15 studios creatives are excited about right now (beyond the obvious)

Every year, Creative Boom's State of Creativity survey asks thousands of working creatives about the studios and practices that inspire them most. With more than 1,000 responses, we thought we'd share the names that are resonating most with the community right now.

What follows is not a list of Creative Boom's personal favourites: we want to be clear about that. These are simply the studios that have come up again and again, unprompted, when respondents were asked which creative practices they most admire.

It's worth noting that the perennial heavyweights received nominations too: Pentagram, Wolff Olins, Landor and Moving Brands all featured. But the 15 names you'll find below are ones that don't always generate quite so many column inches—hence we thought it was high time to right the balance.

1. OK-RM

Founded in London in 2008 by Oliver Knight and Rory McGrath, OK-RM operates at the intersection of design, publishing and cultural production. Books, identities, exhibitions, films, installations... for this studio, the discipline is a verb, not a noun. Commissions span fashion (1017-ALYX-9SM, JW Anderson, Kenzo, Vivienne Westwood), art (The Guggenheim, The Met, Lisson Gallery, South London Gallery, The Hepworth Wakefield, The Tate) and independent publishing, the latter through their own imprint InOtherWords.

In 2024, a retrospective of their work titled "A Meaningful Order" was exhibited at X-Sign Space in Hangzhou, China. In 2016, they designed the British Pavilion for the Venice Architecture Biennale, and in 2018, they were awarded the Grand Prix at the Brno Biennial.

2. Zak Group

Zak Group is a London design office founded in 2005 by Zak Kyes, former art director of the Architectural Association. Over two decades, it has built a quiet but formidable reputation across creative direction, brand strategy and spatial design – work that's as comfortable in a gallery as it is in a boardroom, with clients spanning fashion, art and architecture.

Recent commissions include identities for Comme des Garçons, Rabanne, 818 and Sprinter; creative direction for Nike and the Woolmark Prize; and spatial environments for Dover Street Market and the Walker Art Center. The studio also builds worlds for artists and talent, including Max Richter, Virgil Abloh, Frank Ocean and Anne Imhof. In 2026, Kyes delivered 'Identity Crisis', a touring lecture drawing on two decades of the studio's work.

3. Porto Rocha

Founded in New York in 2019 by Brazilian co-founders Leo Porto and Felipe Rocha, Porto Rocha has moved with remarkable speed from a Brooklyn-based startup to a global agency with offices in New York and London, a team of around 30 and a portfolio that spans some of the most high-profile rebrands of recent years. Named Studio of the Year at the Latin American Design Awards 2024, and with their Robinhood rebrand winning Brand of the Year, the studio's ambition is matched by an increasingly rigorous strategic offering.

Recent work includes the global rebrand of W Hotels, the Google Gemini identity, Nike Run, Kunsthalle Basel, MASP (Museu de Arte de São Paulo) and the Sundance Film Festival identity system. As LGBTQ+ immigrants from Brazil, Porto and Rocha also use the studio's platform to advocate for fairer pitching practices across the industry.

4. Hey Studio

Founded in Barcelona in 2007 by Verónica Fuerte, Hey Studio has spent nearly two decades building a visual language that's instantly recognisable: vibrant, maximalist and stubbornly rooted in handmade craft. In an era when AI threatens to flatten visual culture, Verónica's commitment to marbling techniques, silk-screen printing and deliberate imperfection (what she calls "randomness that makes things special") feels more urgent than ever.

Recent clients have included a CBD sparkling water brand (with marbling applied directly to can designs), Ola Coffee, and a wine competition involving 1,000 hand-scratched silver-covered books. Verónica also runs Women at Work, a podcast now entering its sixth season. Read our profile of Hey Studio here.

5. Accept & Proceed

Accept & Proceed was founded in London by David Johnston, and has evolved into a collective of designers, strategists and creative leaders working at the intersection of brand and business.

The studio partners with organisations such as LEGO, Nike, Arc’teryx, NASA/JPL and Fondation Chanel at pivotal moments of change, helping them evolve what they are, what they do, and the role they play in the world. Their work spans strategy, identity, experience and systems, guided by a belief that design can build resilience and shape more meaningful futures.

Alongside its commercial work, the studio continues to explore community-led initiatives, including a series of sunrise gatherings that bring people together to pause, reflect and reconnect with what matters.

6. North

Founded in London in 1995 by Sean Perkins, North is one of Britain's most quietly influential design studios; an outfit so rigorous and restrained, its work sometimes seems to disappear into the culture it helps to define. Their core philosophy is to find the essence of a brand rather than decorate it, which has produced identities built for decades rather than for seasons.

Its portfolio includes the Southbank Centre, Barbican, Science Museum Group and Magnum Photos, for whom the studio completed a comprehensive rebrand and visual audit in 2024—unifying the photographic cooperative's visual output for the first time. North rebranded Tate in 2016 with a new identity system that evolved and rationalised the original Wolff Olins branding from 1999. Long-standing partners Jeremy Coysten and Stephen Gilmore lead the studio's creative direction alongside Sean.

7. Commission Studio

Founded in south-east London in 2013 by creative directors David McFarline and Christopher Moorby, Commission is a studio that wears its influences on its sleeve; and wears them well. Specialists in visual identity for fashion and luxury, the studio has built a portfolio of work for some of the world's most demanding clients in the world, including both established heritage houses and emerging names, across print, packaging, editorial, advertising and digital.

Both founders came to the studio having worked within some of the design industry's most highly regarded agencies, and that deep understanding of what makes global fashion brands tick is evident in everything the studio produces.

8. Studio Dumbar (DEPT®)

Founded in The Hague in 1977 by Gert Dumbar, one of the most influential figures in Dutch graphic design history, Studio Dumbar has spent nearly five decades shaping the visual culture of the Netherlands and beyond. Now based in Rotterdam and operating as part of DEPT® since 2016, the studio is led by creative director Liza Enebeis and business director Wouter Dirks, who have steered it through a period of significant expansion into motion, sound design and creative coding.

Recent projects include the rebrand of football club Feyenoord (2024), a new identity for PostNL (2023), and, perhaps most significantly, the collaboration with OpenAI Design Studio on their motion and sound identity (2025). The studio also runs DEMO Design in Motion Festival, the largest motion design festival in the Netherlands, projecting work across 5,000 digital OOH screens for 24 hours each year.

9. Manual

Manual is a brand and design consultancy founded in San Francisco by Tom Crabtree, with a second studio in Amsterdam. Described by its founder as bringing "a somewhat European design sensibility" to the varied sectors of the American West Coast, the studio has spent over a decade producing identity work that's simultaneously precise and poetic, balancing strategy with intuition and longevity with contemporary relevance.

Clients include Google, Nike and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, alongside standout work for Fort Point Beer Company, whose modular, illustration-led identity became something of a landmark in food and drink branding. The studio is currently developing the identity for European hospitality group The Social Hub, and recently delivered a signage and environmental graphics programme for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, which opens in June.

10. Base Design

Founded in Brussels in 1993 by Thierry Brunfaut, Dimitri Jeurissen and Juliette Cavenaile, all alumni of La Cambre visual arts school, Base Design is one of Europe's most enduring independent design networks. Today it operates studios in Brussels, New York, Geneva, Melbourne and Saigon, and is certified as a B Corporation. Clients across its 30-year history include Apple, MoMA, The New York Times, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Caudalie, Chopard, Médecins Sans Frontières and the International Olympic Committee.

Its most recent major commission is the multi-sensory brand universe for Kanal Centre Pompidou, the vast cultural centre opening in Brussels in November. Read our full feature on the project here.

11. Regular Practice

Regular Practice is a London branding studio founded in 2017 by Tom Finn and Kristoffer Sølling, who met as MA students at the Royal College of Art. Their story is an instructive one: the studio didn't technically exist before It's Nice That emailed about Tom's portfolio. Within an hour, the pair had decided to launch it, and that opportunistic energy has never really left.

Working across fashion, tech, culture, hospitality and FMCG, they describe their approach as "sector-agnostic by choice, category-defining by practice". Notable projects include a modular identity for Arc Hotels and campaigns for Folc, as well as work for Fred Perry, Tom Dixon Studio and Acne Studios. The founders are currently building Quarry, an AI-powered creative asset management tool aimed at studio environments.

12. Studio Sutherl&

Jim Sutherland set up Studio Sutherl& in 2014 to work with the best artists, architects, photographers, scientists, musicians, and writers. In the cultural sector, he has rebranded Kings Place, The Arts Society, National Museums Scotland, The Rothschild Foundation, Sinfonia Smith Square and Pallant House Gallery. Other branding projects include The London Fire Brigade, Williams F1, Prostate Cancer UK, Start-rite shoes and Wimbledon Lawn Tennis.

The studio is currently working on the identity for a new chair, the world’s most sustainable jeans, tiles for a short film about Tango, a typographic sculpture with artist Richard Wentworth and wayfinding projects for the IBM building and the world’s leading eye hospital.

13. Barkas

Founded in Copenhagen in 2014, Barkas is an independent creative company of more than 30 people across their Copenhagen, Stockholm and New York offices. All united by a single belief: that clarity animates the best strategic and creative work. Drawing on backgrounds spanning business, human science, art and craft, the studio takes a holistic approach to branding, working across identity, communication and digital to create differentiated brands that hold up across time and touchpoints.

Its client list reads like a cross-section of the world's most culturally ambitious companies: Glossier, Acne Studios, Marshall, Lululemon, Ikea, Volvo Cars, Chobani, The UN, Rains, Tekla, CPH:DOX, Trustpilot and Danish Film School. The studio's entrepreneurial spirit also extends to initiating and investing in cultural ventures of its own.

14. Bedow

Founded in Stockholm in 2005 by Perniclas Bedow, Bedow has spent two decades building a reputation as one of Europe's most rigorous and restlessly inventive studios; one whose work resists easy categorisation as "Scandinavian design", even as it operates from the heart of that tradition. Its identity work combines hand-drawn details, typographic craft and a strain of ingenuity that keeps it from ever feeling formulaic.

Clients include Aller Media, Bonniers Konsthall, Coop, Polar Music Prize, Neko Health, Unicef and Unesco. Over the years, the studio has become known for its narrative driven design. Its team completely avoids working with visual references and instead relies on summarising a project in a concise phrase before giving it form. Perniclas Bedow argues that "form follows function" is an outdated modernist design principle, and instead adheres to the studio's own principle: "Form follows narrative".

15. Atlas Studio

Atlas is a brand and design consultancy founded by Astrid Stavro and Pablo Martín, operating from studios in London and Palma de Mallorca. Both have spent over two decades winning virtually every major design accolade in the world (both individually and together) and Atlas channels that accumulated craft.

The studio works across identity, editorial and brand for clients including Camper, the Barcelona Design Museum, Teatre Principal, Casino de Ibiza and Huguet; producing, in each case, design that's specific to its context rather than transferable to the next brief. Astrid has also co-founded Vernacular, an independent publisher of small-edition design books.