Notes from Small Caps, a design and development studio. Small Caps is fictional: this is a demo of a Nohead portfolio starter.https://starter-portfolio.nohead.ioenhttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/the-register-six-months-onhttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/the-register-six-months-onSix months after the first workshop at the long table on Fennell Quay, the Register's volunteers keep their own website, and nobody needs to post a card to anyone. What they have done without us since launch, what we would change if we started again, and what comes next for the Register and for us.Tue, 03 Nov 2026 00:00:00 GMTHelena MarshWorkmodern registercontent modellingdublinhttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/a-workshop-in-the-print-shophttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/a-workshop-in-the-print-shopOur first content modelling workshop in the Copenhagen print shop: twelve people from a museum, a library, a ferry company and a newspaper, one bus station, too much coffee, and a dog who wanted to help with the pile. Everyone found their own content in a building.Tue, 27 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMTCallum ReidAoife BrennanStudioworkshopscontent modellingcopenhagenhttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/launch-nighthttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/launch-nightThe Register launched on Saturday night of Open House weekend, under the Accordion's roof, with a hundred and twenty guests and a brass quartet. At 7:52 a board member scanned the bus station's own plaque and got a page that didn't exist. What broke, how we fixed it in twenty minutes, and what we changed so it can't happen again.Tue, 13 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMTLeela MenonWorkmodern registercontent modellingdublinhttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/alt-text-for-a-buildinghttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/alt-text-for-a-buildingI took 1,400 photographs of the Register's buildings, so I wrote their alt text too. What a building's photograph should say to someone who can't see it, why "brutalist building" is not a description, and the four questions I asked of every picture.Tue, 29 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTMarta OliveiraDesignmodern registerphotographywritinghttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/the-walks-work-without-signalhttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/the-walks-work-without-signalWalk 3 goes under a folded concrete roof that blocks every phone signal, and two other walks go through underpasses. So the Register's walks save themselves to the phone when they are opened. How we kept a building page to 38 KB, what saves when, and the 90 KB search index for when nothing else works.Tue, 22 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTJens MikkelsenLeela MenonDevelopmentmodern registerperformanceofflinehttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/search-for-people-who-dont-know-the-architecthttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/search-for-people-who-dont-know-the-architectIn the test week, 312 people searched the Register. Six percent searched by architect. Forty-one percent typed a nickname or a description, like "the crinkly roof" or "that round one by the canal". How we built search for the way people actually remember buildings.Tue, 08 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTLeela MenonJens MikkelsenDevelopmentmodern registersearchcontent modellinghttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/my-first-month-mostly-in-dublinhttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/my-first-month-mostly-in-dublinI joined Small Caps in Copenhagen in July and spent most of my first month in Dublin, building the page you see when you scan a plaque. What the two studios are like, what a quay is, and the afternoon a retired architect fixed a page in the rain.Tue, 18 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTJens MikkelsenStudiomodern registerdublincopenhagenhttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/notes-from-under-the-presshttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/notes-from-under-the-pressThe studio dog has been asked to contribute to the journal. She has some observations about the print shop, Friday biscuits, the workshops, the pile in the middle of the table, and the people who keep standing on her blanket. Typed up by Elias, uncorrected.Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTNoirStudiocopenhagenhttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/the-style-guide-is-one-pagehttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/the-style-guide-is-one-pageThe Register's building notes will be written by forty volunteers, a registrar and a retired architect, mostly on phones on the pavement. Their style guide had to fit on one page pinned to the office wall. Here is all of it, what we left out, and the first note that arrived.Tue, 28 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTCallum ReidDesignmodern registerwritinghttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/a-plaque-you-can-read-from-across-the-streethttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/a-plaque-you-can-read-from-across-the-streetThe Register's plaques had a name and a year, in letters too small to read from the pavement opposite. The new ones are black enamel, set in small caps, and carry a code that opens the building's page. Prototyped on the press in the print shop, one line of metal type at a time.Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTElias BrandtDesignmodern registertypographycopenhagenhttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/a-wordmark-from-a-foundation-stonehttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/a-wordmark-from-a-foundation-stoneThe Register's old logo was a clip-art skyscraper in a city without skyscrapers. The new one was cut into stone in 1962, at the foot of the building everyone already associates with the Register. How we found it, redrew it, and kept it to one colour.Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTElias BrandtDesignmodern registeridentitytypographyhttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/photographing-concrete-in-flat-lighthttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/photographing-concrete-in-flat-lightConcrete looks best on the days everyone else stays indoors. Three weeks of grey mornings, 1,400 photographs of the Register's buildings, why every one of them was taken from the pavement, and why we handed over the originals uncropped.Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTMarta OliveiraWorkmodern registerphotographydublinhttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/what-is-a-building-exactlyhttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/what-is-a-building-exactlyWe spent a day at the Register's office with every card drawer open, turning eleven typed lines and a pencilled back into a content model. It turns out a building is three things, has six names, and doesn't stop being a building when it is knocked down.Tue, 26 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTAoife BrennanHelena MarshWorkmodern registercontent modellingworkshopshttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/a-register-of-1912-buildingshttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/a-register-of-1912-buildingsThe Modern Register asked us for a new identity, a website, walking routes and plaques for Dublin's twentieth-century buildings. All 1,912 of them lived on index cards in six oak drawers, kept with care since 1989. We said yes, and this is why.Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTHelena MarshWorkmodern registeridentitydublinhttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/moving-into-the-print-shophttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/moving-into-the-print-shopOur Copenhagen studio now lives in a print shop that closed after sixty years. The type cabinets became shelves, three drawers of metal type stayed as they were, and the press we meant to sell is still here, because its former owner offered to teach us to use it.Tue, 14 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTElias BrandtStudiocopenhagentypographyhttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/ask-what-a-field-is-forhttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/ask-what-a-field-is-forOne question, asked of every field before it exists, does most of the work in our content modelling: who reads this value, and when? Here is why it matters more than it sounds, the index-card exercise we built around it, and what ends up in the pile.Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTAoife BrennanDesigncontent modellingworkshopshttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/why-were-called-small-capshttps://starter-portfolio.nohead.io/posts/why-were-called-small-capsSmall capitals are letters that sit quietly in a line and carry a lot of meaning. Seven years after naming a design and development studio after them, that is still the best description of how we work. Here is where the name came from, and why we started writing this journal.Tue, 03 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTHelena MarshStudiotypographydublincopenhagen