I’ve seen inspiration exploding to space
Creative inspiration process isn’t something we manage — it’s something we survive. The ideas that actually change a project don’t arrive through briefs or brainstorms. They detonate. Understanding where ideas come from in design means accepting that the creative inspiration process runs on its own schedule, not yours.
Isn’t it funny when you scroll to the end of the internet, go through all your old books, open a few old files, do walks around the city, around your favorite wood trail, and even go to the bookstore a few times to get that little inspiration that would help you do a project?
You are so close, but you just can’t get it right. Inspiration is never just around the corner. It hits you when you least expect it. There is no way to know when and how; you only need time to go on those walks over and over again. The above things are what I do when I’m stuck. In the end, the walks and the books helped the most, but I have no idea how many miles I have to walk to get there. Out of all the magic tools out there, I still use pencil and paper, and when that is not arround the notes help.
That is why these things take time. It is only 2 in the morning, and my head is spinning with ideas trying to figure out what to do. I know I will not sleep for a while. I know I will not find a solution, but my head will spin in circles nonetheless. It’s always the same when I am working on something exciting; at least this is how I know it is worth it.
Where Ideas Come From in Design — and Why You Can't Force Them
Our logo design work — where this process lands on the pageDon’t miss the next essay. Signup for our newsletter
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What are you buying with a designer?
What you buy with a designer is rarely what appears on the invoice. The file is the last thing — what precedes it is accumulated judgment, pattern recognition sharpened across decades, and the discipline to reject work that almost works. We've built 81 logos and won over 80 awards not by delivering what clients asked for, but by understanding what they actually needed.
I take it personally
Personal investment in branding is not a policy we adopted — it's the only way we know how to work. Every project that has left this studio since 2004 carries some part of us in it, for better or worse. That personal investment in branding is what separates a mark that lasts from one that simply gets approved.
To all the misfits who jumped to freelancing
Freelance designer struggles don't announce themselves. One month you're euphoric about escaping the agency; six months later you're chasing an invoice at midnight and questioning every career decision you've ever made. We've seen this arc enough times — from our studio in Ljubljana, across two decades of watching good designers disappear into bad freelance situations — to say something honest about it.
How to Be a Real Designer
How to be a real designer isn't about software or style — it's about who holds the argument when the client wants something easier. We've been in that room for twenty years. Being a real designer means resisting the comfortable solution, even when no one asks you to.
In the corporate world, there’s this unspoken rule that enthusiasm should be hidden
Corporate enthusiasm, by some unspoken rule, is supposed to stay hidden — filed away behind neutral tones and careful hedging. We've never understood that. Twenty years of design work, 80+ awards, and 128 projects later, we're still the studio that treats genuine excitement as a feature, not a liability. The corporate enthusiasm unspoken rule isn't just a cultural quirk — it's a design problem, and we treat it as one.
12 Proverbs
Design wisdom proverbs don't come from books. They come from the gap between what a client asked for and what they actually needed — a gap we've been navigating since 2004. These twelve distillations aren't motivational. They're diagnostic, drawn from real projects where design wisdom proverbs were the only honest way to say what went wrong, or right.
The Currency of Respect
Respect as currency is not a metaphor we use lightly — it is the actual unit of exchange in every client relationship we have built since 2004. We have watched projects collapse not over budget or concept, but over the slow withdrawal of basic professional respect. When respect as currency depreciates, no invoice or award recovers the loss.
A healthy brand
Healthy brand design starts with honesty — not aspiration dressed up as values. We've watched too many briefs arrive wrapped in sustainability language that dissolves the moment you press on the strategy underneath it. A healthy brand isn't greener or louder; it's structurally coherent, and that coherence is what we've been designing for since 2004.