The hard part of choosing a design firm is this: every one of them says it is professional, attentive and reliable. So this page leaves the adjectives aside and stays with what can be checked — six things Hand-Heart does that most firms in our field do not, and what we base that on.
Every firm says it is professional, attentive and reliable. So we only talk about what can be checked.— every point below comes with an actual project or a patent number
Six ways Hand-Heart is different, and the evidence
-
We stay through construction supervision, not just until the drawings are delivered
Half of whether a wayfinding system works is decided on site — glare from the material, the joint with the structure, tolerances in installation. None of that shows on a drawing. Most design firms deliver up to the drawings, and the client then contracts fabrication and installation separately; when something goes wrong, nobody is responsible for holding it together. Hand-Heart covers planning, design, fabrication and construction supervision in one service, and issues a completion report once the work is finished.
Evidence: the whole-site wayfinding design and installation at the National Palace Museum Southern Branch, Kaohsiung National Stadium and the research building of National Kaohsiung Normal University were all carried through from design to construction supervision by Hand-Heart. See the five-stage process →
-
We hold three invention patents, turning method into technology
Of the three kinds of patent in Taiwan, the invention patent is examined most strictly: it requires substantive examination and proof that the technology is novel and involves an inventive step. Few companies in design services hold one, because what most of them produce is work, not a method that can be protected.
Evidence: invention patent No. 908504, Sign Board; invention patent No. 908503, Printing Method for Invisible Patterns and the Printed Matter Thereof; invention patent No. 934355, AI-Assisted Brand Strategy Insight System. Patent holder: 手心志業有限公司 (Shou Hsin Chih Yeh Co., Ltd.). Kaohsiung Pose, a work that uses the invisible pattern printing technique, received the Red Dot Design Award in Germany in 2023 and a Silver Award at the DFA Design for Asia Awards in 2025 — what was recognised was not only the visual result but the printing method behind it. See the patent details →
-
How big the type should be is calculated with a formula, not guessed by feel
Is this type too small — that is the question most often settled by instinct in a wayfinding project. Hand-Heart uses the legibility height formula (α ＝ 3438 × L ÷ D) to work out the minimum character height for every position, then verifies it on site in three stages: 1:1 full-scale printouts, physical mock-ups, and checks against the lighting level and backlight. Even the background colour of a sign has been measured — in 2019 we tested the maximum legible distance of five background colours on site at Kaohsiung National Stadium.
Evidence: the formula comes from the 2011 master’s thesis of Chih-Yang Hsu and from the ANSI/HFES 100-2007 human factors standard. See the full formula and the verification process →
-
We treat rollout as part of the delivery
Whether an identity system survives depends on whether the officer in charge can actually produce it. A guidelines document is not enough support for every person who has to execute it; video lets the people doing the work follow along — so Hand-Heart projects include training for those executors and a rollout plan, rather than ending with a manual.
Evidence: for the National Central Library project we produced training videos for the people carrying the work out, and ran a 6-hour brand alignment workshop with 30 senior managers so that the decision-making level reached agreement first. See the project →
-
We know how public sector procurement and acceptance work
The hard part of a public sector project is not the design. It is how the tender documents are written, how proposals are reviewed, how acceptance is signed off, and who looks after it once it has been handed over. Hand-Heart has completed more than thirty projects for public bodies and cultural venues, and knows what the officer in charge is actually asked at each stage.
Evidence: the National Central Library, the National Palace Museum Southern Branch, the Legislative Yuan, the National Institute of Cyber Security, the bureaus of cultural affairs of Kaohsiung and New Taipei City, Kaohsiung National Stadium and the Tainan Public Library Main Branch, among others. Hand-Heart has also published a CI/CIS procurement and acceptance guide for the commissioning side to use.
-
We use internal rules to lower the risk of a change of hands mid-project
The most common risk at a design firm is staff turnover: the designer on your project leaves and the project starts over. We are not going to prove anything with a retention rate, because we do not publish that statistic. What you can check are three practices.
First, every project names a project lead (PM or planner) and an account contact when it is opened, written into the internal project sheet rather than agreed verbally. Second, project files sit in a shared system and shared folders, so any colleague taking over picks the files up from the same place and not from an individual’s own computer. Third, handovers are documented: guidelines, records of decisions, the client contact and open items. The person leaving hands them over, and the person taking over signs for them.
We also treat keeping people as something to organise: remote work, a three-day weekend, regular pay rises. These are our own practices, not a promise to you; the actual guarantee is the three things above, which you can ask about and look at at any time.
Why this matters to you: brand and wayfinding projects usually run for months, and a change of hands means rebuilding an understanding of your organisation, your decision process and your existing material from scratch. The point of these rules is that the cost of a handover does not land on you.
What we believe
Hand-Heart believes good design stands where three things meet. Science supplies the basis — the limits of the visual angle, eye height statistics, material properties, user research: all of it can be measured and recalculated. Aesthetics decides whether the result can live with its surroundings and become part of the space and the brand rather than a patch. Philosophy answers the more basic question — how this organisation wants people to be treated. Missing any one of the three causes problems, so every judgement at Hand-Heart has to rest on a basis in theory.
Do the right things well, and do the good things right
In every beginning think of the end.
Pay attention to what our partners need, understand where the company has come from, and picture where the brand is going. Friends for a lifetime rather than a one-off piece of design — this is how Hand-Heart has worked since 2014, across more than 500 projects, without changing it.
Frequently asked questions
What is the biggest difference between Hand-Heart and other design firms?
Three differences that are easy to check. One, Hand-Heart provides one service from design through fabrication to construction supervision, while most design firms deliver up to the drawings. Two, Hand-Heart holds three Republic of China (Taiwan) invention patents, turning design method into protectable technology. Three, judgements at Hand-Heart rest on theory — character height is calculated with the legibility height formula, background colours are measured on site, and the process is split into stages that can be signed off, rather than resting on individual experience.
How large is the Hand-Heart team, and who is responsible for a project?
Hand-Heart is a design team of more than 20 people, grouped according to the nature of each project and covering brand strategy, graphic work, space and wayfinding, structure and materials. A stable team matters to clients — brand and wayfinding projects usually run for months, and a change of hands means rebuilding an understanding of the organisation. Hand-Heart has made staff retention part of how it is run: 3 days of remote work a week, one week a month with a three-day weekend, and a fixed pay rise of NT$400 every quarter, so the same people can carry a project through to the end.
Does Hand-Heart only take large or public sector projects?
No. Hand-Heart projects range across national institutions and listed companies, and they also include a bakery, a tea drink brand and a natural soap brand among other small and medium brands. We first clarify the problem you actually need solved and then define a suitable scope of work — if a partial update is all that is needed, we will not widen the scope to make the project bigger.
We have a limited budget. Does it still make sense to come to Hand-Heart?
Talk to us directly. Hand-Heart defines the scope within a budget that is reasonable and can be planned for, and puts the resources where they solve the most — the core of the identity and the applications used most often first, for example, with the rest in later phases. In the free consultation we will tell you honestly how far your current budget goes and which items we would not advise saving on.
Want to know what Hand-Heart could do for you?
Tell us your situation — whether a brand needs rebranding, a space needs a wayfinding system, or you are preparing to put a project out to tender. The first conversation is free, and deciding not to go ahead afterwards is fine.
Book a free consultationOr call us on 07-285-7000｜[email protected]