There hasn’t been much order on our table lately. A catalogue from an Italian factory lies across an open book, a timber sample next to a laptop; somewhere there is a key from a project, a camera, notes from a conversation, the business card of someone we met while travelling, and an object we objectively did not need but brought home because it said something about the place it came from. That is, more or less, what our way of working has come to look like too.
For years, we kept trying to answer two simple questions: what are we, and what do we do? Studio, interior design, photography, media, creative direction, commerce, content. Each word described one part of the picture. None of them described the whole thing.
This year, we received media accreditation for Salone del Mobile.Milano. We applied with a website and Instagram account that still presented us primarily as an interior design and architecture studio. When the accreditation came through, it simply confirmed something that had already been taking shape for some time.
In Milan, the idea of not a studio. finally came into focus. That was where we realised it was time to give it form.
THE STUDIO BROUGHT US HERE
DANILO: We used to spend a lot of time trying to explain what we were and what exactly we did. I think this is the first time we have an answer that does not need to fit inside a single profession.
STEFAN: I love interior design and everything it has brought into my life over the years. Through it came manufacturers, materials, photography, real estate, architects, investors, travel, markets, people. After all of that, it makes no sense for those things to keep living separately. The moment came to bring the knowledge, experience and network together and take them somewhere bigger.
DANILO: So you’re saying “studio” has become too small a word?
STEFAN: More or less. The studio is what brought me here, but it no longer contains everything I want to do next.
That is where NOT begins for us.
We very quickly realised that what we were building was not something only we needed.
The creative industries are full of brilliant architects, designers, photographers, artists, writers, manufacturers, dealers and smaller brands who know exactly what they are doing, but often lack an environment that understands how their work should be presented, who it should reach, and how a strong idea finds the right people.
Traditional marketing agencies may understand marketing, but they do not always understand the way this industry works. These are not products moving down a conveyor belt. A space, an object, an image or a piece of furniture enters someone’s home, daily life, taste, intimacy and, eventually, the things they are willing to spend money on.
DANILO: That is why the editorial side matters so much to me. Not just advertising something, but building a story that understands the object, person or brand before trying to present it.
STEFAN: And then the platform becomes a shortcut between those who should perhaps already know one another, but have not met yet. Brands, architects, writers, manufacturers, investors, photographers, artists.
DANILO: Across the region and beyond it.
STEFAN: Exactly. A circle that can extend far beyond one project or one country.
CREATIVE WORK NEEDS A DIFFERENT MODEL
DANILO: We both learned a lot about authorship the hard way. There is still this idea in creative professions that you should already be grateful simply because someone gave you space.
STEFAN: Often, the question is not what someone’s work is worth, but what it costs. Everyone else in the chain usually knows the price of their part.
Visibility, prestige, access and presence can be genuinely valuable. We have both consciously accepted those exchanges many times. The problem begins when they become an assumption.
DANILO: If I choose to write something without a fee because I believe in the subject or the person, that is my choice. The same applies to any creative work. What matters is that there is an agreement rather than an assumption.
STEFAN: That is exactly why I wanted us to build a place where those questions do not constantly hang in the air. Where the terms are clear and authorship is respected from the beginning.
But this platform was not built simply so that we could have more control over our own work. What matters far more is opening that space to others.
Not automatically to everyone, but not according to the logic of a closed club either. The criterion exists to give the platform meaning, not to keep the circle small.
not a studio. therefore brings together things that have often existed separately: editorial content, creative direction, products, brands, markets, people and the relationships between them.
DANILO: On paper, someone might say that sounds like five different companies.
STEFAN: Only if you look at every part in isolation. To me, it is one ecosystem. You can approach it from different sides, but the pieces only make full sense once they connect.
A manufacturer may need an architect. An architect may need a product that has not yet reached this market. An artist may need someone who can place their work in the right space. A brand may need a story that does not sound like an ad. An investor may need someone who understands both the space and the people it is intended for.
NOT exists between those points.
ATTENTION IS A TOOL, NOT A METRIC
For years, Stefan’s photographs, opinions and posts have often travelled much further than the projects themselves. Some reached tens or hundreds of thousands of people and led to connections a conventional portfolio would struggle to create.
That experience matters to us, but it also taught us something else: views on their own guarantee almost nothing.
STEFAN: Virality can be useful, but it is not a measure of success. I care much more about who saw something, who saved it, shared it, reached out, or whether it led to a real connection.
DANILO: We are not speaking to the mass audience in the same way as someone whose job is to entertain millions of people.
STEFAN: Our audience is smaller and more precise. Ten right people can matter far more than a hundred thousand random views.
So we treat attention as a tool. It can create a connection, bring someone into a new network or take a product somewhere it could not reach before. Only then does the number begin to mean something.
There is Metamorphosis, our magazine, with stories about architecture, design, taste, products, travel, money and markets. Within it are Talks, conversations with people who do not need to belong to the same profession, generation or circle.
STEFAN: I’d like there to be pieces I disagree with.
DANILO: There will be.
STEFAN: Bold.
DANILO: I don’t want a magazine where everyone simply reassures one another that we all have good taste.
STEFAN: That would be unbearable.
Then there is Discover, our curated selection of brands, products, people and places. Sometimes a brand will remain an editorial recommendation. Sometimes we will connect it with a market, represent it or sell it. We see no reason to pretend those things cannot coexist.
STEFAN: If there is a commercial relationship, people will know there is one.
DANILO: And a recommendation will still have to earn its place.
To me, independence does not mean the absence of money. It means money does not determine the criterion.
THE CIRCLE IS NOT AN AUDIENCE
In the end, everything comes back to the circle.
We make content. It attracts attention, attention connects people, and from those encounters come new relationships, partnerships, products, ideas and markets. For someone, the region opens up. For someone else, another country. Sometimes it is simply the one introduction that was missing before the next step became possible.
STEFAN: I’d like an architect to discover a manufacturer here they did not know before. A brand to meet a photographer who understands it. An artist to find a space, or a person, with whom something new can happen.
DANILO: For someone to come because of a chair and stay because of a text.
STEFAN: Or the other way around.
DANILO: I like that even more.
not a studio. is therefore not a new name for the old studio. It is an ecosystem built from everything we have spent years learning, making and connecting, now brought together in one place and opened to the community we belong to.
The studio brought us this far. NOT begins with everything we learned along the way.
We open the doors. Who walks through them, who meets inside, and how far that encounter can travel is no longer entirely up to us. It also depends on the people who step into that circle with us.
The doors are open. Time to set things in motion.
