Mjölk

What is the story of Mjölk ? EB: Studio Mjölk was created in 2011 in Rome by Alessandro Seina and I. Four years ago, I arrived in Berlin to join my family. We decided then to work remotely between Berlin and Rome. It took some time to settle our business and to find regular clients in Germany. The German studio only exists since recently.

Do you have a particular work ethics ? We like to think that design is not only a way to share its personal expression or an exercise of style, but a process to create communication objects understandable by everyone. We enjoy designing everything from a whole corporate identity to a small illustration. Corporate identities are the core of our activity. When we started back in 2011, it was basically the only thing we did. We are now also working on books, magazines, exhibition design, websites… We really enjoy to work in the music field, especially for independent labels. We always work together for each project, between Italy and Germany. We became Skype's experts. We are one single studio and we share everything depending on our skills. Next to this collaboration, I personally taught for two years in Rome for the IED Moda, the European Institute of Design in Italy.

How are you dealing with the large number of graphic design studios in Berlin ? Where do your clients generally come from ? In big cities you always count a lot of design studios. There is a sort of competition, but not a direct one. We are connected with other studios when we work with the same people, galleries… but it is always nice to see that a lot of creative people are succeeding in Berlin. In Rome or even in other cities of Italy, it is more difficult to see what the other studios made or even to define the number of agencies in a city. In Berlin it is different, because there are a lot of designers in every neighbourhoods. Their style is quite different too… here I feel there is a strong typographic approach and it is generally one color and one font, or two at most. We work in two different cities right now, but our clients are from many areas of the world. Even if the core of our business stays in Rome, we made some things for clients in London but also in Lyon where we developed the identity of the Confluence Institute for Innovation and Creative Strategies in Architecture, founded by Odile Decq.

Do you have particular projects for the future ? How do you see yourselves in five years ? We don't really have special projects for the future. We love our job. I don't know how it will grow up… But we are doing it in this way for many years now, and we are proud of it. I don't think we will ever change our approach. We are deliberately small. I was working in a big agency for years and I don't want to live that again. It is like working at Starbucks. I love to discuss with my clients and establish a real relationship with them. We believe that all projects can be handled by a small team from the start to the end. The best songs have always been written by bands only formed by guitar bass and drums. We will see what is next, we like to be surprised… Interview conducted in February 2015 ©ktlg