Magistrate 247 started in 2018 in a shared studio on Rua Augusta in São Paulo, with Rafael Mendonçaça, a second-hand Wacom tablet, and a client list that consisted entirely of one friend's food truck. The name came from a late-night argument about what a brand actually does: it passes judgment on your behalf, every time someone sees it, before you have said a word. Magistrate felt right. The 247 came from the hours. Not because we work around the clock, but because a brand does, and it had better be ready.
The first two years were a beautiful shambles. We took on too many projects, undercharged for most of them, and once delivered a full brand identity to a client who then changed the company…
We build brands that hold their ground.
Rafael Mendonçaça studied graphic design at FAAP in São Paulo, graduating in 2012, and spent five years at a mid-sized communications agency in Pinheiros before deciding that the briefing process there was broken beyond repair. He left in 2017, spent a year doing freelance identity work for small food and retail brands, and founded Magistrate 247 in 2018. He is obsessive about type: he keeps a running document of every typeface he has considered and rejected for a project, currently running to 340 entries. He also makes a very average sourdough loaf every Sunday, which the team tolerates with good humour.