Cono Studio: Designing through dialogue and shared vision
Cono Studio’s co-founders, Davide Piersanti, Ginevra Franchi, and Francesco Ibrahim, reflect on ten years of shared practice, where product design, creative direction, and strategy merge into a fluid, people-centered approach.
This episode of Behind takes us inside Cono Studio, where we meet its three co-founders, Davide Piersanti, Ginevra Franchi, and Francesco Ibrahim, and explore an approach to design shaped by dialogue, risk, and a deeply shared vision. Founded ten years ago, it has grown into a practice that moves comfortably between the tangible and the intangible, working across product design, interiors, brand identity, and creative direction.
From the outset, Cono Studio has operated on two parallel yet interconnected planes. On one side lies the physical world of objects: furniture, industrial products, and occasional interior projects. On the other, a more immaterial but equally influential dimension unfolds through communication, brand identity, and creative strategy. Rather than treating these areas as separate disciplines, the studio approaches them as parts of a single ecosystem, each informing and strengthening the other.
What distinguishes the Studio is the way it navigates complexity. Multidisciplinarity, a term often used to describe studios with diverse skills, takes on a different meaning here. For Cono, it is less about adding competencies together and more about cultivating a way of seeing. Projects are not resolved by connecting isolated points, but by observing how those points interact: how materials, narratives, production constraints, users, and cultural context continuously influence one another.
This perspective naturally shapes the studio’s internal dynamics. Collaboration at Cono Studio is fluid and intense, built on constant conversation and, at times, open disagreement. Discussion is not confined within the studio walls but extends outward to suppliers, collaborators, and clients. This openness allows ideas to evolve through exchange, reinforcing a process that is both analytical and visceral, strategic in structure, intuitive in execution.
Being a studio founded by three individuals adds another layer of complexity. Design studios are often driven by strong personal expression, and aligning three creative voices is rarely straightforward. In the early days, this required a period of adjustment, understanding how individual identities could coexist within a collective authorship. Over time, this challenge became a strength. Today, the presence of three distinct yet complementary perspectives enables Cono Studio to engage with more complex projects and broader scales.
Each founder brings a specific background to the table: a strategic design and innovation mindset, a technically driven approach, and a sensitivity toward branding and communication. Decisions are shared across the team, resulting in outcomes that feel cohesive. Clients experience this as quality, as a holistic understanding of their needs.
Central to this process is dialogue. When working with brands, they treat every proposal as the beginning of a conversation. Sometimes the initiative comes from the client, sometimes from the studio itself, but the objective remains the same: to establish a genuine exchange.
Ultimately, Cono’s approach is defined by curiosity and courage. The studio consistently steps into unfamiliar territory, embracing risk as part of the learning process. This willingness to experiment keeps the practice alive and evolving. Within the studio, activities shift from hour to hour, reflecting a culture where exploration is constant and repetition is avoided.
After ten years, Cono Studio continues to build its identity around a way of working, one grounded in conversation, shared responsibility, and an enduring commitment to understanding complexity through design.
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