Serrote prints with salvaged movable type.

Serrote is a lesson in reviving a printing craft. A Lisbon house whose first notebook was made in early 2005, it describes itself as “publishing | letterpress” — its identity built on typography and traditional movable-type printing.

Its identity is the letterpress notebook. Serrote makes notebooks and notepads with distinctively themed interiors, alongside books, prints, engravings, posters and cards — printed by letterpress from salvaged vintage lead type and ornaments found in old Lisbon printeries. The look is typographic and crafted, often in limited editions. Gutenberg’s technique, kept alive on a notebook cover. Type you can feel pressed into the page.

(Honest notes: Serrote is a letterpress-driven publishing house and notebook-maker — not a graphic-design studio, and not a maker of playful illustrative homeware or games, which is a common mischaracterisation. Its first notebook was made in early 2005 in Lisbon (so we say “first notebook, 2005” rather than a company-founding date), reportedly by Nuno Neves and Susana Vilela. It prints by letterpress in Portugal (a “Sintra” workshop is reported by a retailer, so we keep it to “Portugal”). Note the name is ambiguous — this is the Lisbon stationery brand serrote.com, not the Brazilian magazine of the same name, and “serrote” is also Portuguese for “handsaw.” There’s no official brand hex, and we reproduce no cover, print or logo — these tones are an unofficial interpretation. This is design commentary and does not promote any product.)

Serrote lives in a press-red-and-ink palette. Click a swatch to copy the hex.

Serrote’s identity is typographic, crafted and Portuguese — a press red, an ink, a prussian, an ochre, and a cream. The palette pairs a press red with an ink — the register of letterpress printing. It signals type and craft rather than novelty. The honest caveat: with no published brand hex, these tones are an original, unofficial interpretation, not first-party values.

The lesson is a press red with an ink signals a letterpress house. Serrote’s world is a pressed, typographic page. For designers, it is a reminder that a printing method itself — movable type, revived from salvaged letters — can be the whole identity, and that craft leaves a mark you can feel. Because a mid press-red can fail as small text, keep type dark and let the colour live in the accents, palette and band. The takeaways: make the method the message; revive the craft; work in editions; and treat any single hex as unofficial.

The register is a letterpress serif — typographic, crafted, literary.

Serrote’s identity carries a typographic, crafted, literary spirit — a letterpress page. A classic book serif captures the mood: it is literate and considered, the register of a publishing house. Set in a press-red-and-ink palette, the letterpress serif feels typographic and crafted — exactly the personality Serrote carries. It is bookish rather than flashy, mirroring pressed type. (Serrote’s real covers, prints and wordmark are works we describe but do not reproduce, and the exact typeface is not ours to use.) Because it is not ours to use, the honest description is “a letterpress serif spirit,” shown here in a stand-in. The type behaves like the brand: typographic, crafted and literary.

Serrote stands for the letterpress notebook.

Serrote is a lesson in making a method the identity. A press-red-and-ink palette, a letterpress serif and a pressed page make letterpress the whole brand — typographic, crafted, Portuguese. The method is the differentiator. The differentiator is movable type, revived from salvaged letters, pressed into every cover.

Put to work, the identity is craft made visible. A designer building in this spirit would let the process show — typographic covers, an impression you can feel, ink laid by a real press — and treat editions and themed interiors as evidence of care rather than mass production. The lesson Serrote teaches is that a technique can carry a brand: by choosing letterpress and salvaged type over cheap printing, it makes the how as meaningful as the what, and turns a notebook into a small piece of publishing. In a digital age, the physical mark of the press is the whole point. The salvaged type matters as much as the technique: reviving old lead letters and ornaments gives each edition a provenance a digital file cannot fake, and ties the object to a specific place and history. For a maker, that is a reminder that constraints can be an asset — working within the limits of a real press, and the letters that survived, produces a character that unlimited digital choice tends to sand away.

For designers and brand-builders, Serrote offers a clear takeaway: let the method mean something. The lessons: make the method the message; revive the craft; work in editions; and be honest about the story. It is also a reminder to stay accurate: its first notebook was made in 2005 in Lisbon, it is a letterpress publishing house rather than a graphic-design studio, and it prints in Portugal from salvaged type — the palette here is an unofficial interpretation. Serrote made letterpress the brand — proof that a method can be the difference.

Keep Serrote’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.