Which inventive studio do you most admire proper now, and why? This can be a query we requested our neighborhood by way of an ongoing survey. With greater than 700 responses to date, these are the highest winners. What’s hanging about this 12 months’s outcomes is the recognition of studios that are not simply producing lovely work however are additionally actively shaping discussions and tackling the large challenges going through our trade and society.
From the colourful vitality of Brazilian tradition to the considerate minimalism of North European aesthetics, this listing displays a world inventive panorama that is extra related, extra aware, and extra collaborative than ever earlier than.
In brief, these studios aren’t simply following tendencies; they’re setting them. Learn on to find the 25 studios our neighborhood is most enthusiastic about proper now.
Porto Rocha is a New York-based company that unites technique and design to create work that evolves with the world we stay in. It continues to dominate conversations in 2025, and it is easy to see why. Founders Felipe Rocha and Leo Porto have constructed one thing actually particular—a studio that not solely creates visually gorgeous work but additionally actively celebrates and amplifies numerous voices in design.
As an example, their current daring new identification for the São Paulo artwork museum MASP nods to Brazilian modernist design traditions whereas reimagining them for a up to date viewers. The rebrand attracts closely on the museum’s iconic modernist structure by Lina Bo Bardi, utilizing a red-and-black color palette and robust typography to replicate the constructing’s hanging visible presence.
As we write this text, Porto Rocha simply shared a brand new partnership with Google to reimagine the visible and verbal identification of its revolutionary Gemini AI mannequin. We won’t wait to see what they give you!
Simon Dixon and Aporva Baxi’s London powerhouse specialises in creating model methods and design methods for “courageous companies” that wish to problem conference, together with Hulu, Audible, and the Premier League. The studio had an distinctive begin to 2025 by collaborating with Roblox on a model new design system. On the coronary heart of this main challenge is the Tilt: a 15-degree shift embedded within the emblem that indicators momentum, creativity, and anticipation.
They’ve additionally continued to construct their repute as design thought leaders. On the OFFF Pageant 2025, as an illustration, Simon and Aporva delivered a masterclass on working a profitable model design company. Their core message centred on the significance of individuals and designing with intention, even within the face of world challenges. In addition they highlighted “Tremendous Futures,” their program that encourages workers to suppose freely and positively about model challenges and viewers needs, aiming to reclaim inventive liberation.
And if that wasn’t sufficient, DixonBaxi has simply launched its model new web site, one which’s designed to be open in nature. As Simon explains: “It isn’t a store window. It is a house to share the pondering and ethos that drive us. You may discover our work, however extra importantly, what shapes it. No guff. Simply us.”
Mom is a famend unbiased inventive company based in London and now boasts workplaces in New York and Los Angeles as nicely. They’ve spent 2025 persevering with to push the boundaries of what promoting can obtain. And so they’ve made an particularly large splash with their newest instalment of KFC’s ‘Imagine’ marketing campaign, that includes a surreal and humorous tackle KFC’s gravy. As we wrote on the time: “Its steadiness between theatrical grandeur and self-awareness makes the marketing campaign uniquely partaking.”
Based mostly in Rotterdam, Studio Dumbar/DEPT® is broadly recognised for its influential work in visible branding and identification, typically incorporating inventive coding and sound, for purchasers such because the Dutch Railways, Instagram, and the Van Gogh Museum.
In 2025, we have particularly admired their work for the Dutch soccer membership Feyenoord, which brings the crew beneath a single, cohesive imaginative and prescient that displays its vitality and prowess. This groundbreaking rebrand, unveiled at first of Could, strikes away from nostalgia, as a substitute emphasising the membership’s “measured ferocity, confidence, and ambition”.
Based mostly between Palma de Mallorca, Spain and London, HONDO specialises in branding, editorial, typography and product design. We’re explicit followers of their rebranding of metallic furnishings makers Castil, based mostly round clear and versatile designs that spotlight Castil’s vibrant and customisable merchandise.
This new system encompasses a bespoke monospaced typeface and emblem design that evokes Castil’s adaptability and the precision of its craftsmanship.
Smith & Diction is a small however mighty design and replica studio based by Mike and Chara Smith in Philadelphia. Born from goals, late-night chats, and loads of errors, the studio has grown right into a inventive pressure identified for considerate, boundary-pushing branding.
Beginning out with Mike designing in a tiny condominium whereas Chara held down a day job, the pair realized the ropes the exhausting manner—and now they’re thriving. Latest highlights embrace their work with Gamma, an AI platform that allows you to rapidly get concepts out of your head and right into a presentation deck or onto an internet site.
Gamma wished their model replace to really feel “VERY enjoyable and a little bit bit on the market” with an AI-first method. So Smith & Diction labored exhausting to “put bizarre to the check” whereas nonetheless growing accountable methods for emblem, kind and color. The outcomes, as ever, have been distinctive.
DNCO is a London and New York-based inventive studio specialising in place branding. They’re greatest identified for shaping identities, digital instruments, and wayfinding for museums, cultural establishments, and full neighbourhoods, with purchasers together with the Design Museum, V&A and Transport for London.
Just lately, DNCO has been making headlines once more with its formidable model refresh for Dumbo, a New York neighbourhood scuffling with misperceptions as a consequence of mass tourism. The aim was to focus on Dumbo’s unconventional spirit and exhibit it as “a special aspect of New York.”
DNCO preserved the unique diagonal emblem and launched a versatile “tape graphic” system, impressed by the neighbourhood’s historical past of inventing the cardboard field, to replicate its ingenuity and reveal new views. The color palette and typography have been chosen to embody Dumbo’s industrial and gritty character.
Based by Verònica Fuerte in Barcelona, Spain, Hey Studio is a small, all-female design company celebrated for its hanging use of geometry, daring color, and playful but refined visible language. With a deal with branding, illustration, editorial design, and typography, they mix pleasure with craft to discover points with coronary heart and function.
A fantastic instance of their affect is their current branding for Rainbow Wool. This German initiative is reworking wool from homosexual rams into trend merchandise to assist the LGBT neighborhood.
As is typical for Hey Studio, the challenge’s identification is vibrant and joyful, utilising vivid, curved shapes that may put a smile on everybody’s face.
Koto is a London-based international branding and digital studio identified for co-creation, strategic pondering, expressive design methods, and enduring partnerships. They’re well-known within the trade for bringing heat, optimism and readability to complicated model challenges.
Over the previous 18 months, they’ve undertaken a big challenge to refresh Amazon’s international model identification. This intensive enterprise has concerned redesigning Amazon’s grasp model and over 50 of its sub-brands throughout 15 international markets.
Koto’s method, described as “radical coherence”, goals to refine and modernize Amazon’s most recognizable components somewhat than drastically altering them. You’ll be able to learn extra concerning the challenge right here.
Robotic Meals is a Leeds-based, brand-first inventive studio recognised for its strategic and holistic method. They’re previous masters at melding inventive concepts with business rigour throughout packaging, model technique and marketing campaign design.
Latest Robotic Meals initiatives have included a daring rebrand for Hip Pop, a gentle drinks firm specializing in kombucha and different sodas. Their aim was to raise Hip Pop from an indie challenger to a mainstream class chief, shifting away from typical well being drink aesthetics.
The outcomes are visually hanging, with black backgrounds prominently featured (a rarity within the well being drink aisle), punctuated by vibrant fruit illustrations and flavour-coded colors. Learn extra concerning the challenge right here.
Saffron is an unbiased international consultancy with workplaces in London, Madrid, Vienna and Istanbul. With deep experience in naming, technique, identification, and design methods, they work with main public and private-sector purchasers to develop assured, culturally clever manufacturers.
One 2025 spotlight to date has been their work for Saudi Nationwide Financial institution (SNB) to create NEO, a groundbreaking digital life-style financial institution in Saudi Arabia.
Saffron built-in cultural and design tendencies, together with Saudi neo-futurism, for its sonic identification to create a product that helps each particular person and neighborhood connections. The design system strikes a steadiness between fashionable Saudi aesthetics and the sensible calls for of a fast-paced digital product, making certain a constant model reflection throughout all interactions.
Alright Studio is a full-service technique, inventive, manufacturing and expertise company based mostly in Brooklyn, New York. It prides itself on a “no home type” method for purchasers, together with A24, Meta Platforms, and Publish Malone. One of the thrilling of their current initiatives has been Offball, a digital-first sports activities information platform that goals to offer extra nuanced, constructive sports activities storytelling.
Alright Studio designed a clear, intuitive, editorial-style platform that includes a masthead-like logotype and common sports activities iconography, making a calmer person expertise aligned with OffBall’s constructive content material.
Wolff Olins is a world model consultancy with 4 principal workplaces: London, New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Recognized for his or her brave, culturally related branding and forward-thinking technique, they collaborate with massive companies and trailblazing organisations to create daring, genuine model identities that resonate emotionally.
A specific spotlight of 2025 to date has been their collaboration with Leo Burnett to refresh Sandals Resorts’ international model with the “Fabricated from Caribbean” marketing campaign. This strategic transfer positions Sandals not merely as a luxurious resort however as a cultural ambassador for the Caribbean.
Wolff Olins developed a brand new visible identification referred to as “Pure Vibrancy,” integrating native influences with fashionable design to replicate a real connection to the islands’ tradition. This rebrand speaks to a rising traveller demand for authenticity and significant experiences, permitting Sandals to outline itself as an extension of the Caribbean itself.
Based by Brian Collins, COLLINS is an unbiased branding and design consultancy based mostly within the US, celebrated for its playful visible language, expressive storytelling and culturally wealthy identification methods. In the previous few months, we have cherished the new branding they designed for Barcelona’s twenty fifth Offf Pageant, which departs from its common constant wordmark.
The up to date identification is impressed by the pageant’s function throughout the worldwide inventive neighborhood, and is rooted within the idea of ‘Centre Offf Gravity’. This idea is visually expressed by the pageant’s title, which seems to exert a gravitational pull on the textual content bins, inflicting them to “stick” to it.
Moreover, the ‘f’s within the wordmark are merged right into a steady line harking back to a magnet, with the movement graphics additional emphasising the gravitational pull because the title floats and different components comply with.
Studio Spass is a inventive studio based mostly in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, centered on vibrant and dynamic identification methods that replicate the varied and multifaceted nature of cultural establishments. Considered one of their current landmark initiatives was Greater, a large-scale typographic set up created for the Shenzhen Artwork E book Honest.
Impressed by tear-off calendars and the bodily act of studying, Studio Spass used 264 A4 books, with every web page displaying summary particulars, to create an evolving grid of color and sort. Guests have been invited to work together with the set up by flipping pages, always revealing new layers of design and a hidden message: “Get pleasure from books!”
Utilized Design Works is a New York studio that specialises in reshaping companies by branding and design. They supply experience in design, technique, and implementation, with a deal with constructing long-term, collaborative relationships with their purchasers.
We have been thrilled by their current work for Grand Central Madison (the station that connects Lengthy Island to Grand Central Terminal), the place they have been instrumental in ushering in a brand new period for the transportation hub.
Utilized Design sought to create a commuter expertise that imbued the spirit of New York, showcasing its range of thought, voice, and scale that befits one of many biggest cities on the planet and one of many biggest constructions in it.
The Chase Inventive Consultants is a Manchester-based unbiased inventive consultancy with over 35 years of expertise, identified for mixing humour, function, and robust branding to rejuvenate standard shopper campaigns. “We’re not designers, writers, advertisers or model strategists,” they are saying, “however all of those and extra. An ideas-based inventive studio.”
Just lately, they have been tasked with shaping the identification of York Central, a significant city regeneration challenge set to develop into a brand new metropolis quarter for York. The Chase developed the identification based mostly on intensive public engagement, listening to residents of all ages about their perceptions of town and their hopes for the brand new space. The ensuing model identification makes use of linear varieties that subtly reference York’s well-known railway hub, symbolising the long-standing connections town has fostered.
Based mostly in London and based by Kirsty Carter and Emma Thomas, A Observe for On a regular basis Life constructed a repute as a sought-after collaborator with like-minded corporations, galleries, establishments and people. To not point out a conceptual rigour that ensures every design is significant and authentic.
Just lately, they have been engaged on the visible identification for Muzej Lah, a brand new worldwide museum for modern artwork in Bled, Slovenia opening in 2026. This centres round a customized typeface impressed by the slanted geometry and sq. detailing of its concrete roof tiles. It additionally attracts from European modernist typography and the experimental lettering of Jože Plečnik, certainly one of Slovenia’s most influential architects.
A Observe for On a regular basis Life. Picture: Carol Sachs
Alexey Brodovitch: Astonish Me publication design by A Observe for On a regular basis Life, 2024. Picture: Ed Park
La Biennale di Venezia identification by A Observe for On a regular basis Life, 2022. Picture: Thomas Adank
CAM – Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian identification by A Observe for On a regular basis Life, 2024. Picture: Sanda Vučković
Studio Nari is a London-based inventive and branding company partnering with purchasers around the globe to construct “manufacturers that really join with folks”. NARI stands, by the best way, for Not At all times Proper Concepts. As they put it, “It is a title that may sound odd for a branding company, but it surely displays every little thing we imagine.”
One landmark challenge this 12 months has been a complete rebrand for the digital music pageant Area Day. Studio Nari created a dynamic and evolving identification that displays the pageant’s progress and its connection to the digital music scene and neighborhood.
The core concept behind the rebrand is a “reactive future”, permitting the model to adapt and develop with the pageant and present tendencies whereas sustaining a powerful basis. A brand new, steadfast wordmark is at its centre, whereas a brand new marque has been launched for the primary time.
Beetroot is a 25‑sturdy inventive studio celebrated for its daring identities and storytelling-led method. Based mostly in Thessaloniki, Greece, their work spans visible identification, print, digital and movement, and has earned worldwide recognition, together with Pink Dot Awards. Just lately, in addition they gained a Wooden Pencil on the D&AD Awards 2025 for a collection of posters created to advertise stay jazz music occasions.
The inventive concept behind all three designs stems from improvisation as a key characteristic of jazz. Every poster communicates the artist’s title and different related info by a typographical “improvisation”.
Form Studio is an unbiased inventive company based mostly in London that specialises in branding and digital design, in addition to providing providers in animation, inventive and artwork route, and print design. Their aim is to collaborate intently with purchasers to create impactful and visually interesting designs.
One current challenge that piqued our curiosity was a bilingual, editorially-driven digital platform for FC Como Girls, knowledgeable Italian soccer membership. To replicate the membership’s ambition of selling gender equality and driving constructive social change inside soccer, the brand new web site employs daring typography, sturdy imagery, and an empowering tone of voice to encourage and disseminate its message.
Slug World is a inventive company and artwork collective based by artist and musician Bosco (Brittany Bosco). Centered on creating immersive experiences “for each IRL and URL”, their aim is to work with artists and types to determine a sustainable media platform that embodies the values of younger millennials, Gen Z and Gen Alpha.
Considered one of Slug World’s current initiatives concerned a collaboration with SheaMoisture and xoNecole for a three-part collection referred to as The Root of It. This collection celebrates black magnificence and hair, highlighting its significance as a connection to ancestry, custom, blueprint and tradition for black ladies.
New York studio Little Troop crafts expressive and intimate branding for life-style, trend, and cultural purchasers. Led by inventive administrators Noemie Le Coz and Jeremy Elliot, they’re identified for his or her playful and infrequently “kid-like” method to design, drawing inspiration from their very own experiences as 90s children.
Considered one of their current and extremely acclaimed initiatives is the visible identification for MoMA’s first-ever household pageant, One other World. Little Troop was tasked with growing a complete visible identification that will lengthen from small objects, equivalent to café placemats, to massive billboards.
Their designs have been intentionally a little bit “dream-like” and relied purely on illustration to promote the pageant with no need pictures. Little Troop additionally rigorously chosen seven colors from MoMA’s present model tips to strike a steadiness between timelessness, gender neutrality, and enjoyable.
Morcos Key’s a Brooklyn-based design studio co-founded by Jon Key and Wael Morcos. Collaborating with a various vary of purchasers, together with arts and cultural establishments, non-profits and business enterprises, they’re identified for translating purchasers’ tales into impactful visible methods by considerate dialog and formal expression.
One notable challenge is their visible identification work for Hammer & Hope, {a magazine} that focuses on politics and tradition throughout the black radical custom. For this challenge, Morcos Key developed not solely the visible identification but additionally a customized all-caps typeface to replicate the publication’s mission and content material.
Thirst, also referred to as Thirst, is an award-winning strategic drinks packaging design company based mostly in Glasgow, Scotland, with extra hubs in London and New York. Based in 2015 by Matthew Stephen Burns and Christopher John Black, the corporate focuses on constructing creatively distinctive and commercially efficient manufacturers for the beverage trade.
To see what they’re able to, take a look at their work for SKYY Vodka. The brand new international visible identification system, referred to as Audacious Glamour’, goals to unify SKYY beneath a singular, highly effective concept. The visible identification advantages from bolder framing, patterns, and a flavour-forward color palette to focus on every product’s “juicy perspective”, whereas the pictures type employs macro photographs and liquid highlights to convey a premium really feel.
