Where it all begins.
When Adriano Esteves from Bürocratik approached us a at gig saying “you guys want a website”, we responded “Sure! But what’s a website?” Now we know! Don’t forget to visit moonspell.com and all our other internet channels and subscribe our news to stay in touch and get our needs. Have a nice weekend, stay safe.
Moonspell @Instagram
Moonspell, ingenuity and audacity.
I like to believe there’s a shared journey between Moonspell and Büro. The most significant parallel is that both chose to become what they are. They formed a band before becoming musicians, and I was always looking for something that would let me do design, which eventually led to Büro, originally called Musicdrops, a name crafted for forging design drops for music. Both driven by stoicism, and still standing.
Moonspell has faced its fair share of critics. I even helped put out a few of those fires, especially back in the early days online. But the truth is, they’ve earned everything they’ve achieved. Their struggle was fought in the trenches of vans and hunger, the kind of hurt that shapes you. It was their choice, yes, but that path forged an early maturity—always visible, and now, with the weight of years, more than ever. It's a pleasure to see daily learning in people who learned everything while swimming among crocodiles. Well done, wolf friends
Keep going. One small thing after another.
18 years in as a company, just wow. It felt like the right moment to pause and reflect, for the first time, on our journey through design craft.
Every milestone, win or challenge, was shaped by the incredible people we met along the way. Together, we’ve navigated the shifting tides of digital branding with transparency, grit, and an unyielding drive for excellence, growing from a small studio in Portugal into one that remains intentionally small but fearless and mighty.
To everyone who carried the Büro black flag, whether for a brief chapter or a long one, thank you.
This is just a glimpse of how we got here, wherever here may be. Want to know more? The Büro18 Book will tell the full story, available after the last chapter goes online.
This is Bürocratik—18 years in the making.
“Sounds a bit like Pentagram—minus the ominous cult vibes name paradox, doesn’t it?” I told my friend Fred over ICQ. “It does! Register it!” he replied. At 12:34 AM on Tuesday, November 25, 2003, I had a name and a domain for what was next.
By January 2004, I was on my own, with a name serious enough to command respect but without needing a suit. Ironically, not needing a suit was one of my life goals. That’s why the first Bürocratik logo was a sliced tie, still stuck on Coimbra’s office door.
Five years of learning how not to do it led me to a one-year self-ultimatum: quality-first design, laser-focused, no mercy. From there, every waking second was dedicated to making design my life plan, no regrets if it failed.
Starting with no plan, we hijacked Cavaco’s parents’ garage [Büro(-1)] for a few months. No internet, so we’d rush to his room twice a day to check emails while cranking out logos. Two computers, a Mac and a PC—two lost souls in a fishbowl.
The Bürocratik name took shape at my soon-to-be former job. As I gathered the essentials for starting my own company, I created a new favorites folder in Firefox’s bookmarks and, with a few immediate tweaks, it went from Bureaucracy to Bürocratik.
It felt oddly wrong and strangely official, serious yet offbeat. If a name makes you think twice, it’s worth keeping, right? Why the hell not. Always treasure the first ideas.
In hindsight, it’s a fortunate twist. Bureau means desk or office, while -cratie comes from the Greek kratos, meaning power or rule. So, it literally translates to “rule by the office” or “desk power.” For brands looking to shake things up, that feels more than appropriate.
Filipe Cavaco & Adriano Esteves
It took me a decade to fully commit to design as my life’s work, and the Barcelona Forum ’04 marked the pivotal moment for what became Büro. That event planted the seed, by then, we had a name and a clear purpose ahead.
Letterhead and Logo 9 by Rockport
We submitted several brands under Bürocratik to the Rockport Logos & Letterheads 9 book. Two were accepted. On the final submission day, we hand-delivered the envelope to DHL, ensuring it arrived on time.
Bürocratik appeared in a design book alongside Pentagram (not the doom metal band now famous for the staring eyes meme) and Landor. A solid first step, why not aim higher?
Büro(0)There was no Plan B.Plan B was making Plan A work.
Soon, we moved into Büro(0), our first official space: a snug 5x5m space near the university on Rua da Manutenção Militar. It was just a pair of computers, tables and chairs, an OKI laser printer (still our favorite for its unmatched color), a Buffalo RAID drive, and that was it.
Adriano at Büro(0)
That will be me, still just a designer before the whole founder and creative director thing, proudly wearing my Media Temple shirt. Back when they were the go-to hosting company for the best websites around, their legendary service powered many top Flash sites of that golden era. And for me, it was all about Type, Type, Type.
2004—today
Cavaco at Büro(0)
With a passion for design, people, and connections—a muscle I once swore I’d never flex (younger me thought it was all about design, not people… yeah, right). Our first big investment? A lime green Fatboy puff. One stormy night in Matosinhos, the wind had other plans. Gone, but never forgotten.
2004—2006
Alexandre R. Gomes at Büro(0)
Meet Alex, my Chem. Eng. course mate who shared a passion for music and design. After years of working together in Coimbra and later remotely between the Netherlands and Germany, our developer finally spent a few days coding back in Coimbra.
This was when we fully embraced websites as our core offering, marking the start of our commitment to “Digital Branding” as the heart of our work.
2004—2016
António Lourenço
One day, Cavaco noted that none of us could draw for shit and mentioned a friend, stuck waiting for a job at a southern city hall, who actually could. Enter António Lourenço (Tó). He started as our illustrator, then moved on to Flash animation, then After Effects, and he’s still with us today.
2005—today
New companyNew office—Büro(1)New people
After a year and a half of weighing our options, it was decision time—commit or bail. Cavaco pivoted to his family’s insurance business, while I took the leap, officially founding the company and diving headfirst into accidental entrepreneurship.
Our new chapter began in Guerra Junqueiro, thanks to our clients at CH Consulting, who gave us that final nudge to formalize the business. They welcomed us into our first-ever office: a small, windowless space packed with heat, metal fans (both kinds), a vertical logo on the wall (tight space, tighter budget), and an unreasonable amount of passion.
Margarida Reis was special right from the first instants.
Our first intern was a sharp-witted artist with a kind heart, a dark sense of humor, Björk energy, and a flair for Tim Burton’s whimsical world. For four years, Margarida was our heart and soul, until tragedy struck, and we lost her in a traffic accident.
RIP, Margarida.
2006—2010†
Paulo Brandão the baseball player designer.
When Cavaco stepped away, we welcomed Paulo as our first web designer, a talented friend and former co-worker from previous ventures. After contributing significantly to our early journey, Paulo eventually relocated to vigo, Spain, where he embarked on a new chapter as a photographer.
2006—2011
Unilever(2007—2014)
Small opportunities often lead to remarkable ventures. Unilever became our biggest client in those early years, providing financial support and exposure to top-tier brands, shaping our international journey and reaffirming our focus on crafting brand assets and websites, not the tools to manage them.
Over seven years of collaboration, we built and supported several business-area Brand Hubs: DiGpedia for laundry brands, Deopedia for deodorants, and Cleanipedia for cleaning products. Working with global design consultancies like Elmwood confirmed that websites for brands were our true passion, something we already knew, but now had the freedom to fully embrace. We were on our way.
Thirteen years without a proper website—seven years with this one, then a landing page from 2013 that lasted six years, and finally, a decent homepage and reel in 2019. Impressive aye?
These photos are from our very first team photo session. Have you seen the Halls army? Those belong to Alex, by the way.
Ana Camacho, a friend of Margarida was our second intership.
Originally from Madeira, Ana joined us as a multimedia designer and later transitioned into development under Alex’s guidance. Her journey with us spanned for 8 years.
2006—2015
Moonspell Memorial CDROM
Memorial was the last full layout we did for Moonspell, featuring artwork by Wojtek Błasiak, a regular collaborator since 2001’s Darkness & Hope, one of my personal favorites alongside The Antidote. The blood-red layout was a victory, thanks to a CMYK color correction odyssey where I knew exactly what curve to adjust to remove the murkiness, and it marked the final project we completed at Büro(1).
Moving to Eiras. Windows at last, photons gracing our eyes and a bigger room. The metal fans became obsolete, so we let go of the fans but kept the metal.
After 3 years on Guerra Junqueiro, CH Group makes a new headquarters and we finally got ourselves some windows by moving to where we still have our Coimbra office today. The new spot thrusted our confidence and we managed to convince Alex to return to Portugal so we could focus more on the process and delivery. A few months later we snatched a developer from a small studio in Northern Portugal, Bruno Amorim had more insightful opinions than most and was genuinely excited about everything we were doing. His enthusiasm was real and infectious, and he quickly became a critical link in refining our design approach even without being part of the team.
We tackled a few projects together, and thankfully for Büro, his own project, Blak, couldn’t weather the full circle to profitability—a fate many design studios face. Bruno joined us in Coimbra, initially as developer but soon diving into web design.
CHC — Centro Hospital de Coimbra EPE Rebranding
Around 2009, we won our first big rebranding project: the rebranding of CHC (Centro Hospital de Coimbra EPE) one of the biggest Hospital clusters of the country. The project spanned over a year and included rebranding stationery, countless forms, hospital signage, and a comprehensive identity guidelines.
Triin Mänd
Our first international intern was a very kind and witty Estonian student called Triin who fell in love with Portugal after hitchhiking across Europe.
2010
Filipe Moço
Our first print-exclusive designer, stepping in for the more demanding branding projects ahead. Today dedicates his craft entirely to wine packaging design—cheers to that!
2010—2011
Bruno Amorim joins Büro
Bruno joined us in Coimbra as a developer but quickly transitioned into web design, delivering work with unparalleled quality. The synergy and resilience marked the true official inception of the Büro on drugs era, no doubt about it.
2011—today
Alex returns to Coimbra
After years of shared projects and remote collaboration between the Netherlands and Germany, Alex—the wandering Chemical Engineer—returned to Coimbra as our official Lead Developer. With him on board, sitting next to us, we could now build better websites and take branding further into the digital realm.
Büroweekend#1 became the turning point for much-needed alignment, a moment where the real journey began, without more excuses or less than all-at-our-reach.
Are we there yet? Hell no. The first five years of running a design company were profoundly humbling. I quickly learned that a passion for good design wasn’t enough to sustain a business. For two years, I forwent my own salary to ensure the team was paid. Securing clients without relying on personal networks, maintaining quality, managing finances, keeping payments on schedule, balancing accounting, overseeing projects, and dealing with client fluctuations, these challenges had little to do with design but were essential to achieving great work. Mastering this balancing act gave us valuable insight into the full cycle of selling design, helping us finally find the right path forward.
Some team members struggled with the vision; some felt we were giving too much, while others couldn’t see their role in the bigger picture. Büroweekend#1 became the turning point for much-needed alignment, a moment when the real journey began, without excuses or half-measures. From that point on, the motto was clear: keep going, keep going, do always your best, just keep going and don’t forget to have fun. Persistence will collide with opportunity, and hopefully, our moment will arrive.
Megan Lobb joins as intern
A design graduate from University College Falmouth who relocated from the Algarve to Coimbra for an 7-month internship.
2011—2012
Winning our first Awwwards SOTD with Phive.org was a genuine loom, a transformative moment affirming we were on the right path in our digital journey.
Lisa Penedo
Our next internship was with Lisa, a graphic designer specializing in editorial design with a soft spot for typography (notice a pattern here?).
2012—2013
Winning our first two Gold Awards at Clube de Criativos de Portugal (CCP) was a turning point, driving us to craft sturdier, more memorable websites.
The following websites we created were for Siaperitivos, the biggest Portuguese chip producer, which lasted 12 years and still looks tasty, and for Visit University of Coimbra, one of the oldest universities in continuous operation since 1290. These projects were substantial level-up efforts: the first for a good commercial brand and the second for an great institution. Both won our first Gold Awards at CCP, and from there, we knew we had finally figured out how to approach projects like these.
Luis Oliviera joins briefly as a Designer
2013
The commemoration of the first two Gold Awards at CCP
António Regadas joins as a Developer
2013 — 2014
European Council and Council of the European Union: UCA 069/13
We were one of five finalist agencies for the European Council rebranding.
Our two proposals—one bold, the other aligned with branding politics—never saw the light of day until now. The winning design closely resembles our second proposal, so we came close. Alas.
Proposal #1
Proposal #2
The impact of an internal project: from a lovely idea to the quicksands of time-sucking.
Outdated Browser began as an internal project to fix broken websites in obsolete browsers, leading us to create a simple solution—a code snippet and website—that quickly gained traction, with developers and companies like Unilever and Coca-Cola adopting it, bringing millions of monthly visits and unexpected challenges, from font licensing deals to relentless support requests that turned into dreaded Friday tasks for the team.
With such a small crew, we weren’t ready for its success. Eventually, we sold the project—a smart move as browsers now update automatically. Still, it was an invaluable lesson in transforming side projects into real products. Stressful, but fun—pure stressfun!
Büro Cards by Lorenz Boegli
It took us years of saving to create the perfect screen-print cards, crafted by Swiss master Lorenz Boegli. No regrets—if we could, we’d choose Lorenz every time. Pure, undisputed craftsmanship.
The 2014 Paris Awwwards Conference supercharged our chemistry—from the surprise interview to our first ever team offsite in a one-of-a-kind city.Büro team in awe, out.
Awwwards Conference 2014
Alexandre Gomes & Adriano Esteves talked about the present and the future on a beautiful leather couch. Mais oui! Bien sûr.
Porto Office
at Lexo Coworking
Opening an office in a city with a better work-life balance, we made Lexo—a co-working space in Matosinhos, Porto—our base, making it easier to attract talent willing to stay longer than in Coimbra, the peculiar city we still call home and where our older office remains.
Our first solid product website was PicPac, a collaboration with the Norwegian agency Int. The product—a travel bag for shoes and underwear—was fantastic, so we built a memorable website to showcase it.
EDAwards is another institution driven by quality design that we deeply value. One of our proudest milestones as a studio is being featured among Europe’s best in design for 10 consecutive years, ultimately becoming the most awarded Portuguese agency. This journey took us across a variety of European cities—Cologne, Istanbul, Vienna, Porto, Oslo, Tallinn, Luxembourg, and Naples. Another Büro family.
Bruno Rodrigues joins as a Graphic Designer
After a lengthy recruitment process, Bruno Rodrigues (BR) joined us, and for the next four years, we created exceptional brand work with a type-first approach—a dream come true.
2014 — 2018
Daniel Vaz joins as a Developer
Daniel brought the WordPress expertise, and we finally embraced backend development, gaining full control over the web development cycle.
2014 — today
Bürobook was a special project made for friends and clients. Each edition was numbered, with the recipient’s name handwritten on the cover to BR’s stress, adding a personal touch. We still have a few left, in case you are interested.
Awwwards Conference 2015
Barcelona
UC’s Master’s in Design and Multimedia visit
Professor Artur Rebelo (from R2 Design Studio) and his gang visited us in Coimbra. Notable highlight for Miguel Cruz next to BR, who would be hired later—probably all part of his insider plan. Hmm…
Marco Ribeiro joins as a Developer/Designer
2015 — 2021
Alex leaves Büro to embrace a new challenge in Lisbon.
[Loud scream]
ALWAYS BLAME THE CACHE
Slanted Magazine #27 Portugal
In February 2016, Slanted editors spent two weeks exploring Portugal’s contemporary design scene, visiting 27 studios—including Bürocratik—for in-depth studio portraits.
Daniel Sommer, Adriano Esteves, Bruno Rodrigues, Julia Kahl and Lars Harmsen
The Slanted & Büro teams
João Matos joins as a Developer
2016 — 2020
Sílvia Antunes joins us for a 3 months summer internship
2016
Morphr, our second internal project, generates simple svg patterns.
European Design Awards 2016
Vienna
Sérgio Ferreira joins Büro Coimbra for an internship as Graphic Designer
2016—2017†
The TAGV 2016–2020 brochures, our most awarded print project
The TAGV 2016–2020 brochures, our most awarded print project, spanned five seasons with a variable logo, dynamic typography, and a flexible grid. Sérgio joined as a design intern, seamlessly fitting into our vision, while later seasons maintained full consistency through multiple designers working within the same variable concept.
Our first international speaking invitation
Our first international speaking invitation came from Mirror Conference in Braga, hosted by our friends at Subvisual. It was our second time refining and sharing our web design process, but this one felt different.
The Büronacci.Epic <span>scenes</span> from the Awwwards London <span>After</span> <span>Party</span>.
What happens in London, stays in London. The wildest and most unforgettable gang-building experience (ahem!) ever.
Our second attempt at a reel, from 2017, featured an unforgettable (and infamous) brief face-swap moment. We had no budget to redo the intro team scene, so be gentle with us. Mutant Sans Sense was our first custom Büro font and a stepping stone to the next rebranding ahead.
Tomé Gravato joins Büro Porto as a Developer
2017—2020
The end of an era
You have to instinctively know when you stop being an amateur. Storytrail taught us the hard way that the final frontier lays in project ownership—and why we’ll never go down that road again. Sorry, Jason. Thank you, Jason!
Chapter III is next! Don’t wait for Netflix! Subscribe now to get it firsthand.
