What is a good design?
Good design principles are easier to list than to apply — and most lists get it wrong. We’ve spent twenty years testing what actually holds under pressure: across 81 logos, 128 projects, and judging rooms where good design either survives scrutiny or quietly doesn’t. What makes design work isn’t a checklist. It’s a set of decisions that age well, communicate without effort, and resist the urge to explain themselves.
I am sure we have all read a few definitions of good design; they all sound perfect and motivational, don’t they? Some of them are really good. But I wanted something practical, something that was easy to explain. And that is why I came up with some basic rules (not definitions) to make sure I was on the right path.
Adaptive.
Not only to the different media where the adaptation and resizing must work but also to how they can evolve and adapt along the path.
Different.
With all these messages around us, no one wants to be similar to another (we see around 4–10,000 advertising messages per day if you live in a big city and rarely remember any). It is not necessary to discover something “new”; sometimes it is good enough that the message is recognized and is different from the competition.
Focused.
Consistency is the key. A brand is not just a logo; it has defined elements that they must stay focused on. Using a logo as the only recognizable element will not get you far.
Aesthetic.
We are humans after all. It does not matter what the given aesthetic is, but it must be loved by your target group.
We can describe design by its parts—color, shape, form, typography—everything visual, or by the end result—a poster, a book, a website, a business card. But in fact the design is craft with emotions.
What Good Design Principles Look Like When the Brief Gets Difficult
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Deadlines
Design project deadlines are not the enemy of good work — they are the condition that makes good work possible. We've delivered over 128 projects across two decades, and the deadline has never once been optional. What changes is how seriously you treat it as a design constraint rather than an administrative inconvenience.
Art is Provocation: Raising Questions, without Giving Answers
Art is provocation — and that alone makes it fundamentally different from design. Where design resolves, art destabilises. We've spent two decades navigating that tension, and art is provocation precisely because it refuses the comfort of conclusions.
Have you ever tipped a designer?
Tipping a designer is something almost no client ever considers — and that silence is worth examining. We've delivered work that changed how companies present themselves to the world, and the conversation about money always ends at the invoice. Tipping a designer feels foreign, even absurd, until you ask yourself why.
You Can’t Win Them All
Design client taste mismatch isn't a failure of process — it's a structural tension baked into every brief. We've sat across the table from enough decision-makers to know that good work and approved work are not the same thing. Understanding where that gap lives, and why, is what separates studios that grow from ones that simply comply.
Claude is using your computer. Yours, Skynet.
Yes, I let Claude use my computer. Yes, I watched it open files, navigate folders, write code and do things that felt like magic. I gave it a task, leaned back, and watched the machine do the work.
Vibe coding
Vibe coding design is not a shortcut — it's a discipline we've been practising long before anyone named it. We let visual instinct drive technical decisions, the same way we've approached every identity and interface since 2004. When feel and function collapse into a single gesture, that's vibe coding design working as it should.
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.
Logo Design vs Brand Identity: What’s the Difference?
Logo design vs brand identity — we get asked to explain the difference on almost every first client call. A logo is a mark. A brand identity is the entire system that gives that mark meaning across every surface it touches. We've spent twenty years building both, and the gap between them is where most projects either hold together or fall apart.