Black and white
Black and white design is where we start every project — not as a stylistic preference, but as a structural test. If a mark, layout, or identity doesn’t hold in two tones, it won’t survive color, scale, or time. Black and white design is the first filter, and for us, it’s often the only one that matters.
The combination is so basic that I don’t consider it a color. It is more of a structural element or a form.
It is one of my favorite elements, obviously, not just because of its minimal aesthetics but merely because it is clean and timeless. I test all designs in black and white. It is a trick to make sure all this simplicity helps to focus on other specific elements, such as text or key graphics. With all the colors removed, the design focus shifts from the forms, shapes, and lines to the content, which is always the most important.
Not to mention, I usually start designing in black and white, especially for identities. If that works, the color scheme for the specific brand (carefully selected with the whole branding in mind) will be versatile and impactful.
What Black and White Design Reveals That Color Conceals
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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.
Passion
Passion in design gets misquoted constantly — treated as fuel when it's closer to weather. We've spent twenty years watching it ignite projects and abandon them halfway through. What keeps work honest isn't feeling, it's the decision to continue when passion has already left the room. That gap between passion in design and actual commitment is where studios either build something or quietly repeat themselves.
When was the last time you went on a date?
Brand dating strategy is something most studios won't admit they've ruined. We've watched clients walk into pitches dressed like a corporate handbook and wonder why nobody called back. The problem isn't the product — it's that design forgot to be interesting before it tried to be impressive.
Every Element Has a Job
Every element has a job — or it doesn't belong on the page. That's the single discipline that has shaped our work since 2004. When purposeful graphic design is the standard, nothing survives by accident: not the weight of a comma, not the gap between two blocks of colour. Every element has a job, and we've spent two decades making sure each one earns it.
First You Learn Than You Earn
Designer learning process isn't a phase — it's the foundation everything else is built on. We spent years in Ljubljana studios understanding materials, systems, and failure before a single award or client brief justified the time. The designer learning process, done honestly, is what separates work that holds from work that merely sells.
Is it sexy?
Is it sexy design? That's the question we ask before anything else leaves the studio. Not as provocation — as a filter. We've built 80+ awarded projects around this single, uncomfortable standard: if you can't feel it, it isn't finished.
Time
Time in design is the one resource studios consistently undervalue, including us. We've spent twenty years learning that the pressure to compress it rarely produces better work — it produces faster work, which is a different thing entirely. Time in design shapes every decision, from the first sketch to the final output.
Team 2 team
Team to team design is how we've always worked — not because it sounds progressive, but because the other way produces worse outcomes. When your strategist sits across from ours, decisions happen in minutes instead of weeks. That direct team to team design dynamic is what most studios promise and few actually practice.