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About PaperTray

The studio behind the bloom.

Eight years, a hundred and twenty projects, and one stubborn belief — that a brand is only worth building if it moves someone.

Our Story

We started with one table, one laptop, and a client who took a chance on us.

Founded in Colombo, 2018

PaperTray began the way most good things do — with a deadline nobody thought we would meet.

Three of us, a borrowed room above a print shop, and a brief for a local tea exporter who wanted to look like they belonged on a shelf in London. We rebuilt their identity in nine days. They’re still a client.

That first project set the pattern we still work to. Understand the business before touching the pixels. Ask the awkward question early. Ship something that earns its place rather than something that merely looks current.

Since then the studio has grown to fifteen people across strategy, design, engineering, film and marketing — but we have deliberately stayed small enough that the person you brief is the person who does the work. No account layer, no handoff, no telephone game.

Today we build brands, websites, campaigns and films for clients across Sri Lanka, the Gulf and the UK. The room is bigger. The standard hasn’t moved.

What Drives Us

Where we’re going, and how we get there.

Vision

To become the creative studio South Asia sends its most ambitious brands to — the one that makes work the rest of the region measures itself against.

Not the biggest agency. The one whose work you recognise before you see the credit.

Mission

Build brands, products and stories that measurably move the businesses behind them — and hold ourselves to the result, not the deliverable.

Every engagement starts with the number we’re trying to change, and ends with whether we changed it.

Anyone can make something beautiful. The work worth doing is making something beautiful that also works.

Craft without strategy is decoration. Strategy without craft is a slide deck. We refuse to choose between them, and we have never once been asked to.

Listen

Stakeholder interviews, market read, and the number you actually need to move.

Frame

A written creative direction you sign off before anyone opens a design tool.

Make

Design, film and copy developed together, reviewed in the open, never in a vacuum.

Build

Engineered for speed and accessibility, tested on real devices before launch.

Prove

Measure against the number from stage one, then iterate on what the data says.

The Journey

Eight years, one sheet at a time.

2018

The first sheet

Three people in a borrowed room above a print shop in Colombo. One tea exporter, nine days, and an identity that still ships today.

2019

First national brand

A full rebrand for a retail group with forty locations. The project that taught us to write the strategy down before designing anything.

2020

Everything moves online

The year we stopped being a design studio and became a digital one. Engineering came in-house and never left.

2021

Film and photography

A studio floor, a camera kit, and two people who knew how to use them. We stopped outsourcing the moving image.

2023

First international recognition

Work for a Gulf hospitality group picked up our first awards outside Sri Lanka — and our first clients from outside it.

2024

Motion and AI practice

Two new disciplines added properly rather than bolted on — with their own leads, their own process, their own standards.

2026

Fifteen people, one room

A hundred and twenty projects delivered. Still small enough that the person you brief is the person who does the work.

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Why PaperTray

Three reasons clients stay for years.

You brief the people who build it

Fifteen people, no account management layer. Nothing is translated, re-explained or lost between the conversation and the work.

We commit to a number, not a deliverable

Every engagement opens with the metric you need to move and closes by reporting against it. Beautiful work that didn’t perform is work we’d rather redo.