Highlights from 5+1 hosted by Giga

On Wednesday, February 18th, the first 5+1 event of the year took place in Milan and was hosted by Giga .

For the first time, we organized a special edition in the morning, featuring a brunch offered by Farini Bakery. The reason why we did this special edition is because one of Giga’s golden rules is not to work, in any form, after 6:30 pm. This already gives great insight of the studio culture.

If you know Giga, you’ll know they are an international design studio rooted in generations of printed matter, yet they built their legacy through digital outputs. Today, they are probably one of the most innovative and interesting digital studios in Italy, and maybe in Europe.

We were welcomed by Giacomo Scandolara, one of the three founders of the studio, along with Federico Gajo and Francesco Bonetti, two designers from the visual and development departments, respectively. Yes, Giga is divided into four departments: visual, experience, interaction, and development.

As always, we discussed different topics, but being at Giga, a major focus was on Artificial Intelligence—specifically how AI interacts with the development team and how it has changed their perspective, workflow, and possibilities.

Beyond that, Giacomo spoke in particular about how Giga grew from zero to hero and how his mindset and approach to design evolved—shifting from being an operational graphic designer to becoming the person responsible for clients, employees, and all the aspects behind the creative work we see, of course together with Pablo Galbusera and Gabriele Donini.

In addition, Federico and Francesco—colleagues, friends, and flatmates—told us about recent exciting projects, such as the Camperlab rebranding, and how Giga has implemented dedicated moments in their weekly schedule for research and personal exploration. On Friday afternoons, the last hours of the day are completely free for experimentation, individual projects or other personal needs.

We truly had the pleasure of discovering the internal dynamics of Giga—elements that most likely play a fundamental role in shaping the work we see in their portfolio and signed with their name.

For us, this 5+1 was insightful, and we were happy for the participants who had the opportunity to discover a studio that is genuinely striving to build a different internal culture—one that puts people before work, and the human being before productivity.