Come one, come all: Ba’ndo on creating a design community for all and having fun while they’re at it

Ba’ndo is busy having fun. The Istanbul-based studio, with an arm in London, is up to many things – it’s been busy crafting typefaces, creating identities for the likes of sustainable eyewear company REUNIK and MAD, a digital news portal, a project that has now won a trove of awards, while also setting up a lab within its studio that nurtures and chisels their designers’ many talents. But perhaps what truly sets Ba’ndo apart is its drive to be a community – a safe space to hold conversations about design that deepen the practice of designers not just from their agency, but any creative who’s interested in pushing the door open and joining in. “We see design not just as a profession but as a way of life, and we believe it should be enriching,” Co-founder & CCO Emrah Doğru tells us. The agency regularly organises workshops, open to all designers, aimed at nurturing the design community. To get a closer look at its inner workings, we asked Doğru to walk us through life at Ba’ndo and give us a glimpse of their projects, passion, obsessions, and plans for the future, which are less about what hovers on the horizon, and more about “living today as if it were tomorrow.” RB: Hi, Emrah! How are things in Istanbul?