steamy endeavour? Our participation in TY-CO, an initiative that focuses on the ABR Festival's audience and community, featuring activities and events happening year-round in Cyprus and beyond, including in Porto and Lisbon.

We were in the last stretch of 2023 when we started a strategic design project with our friends Fios Jardins Suspensos.

In the first stage of this project, we helped them define a business and e-commerce strategy for the European Market. Then, we created a new brand strategy, which resulted in the total redesign of their identity and the development of a new Shopify Website by our design studio Estúdio Ofício .

It was a delight when, later last year, we started collaborating with The Type Founders, home to some of the most renowned type foundries from around the world.

Our strategic marketing and social media communication work started with the amazing Connary Fagen, Inc., a type foundry and studio known for its soulful typefaces with extensive and inclusive language support.

Our "Independents" are the best placemakers a city could wish for and should be cherished by all. Since 2014, we have been working with dozens of small food, retail, and creative businesses in Porto. When we look at the city map, we will find a particular area where our spotlight has been beaming more intensely: Bombarda, Porto's Art District, which makes sense. Our "thing" as strategists and designers is culture and creativity in its broader sense.

With over 75 years of experience, Comeca is a leading company supplying appliances and technology for the HORECA sector (an acronym for Hotel, Restaurant, and Café/Catering).

We started this project by creating a plan for a complete brand redesign and a new brand strategy considering the significant but exciting challenges that the clients are currently facing and to mark Comeca’s 75 anniversary.

Summer was in full bloom when Estúdio Ofício, Barbot Bernardo’s graphic design studio, kick-started the project to design the new identity for Golden Pilates, a new Portuguese pilates machines manufacturer.

Earlier this year, Mome, a private housing cooperative based in Porto, Portugal, commissioned us to help them prepare future large-scale projects to accommodate the growing number of urban cyclists' needs.

In this post you can explore the results of the survey and the key insights from a focus group session on this topic.

As the first three recommendations we published, the three I'm bringing today are essentials in our library.

We often recommend Company of One to our clients facing the scaling-up dilemma and how some options can impact their personal lives and represent a higher risk than needed. The Business of Aspiration is another classic, and we recommend it to our clients who work with consumers, especially in fashion, culture, and design. 

The Delft design guide was a "bargain bin" find. I was browsing a major retailer's design section on an ultra-discounted pop-up and found a few gems. My 2013 edition cost less than 5 euros, but it is worth all the 35€ that the publisher is asking for a 2020 revised edition.

Vai Vem, a design book publisher, was the second project supported by Barbot Bernardo's free Mentorship Programme for Social Enterprises and Not-for-profits.

This project objective was to support Vai Vem in organising its work units, which range from book publishing, education, events, and a graphic design practice.

CommunityCloth is about learning, innovation, community and… textile production. In 2023, we designed this project having as a starting point previous projects where we explored the topic of community learning.

In this post you can read why we created CommuntyCloth, what will happen during the project, and how you can participate in it.