A love letter to my design heroes

Sometimes, you stumble upon creators who leave an incredible mark on your creative psyche. They seep into your consciousness, swirling their colors, forms, and ideas into your thoughts until they become part of your creative DNA.

For me, those creators are Hey Studio, AndWalsh, Teenage Engineering, and the incomparable Neri Oxman. Of course, there are many others, but they are the ones who keep making their mark on me. Their work — in all its varied and vibrant glory — serves as a reminder that design, at its best, is a love affair with creativity.

Oh, Hey Studio. It’s like walking into a kaleidoscope of creativity. Each design is a vibrant, playful energy that wakes the soul. While appearing almost childishly simple, their designs are sophisticated. The charming primitivism they express is anything but elementary — the essence of joy distilled into design, a pure and powerful expression that’s universally inspiring. They are not merely designers — they are masters of visual euphoria.

AndWalsh, on the other hand, is like an eccentric scientist passionately dissecting the bizarre quirks that make each brand unique. Jessica Walsh is always up for the weird, the strange, and the unexplored, embracing and amplifying these aspects until they become the heart of the narrative. Their daring spirit is electrifying. they aren’t just designing — they’re voyaging into the deep sea of the unknown and emerging with treasures that redefine the possibilities of branding and graphic design. This ability to transform the odd into the extraordinary is why I’m so obsessed with AndWalsh.

From the eclectic world of branding, I turn to the art of sound, personified by Teenage Engineering. Their approach to design is like a symphony, each product a note that adds to their melodic narrative of simplicity and versatility. The OP-1, their near-mythological synthesizer, is like an orchestral piece. It’s a testament to their ability to craft intuitive yet profoundly capable designs. Each knob and key show us that design can be a doorway to a universe of possibilities if only we dare to step through it.

Lastly, the phenomenal Neri Oxman is like a sorceress, weaving threads from different fields into a magical tapestry that defies categorization. At Under, we call her “The Bionic Woman” because she is perfect in many ways. She embodies the harmonious marriage of pragmatism and idealism. Each project is a mosaic of design, biology, computing, and materials engineering, displaying a level of ingenuity that’s simultaneously humbling and exhilarating. Her journey isn’t just about the final product, it’s also about the alchemical process of transformation. And it’s this ability to see and create connections where none seem to exist that makes her a visionary in the truest sense.

The design world is a beautifully infinite cosmos — these designers are some of the brightest stars in my constellation of inspiration. ❤️