Should designers code?
Should designers code? We’ve been asking ourselves that question since 2004 — across identities, interfaces, and campaigns where design met production head-on. The answer depends entirely on what kind of designer you want to be, and what kind of work you want to make. Should designers code is the wrong binary; the real question is how much of the medium should you understand before you hand it off.
Yes, of course, you should seek it, but we should also focus on everything that helps us become better..
Yes—code, illustrate, take photos, make videos, write, play, create with your hands… grow. Essentially, everything a project demands, you should have a working understanding of how to do it. I’m not suggesting you need to master every skill at a professional level; we have talented friends for that. But you should be able to engage with professionals, speak their language, and understand the process deeply enough to ensure things are executed just as you envisioned.
So, sharpen your skills, push beyond the boundaries of your job description, and explore new territories. This is what you were made to do. This is why we’re here.
Should designers code, or should they understand how code thinks?
See how we navigate design and production across 128 projectsDon’t miss the next essay. Signup for our newsletter
⸻ Newsletter signup
AI-Generated content should be in the public domain
AI generated content should be in the public domain — and we think most of the debate around this misses the point entirely. The question of AI content copyright ownership isn't just for lawyers; it shapes how designers, studios, and clients think about authorship. We've been watching this closely, and our position is clear: if no human author can be identified, the work belongs to everyone.
There Is Only One Right Way to Publicly Commission Design
Public design commissioning is not a matter of preference — there is a right way and everything else. We've worked through enough flawed briefs, misaligned procurement structures, and well-meaning but broken processes to know exactly where the public commissioning of design goes wrong, and what it looks like when it doesn't.
Trends burn bright, but they burn fast.
Trends burn fast — that's not a warning, it's a design principle we've worked from since 2004. Every identity we've built across 128 projects starts from the same question: what survives the cycle? Trends burn fast, but a mark built on meaning doesn't need a refresh every eighteen months.
Excited?
Excited clients are not a bonus — they're a design material. We've watched the same brief produce two completely different outcomes depending on whether the client came in energised or resigned. Excited client energy doesn't just make meetings easier; it changes what branding becomes possible.
You thought it would hold.
Brand consistency breakdown rarely announces itself. It arrives as a slightly wrong typeface, a colour that's close but not right, a logo scaled by someone who didn't know why the padding existed. We've spent two decades watching brands we built with precision quietly come apart — not through malice, but through the ordinary entropy of handoff.
Ljubljana to do
Ljubljana to-do lists are usually the same – the castle, the market, Plečnik. We have been designing in this city since 2004 and we see it differently: through the facades, the typography on the windows, the details that the tourist guide doesn't mention. This guide is Ljubljana to-do for those who observe.
Definition of a brand
Definition of a brand is where most projects quietly fail — not in execution, but in understanding. A brand is not a logo, not a palette, not a tagline. It is the gap between what a company says it is and what people actually believe. We've spent twenty years closing that gap, and the distance is rarely where clients expect it to be.
Everything beautiful is analog
Everything beautiful is analog — that's not nostalgia, it's a working method. We've spent two decades in Ljubljana making things by hand first, screen second, and the difference shows up in the work. Analog design philosophy isn't a romantic detour; it's where the real decisions get made.