Athina Karpathiotaki, Multi-Disciplinary Designer

I start by taking things away. Before a logo, a screen or an object takes shape, I ask what it can live without. The answer is usually more than expected, and what remains gets stronger.

Dieter Rams called it less, but better. It is still the most useful brief I know. Fewer elements leave room for the one idea that matters, and give people less to decode and more to feel.

Brand, product and software are one conversation. The identity sets the tone, the product keeps the promise and the interface makes it easy to live with. When one speaks another language, people notice.

So I work across all three. More than ten years with names like Coca-Cola, Philip Morris, Vans and L’Oréal taught me how systems hold at scale. The same discipline makes a small brand look like it was always there.

Some of my favourite projects begin with a founder, a name and a feeling. Startups and small teams like Hoper decide with conviction, and the work grows with them from 0 to 1: from the first sketch to the shelf and the screen.

I like being there for that. A good identity should still fit when the company is five times bigger. And sometimes growth is simply play: with friends, I pour candles that keep memories in a can.