Side projects
Designer side projects are not a break from real work — they are the reason the real work stays sharp. We have run a design studio in Ljubljana since 2004, and the projects that never had a client are often the ones that taught us the most. Side projects are where instinct gets to move faster than process.
Our work is not easy. You need to stay excited all the time, and that is impossible. You need to find something that drives you—things that blow out some steam.
Side projects often play an important role in learning and growing my design skills; they allow me to explore new ideas or play around with old, unused ones.
Even when the times are not so great, you can’t be at your best all the time. You can’t start embracing that. We all have ups and downs; we all feel productive one day and coffee addict the next. Creativity is strange, and it is impossible to know when the idea will hit you.
Side projects make me happy and excited, even when I am completely stuck. I can easily shift to a side project and get my energy back.
It does not matter if you are working on new ideas or recycling some old ones that got stuck, just to prove you can do them. So go over your old notebook (yes, you need to have one) and start producing something. It is not important if something will grow out of it. Important is to finish it and ignore the money aspect.
Why Designer Side Projects Belong in a Studio Practice
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Redesign
Brand redesign is one of the most misused terms in the industry. Studios pitch full rebuilds when a type adjustment would do; clients request "a refresh" when the underlying system is broken beyond repair. We've worked through both scenarios enough times to know the difference isn't aesthetic — it's structural, and getting it wrong is expensive.
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.
We always see ourselves a littl e better before we look in the mirror.
Brand self-perception distorts before the brief even lands on our desk. We've watched it happen across 81 logo projects — a company convinced their identity reads confident, while their audience registers something closer to anxious. The mirror test isn't vanity; it's the first honest step in any serious brand identity work.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.