Retail, Food, Creativity and Placemaking.
How we have been helping Porto's independent retail and creative community thrive.
We might think the “housing crisis” is all about houses, but no. The real estate landscape we are in is jeopardising not only those caught outside the property ladder and cannot afford to buy a place to call home but also the thousands of small independent businesses that, for decades, have been the main drivers of commerce and attraction of our city centres.
Small independent enterprises cater to niche audiences and a broad range of customers, locals and tourists alike. They are often the sole element of diversity in a landscape dominated by high street chains.
The real estate situation we are in, and the galloping rent and property prices in central locations, and even in peripheral areas, are putting tremendous pressure on retailers.
In Porto, the rise of tourist numbers is not following the rent hike: getting more customers is just not enough to pay rent.
Our “Independents” are the best placemakers a city could wish for and should be cherished by all. However, the bottom lines are shrinking, and business owners must run the extra mile and up-skill their management knowledge to avoid a situation where the landlord is the only “winner” of their hard work.
Since 2014, we have been working with dozens of small food, retail, and creative businesses in Portugal. When we look at Porto’s map, our city, 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 and this is the place with one of the highest concentration of creative enterprises in the country.
Bombarda is a very dynamic district, very central, but also a sort of “Gallic Village”, where dozens of brave independents are still free of unwanted high-street chain neighbours. However, the real estate pressure is already causing trouble.
This post aims to highlight Porto’s creative enterprises, which we have worked with in the past decade, including a few of them through our free mentoring programme for social projects. These are places you should visit and support.
Below is our version of Porto’s map and another one highlighting the Bombarda district and the many people we have been supporting.
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Right at the beginning of the Covid Pandemic, we helped Cru, by designing a strategy for their different business units, repositioning Porto’s first coworking space into a Creative Hub serving Porto’s art district community. Our work led to a revolution at Cru Creative Hub, with a complete redefinition of physical spaces, the creation of new services, including a bar and audio and photography studios, and also rethinking the international positioning of the company
Later in the project we also redesigned their brand identity.
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Assistance to Associação Quarteirão Criativo in the preparation of different proposals for grants and incentive programs, including a winning bid for the Digital Neighbourhoods call from the Portuguese Covid Fund (PRR), in partnership with Porto Municipality. For over 25 years, the Miguel Bombarda District has established itself as an epicentre of artistic and creative businesses in Porto. The Association, founded in 2022, represents several dozen businesses and aims to boost projects in favour of the broader community of the neighbourhood.
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Indieworkers is a project by our partners at Cru Creative Hub dedicated to independent workers in the Creative Industries. In recent years we have been collaborating with the project in training events, in its podcast (as interviewers and interviewees) and in supporting the preparation of applications to grants and cooperation programmes (Erasmus+).
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Small strategic consultancy project to outline a business model for Alfaiate do Livro, a small company in Porto dedicated to artisanal bookbinding.
Meanwhile, the project relocated from the Bombarda District to Bonfim, a hype neighbourhood in Downtown Porto.
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We helped Tiago rethink his Hakko House, a small cafe, bakery and restaurant in the heart of Bombarda, Porto’s Art District.
After four working sessions, Tiago immediately introduced small improvements to the restaurant. The most visible was a total reshuffle of the restaurant layout, finding more seating space, bringing the bar to the front, and opening the massive window to the street. It took just a few days for the once almost invisible cafe to transform the end of Rua do Rosario into a vibrant spot. You can read about this project in this post in our Journal.
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In this project, we supported Otília Fowers, an exceptional florist in the centre of Porto, in a planning process to reopen its iconic store in the Quarteirão de Miguel Bombarda. In the project, we rethought the store's entire operation and optimised the offering considering its different audiences.
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We supported Rui Viana, Piurra’s creative director in a spin-off process and in the establishment of the brand as an independent company. After diagnosing and surveying possible paths, we designed a plan to reopen a physical store in Central Porto and defined a new sales strategy.
Since then, Piurra has relocated to Póvoa de Varzim, the town North of Porto where their woodworking workshop is located. -
Jazzego, an independent jazz label, kickstarted our new free mentorship programme for not-for-profits and social businesses in the Porto region (Portugal).
This project provided strategic support to Jazzego, focusing on fund-raising and revenue stream optimization to expand the catalogue and support artists, fund research and creative processes, launch education and capacity-building projects and expand their distribution internationally.
You can read more about this project in our Journal. -
Our intervention at Rosa Malva, aimed to help the ceramicist Mané Pupo reposition her brand and Bombarda store in its more traditional markets, redefine the value-chain, develop new products and implement a DTC (direct-to-consumer) strategy.
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FAHR 021.3 is an artistic practice founded by Filipa Frois Almeida and Hugo Reis and is one of the most international and prolific studios in Porto.
Our collaboration covered areas such as redesigning the studio business model, repositioning its work focus and setting priorities for the next decade.Since then, FAHR 021.3 opened a new studio in Bombarda, Porto’s Art District.
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Bardo is a communication agency specialised in the design world. This project resulted in restructuring the business cost structure, separating the business areas (communication services and retail) and redefining its strategic positioning in this competitive market.
Stay Wise was once a kiosk in the now closed Galerias Lumiére, a retail space in Central Porto stocking indy magazines and books. With our help, the founders relaunched the project in a new store in front of the Palácio de Cristal park in a joint venture with their sister company Bardo.
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Velo Culture is a pioneering project first launched in the Matosinhos Fish Market, with additional retails spaces in Porto (2015-2022) and Lisbon (2012-2018).
Founded in 2011, Velo Culture is a reference brand in everything that respects cycling as a means of transport and a more discerning way of being in road and travel cycling.
Velo Culture share one of its founders with us, who sold the brand to its actual owners. -
Founded by Yoske Nishiumi and Svenja Specht, Out To Lunch is a reference in the independent retail scene in Porto. With a strong Japanese inspiration, the store is dedicated to fashion, craft and food.
In this project, we supported OTL in transitioning from a purely retail model to a hybrid one, combining retail and catering.
Reality Studio is a brand founded in Berlin by the designer Svenja Specht, who has a great interest in craftsmanship, small-scale production, quality and her community.
In this project, we supported Svenja in re-strategising the business and planning and monitoring the brand's digital marketing strategy.
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Strategy and graphic design for a restaurant and yoga studio in Central Porto serving specialty coffee, natural wines and vegetarian and vegan food.
MANNA's strategic planning was done at a time of optimism amidst a tourism boom. Still, the stars tried to put everything we did to the test: the restaurant opened just two months before the beginning of the Pandemic. Five years later, it's still going strong. You can read more about Manna in our Journal.
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In this project, we supported Ágora, a company within the Municipality of Porto sphere, in defining an operating model for the bar-cafeteria of the iconic and superbly restored Cinema Batalha in Central Porto.
Additionally, we provided support by designing a layout and appliances plan for the kitchen, bar and sitting areas. -
We are currently working on a strategic design project to help Ideal&Co relaunch their brand and energise their new retail space in Gaia, south of the Douro River.
Ideal&Co is a high-quality leather goods manufacturer and luggage brand based in Porto. In this project, we defined priorities for the multiple work areas of the company and designed a growth strategy aligned with the founders of this family-owned business vision for the future. -
Naturally, our intervention and connection to our own brand and education project Saber Fazer is deeper than business strategies or graphic design.
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Research and documentation on the productive ecosystem in Porto. ROP, a Saber Fazer project, began in November 2012 to map the specialised local labour and small-scale production units that currently manufacture within our city borders.
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Before we officially became partners, our relationship with Nova Type Foundry started by providing social media management, content development and graphic design services.
Currently, we are in charge of all brand communication, graphic design and finishing a strategic plan for the development of the foundry and type design studio.
You can read more about this project in our Journal. -
With this project, Fios Jardins Suspensos, a small business dedicated to commercialising Kokedamas and green functional wall covering, pretends to launch it's internationalization strategy. For this, we provided strategic support, brand strategy and developed a new brand identity and complete visual system, including a new logo and colour scheme.
A new website and online store will be available early in 2025.
Fios Jardins Suspensos opened a physical location in Uptown Porto in 2024, just a few hundred meters from our office. -
Vai Vem, a book publisher based in Porto, was the second project to be supported by Barbot Bernardo’s free mentorship programme for Social Enterprises and Not-for-profits.
This project provided strategic support focusing on fund-raising, revenue stream optimization, editorial strategy and internationalisation.
Vai Vem currently publishes critical essays, speculative exercises, and literary texts by guest contributors from various disciplinary areas, published in pocketbook format. -
The project with Trindade , an artisan bakery in Porto with both a B2B and B2C operation, was dedicated to reflecting on the different strategic paths the bakery could take in a post-pandemic future.
More recently Trindade relocated to Matosinhos, a suburb north of Porto. -
Mafalda’sis is one of the projects we are particularly proud of. In 2013 Mafalda Pando asked us for help in rethinking her restaurant in the Matosinhos Fish Market shortly after taking it on independently. We reflected on possible ways forward and planned a completely different concept for the restaurant, which was the basis for its future growth.
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Strategy for an artisan bakery in Matosinhos.
In this project, we helped Pão da Terra's founder by designing a complete business model and worked side by side until the bakery opened in its first location, a small shop in the Matosinhos Fish Market. -
Estúdio Cozinha is a reference in the food scene in Porto as is the passion of its charismatic founders.
In this project, we supported the company with strategic planning, developing a business model and defining priorities for the upcoming years. -
Graphic design and brand strategy for a new brand of Pilates equipment made in Portugal.
We also rebranded the founders Pilates studio in Central Porto. -
Ricardo Gil is an alumni of Saber Fazer and has spent the last few years perfecting his weaving technique.
This project aimed to support the design of the studio’s strategy, including market positioning, business model, pricing and sales. Read in our Journal about one of our visits to the studio.
