The best engraving looks as though it was always there.
Engrave Refuge opened in Porto in 2017, in a rented workshop on Rua do Almada that had previously been a bookbinder's. Tomás Ferreira had spent the previous eight years working as a graphic designer at a print house in Matosinhos, where he became increasingly interested in the physical permanence of letterforms cut into material rather than printed onto it. He bought his first rotary engraver secondhand from a retiring watchmaker in Braga, taught himself the calibration over a winter, and took his first paid commission in January 2018: a set of twelve brass house numbers for a renovation project in the Bonfim neighbourhood.
The studio grew slowly and deliberately. Tomás resisted taking on more volume than he could handle alone, which meant turning down several wholesale enquiries in 2020 and 2021. The decision to stay small was not romantic. It was practical: the quality of the line changes when the person holding the tool is tired, and a studio that books more than it can finish carefully is a studio that starts making errors. Today the workshop occupies a larger space on Rua de Cedofeita, with a separate proofing bench, a material storage room, and a small reception area where clients can come to discuss commissions in person.
The work that comes out of this studio tends to be quiet. It does not announce itself. A brass plate on a door, a date on the back of a watch, a name on a piece of slate in a garden. Tomás believes the best engraving is the kind that looks as though it was always there. That is the standard he works to, and it is the reason he has not changed his process in any fundamental way since 2018. What has changed is the range of materials, the precision of the tooling, and the depth of the client relationships.
Tomás Ferreira trained as a graphic designer at the Escola Superior de Artes e Design in Matosinhos, graduating in 2007. He spent eight years at a commercial print house in Matosinhos before redirecting his practice toward physical engraving in 2016. He taught himself rotary engraving calibration over the winter of 2016-2017, drawing on his background in typography and layout. He founded Engrave Refuge in Porto in 2017. Outside the studio, he collects antique Portuguese tile panels and spends most Sunday mornings at the Feira da Vandoma flea market in search of old brass hardware. He reads slowly and keeps a notebook of letterform studies that he has been adding to since design school.