New York design firms

Brooklyn
design studios

The studios that actually work out of Brooklyn — from the Dumbo waterfront to Greenpoint — and who each one fits.

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The borough

Brooklyn stopped being Manhattan's overflow a long time ago. The borough now holds one of the densest concentrations of design talent in the country, spread from the Dumbo waterfront through Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and Bed-Stuy, mostly built around a founder's point of view. These are studios genuinely based in Brooklyn, with a real address in the borough — not Manhattan firms claiming the postcode.

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The studios side by side, on the facts

Founding, Brooklyn neighborhood, and focus laid out plainly — never a score.

StudioFoundedBrooklyn baseDisciplines

Facts only — founding, neighborhood, and disciplines. No rankings; the right studio depends on the brief.

The studios

The eight, in full

Each profile leads with what the studio is genuinely built for — start from the job, not the portfolio gloss.

Profile 01

Red Antler

The studio that wrote the playbook for launching brands.

Visit redantler.com

The rundown

Red Antler built its reputation launching direct-to-consumer brands from zero, combining positioning, naming, identity, and go-to-market into one engagement. Few studios anywhere have shaped as many recognizable startup brands, and it did it all from Brooklyn.

Known for

Launch branding for Casper, Allbirds, Brandless, Burrow, Keeps, and Prose.

Where they fit

Venture-backed startups that need positioning and identity built together, before there's a product to point at.

Details

Founded
2007
Location
Brooklyn
Brand strategyNamingIdentityPackagingLaunch
Profile 02

Work & Co

Digital product specialists behind some of the most-used apps and sites around.

Visit work.co

The rundown

Work & Co designs and ships production software rather than handing off comps, prototyping in code with senior people staying hands-on through delivery. From its Dumbo headquarters it builds the kind of platform millions of people use daily.

Known for

The MTA's live New York City subway map, plus digital products for Apple, Google, Nike, IKEA, and Mailchimp.

Where they fit

Organizations that need a production-grade digital product, not just a design concept.

Details

Founded
2013
Location
Dumbo, Brooklyn
Website
work.co
Product designDevelopment
Profile 03

Huge

A Brooklyn-born design and technology company built for scale.

Visit hugeinc.com

The rundown

Founded in Dumbo in 1999, Huge builds digital products and experiences for large, ambitious brands, blending design, technology, and increasingly AI. It runs a global operation now, but the headquarters never left the Brooklyn waterfront.

Known for

Early web and product work for IKEA, JetBlue, CNN, and Target, plus the redesign of New York City's municipal website.

Where they fit

Large brands that need digital products designed, built, and run at scale.

Details

Founded
1999
Location
45 Main St, Dumbo, Brooklyn
ProductPlatformUX design
Profile 04

Gretel

Image-driven identity with motion built in.

Visit gretelny.com

The rundown

Founded by Greg Hahn, who came up through MTV, VH1, and Trollbäck, Gretel makes bold identity work across screen and print, with motion, typography, and 3D held in house. It works from a converted building in Bed-Stuy that it renovated to the studs.

Known for

Identity work for Netflix, Nike, MoMA, Vice, MasterClass, and Knoll.

Where they fit

Media and consumer brands that need a visual system with real motion capability behind it.

Details

Founded
2005
Location
197 Clifton Place, Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn
Brand identityMotionTypography
Profile 05

&Walsh

Bold, art-forward identity from one of the most recognizable names in the field.

Visit andwalsh.com

The rundown

Jessica Walsh founded the studio in 2019 after nearly a decade at Sagmeister & Walsh, and built it into a Williamsburg shop known for concept-driven identities with a high visual point of view. Strategy, motion, packaging, and photography all run in house.

Known for

Identity for biodesign company Geltor, the LGBTQIA+ app Lex, and vertical-farming company Plenty, plus branding for Google I/O and TED Countdown.

Where they fit

Brands that want a distinctive identity with a real point of view and are comfortable with creative risk.

Details

Founded
2019
Location
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Brand strategyArt directionMotion
Profile 06

Order

Precise, systems-driven identity with typographic rigor.

Visit order.design

The rundown

Founded by Jesse Reed and Hamish Smyth, Order works to the principle that everything is done for a reason and nothing for decoration. Based in Greenpoint, its founders also run Standards Manual, the publisher behind the reissued NASA and NYC Transit graphics standards manuals.

Known for

The Kickstarter rebrand, plus identity work for Herman Miller and the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy.

Where they fit

Companies that want rigorous, systematic identity work with genuine typographic depth.

Details

Location
Greenpoint, Brooklyn
Also in
Miami
Brand identityType designSignage
Profile 07

Athletics

A Brooklyn studio working across brand, digital, and environment.

Visit athleticsnyc.com

The rundown

Athletics is a cross-disciplinary studio working where design meets technology, integrating strategists, designers, and creative technologists. Its distinguishing move is treating a brand system as something usable, delivering sites and tools rather than a PDF of guidelines.

Known for

Cultural and commercial brand experiences delivered across digital and physical formats.

Where they fit

Organizations whose brand has to work on a screen and in a room.

Details

Location
Brooklyn
Practice
Cross-disciplinary
Brand identityDigitalEnvironmental design
Profile 08

High Tide

A boutique studio with senior craft and a strategy-first approach.

Visit hightidenyc.com

The rundown

High Tide is a full-service creative studio known for detailed, multi-layered brand work across identity, packaging, environmental, and web. Its team comes out of top design and advertising firms and in-house roles in music, fashion, and art, and it favors a strategy-first process aimed at identities built to last.

Known for

A widely covered rebrand of the NYC institution H&H Bagels, with reported work for consumer and lifestyle brands including Kith and Warby Parker.

Where they fit

Consumer, food, and lifestyle brands that want a boutique studio with senior craft and a strong identity focus.

Details

Founded
2008
Location
Brooklyn
Brand identityPackagingEnvironmentalWeb
FAQ

Brooklyn, answered

Mostly it's about the kind of shop, not the borough line. Brooklyn's design scene skews founder-led and mid-sized, so you tend to get senior people on the work and a strong point of view. If you specifically want a large, full-service agency with global offices, Manhattan has more of those.

Dumbo is the established cluster, anchored by Work & Co and Huge on the waterfront. Williamsburg and Greenpoint have a dense boutique scene (&Walsh, Order), and Bed-Stuy has drawn studios like Gretel as rents pushed east. Each pocket has a slightly different character — industrial-loft Greenpoint versus polished-waterfront Dumbo.

Nearly all of them do. Most Brooklyn studios work nationally and internationally, and several here have global client rosters. The Brooklyn address matters if you want in-person collaboration or workshops; for remote engagements, the borough is just where the talent happens to sit.

The borough is especially deep in brand identity and launch work (Red Antler, &Walsh, Gretel), systematic and typographic design (Order), and design-and-technology product work (Work & Co, Huge, Athletics). It's less the place to look for a giant enterprise consultancy, which is a Manhattan strength.

Match the studio's core to your actual problem. A launch brand wants Red Antler or &Walsh; a production platform wants Work & Co; a rigorous identity system wants Order; a brand that has to live in physical space wants Athletics or High Tide. The profiles above lead with what each is genuinely built for, so start from the job, not the portfolio gloss.