The agency is a small standing grove. We are six humans and one cat, working out of a second-floor studio above a closed-down sawmill in 종로구. Every Tuesday morning the partners walk to the same teahouse and decide what the studio will and will not do that month.
Our senior partner is Han Eun-Joo (the knot — quercus mongolica). She was a botanist before she was a brand strategist; she keeps a propagation table in her office and refuses to take a brief that does not first answer the question, what is the substrate?
Our second partner is Park Min-Sik (heartwood — taxus cuspidata). He is the studio's editor; every word that leaves the building is tightened by his hand. He owns three identical fountain pens, all green, all the same nib width, replaced annually.
Our typographer is Choi Soo-Hyun (ray parenchyma — fraxinus mandshurica). She drew the IM Fell numerals you see along the soil-line. Her practice is to redraw a single character for an hour each morning, in silence, before any other work.
Our junior associate is Lee Ji-Won (pith ray — pinus densiflora). He keeps the studio archive — thirty linen folios, one per active engagement, indexed by the third letter of the client's surname.
Our researcher is Yoon Hae-Rin (early wood — betula schmidtii). She conducts the soil samples — the long first conversations with new clients — and writes the provisional taxonomies that initiate every engagement.
Our office Persian cat is Songpyeon (ray parenchyma — felis catus). She is twelve years old, sleeps on the press proofs, and is the named recipient of the studio's annual solstice card.
We are not hiring. If we ever are, we will write to the schools we trust and the work will arrive by post.