Value exists before we arrive. Our work is making it visible.
Solun Studio is an independent studio based in Florence. It designs brand identity, experience and intelligent systems for companies and projects that have something real to show and do not yet have the form to show it.
This page does not list services. It sets out where we start from, what we refuse to do, and how we work.
Because value that cannot be seen gets treated as if it were not there
People who build something good rarely also have time to make it recognisable. The work is there, the quality is there, the story is true — but while it stays in the head of the person who made it, the market has no way to tell it apart from everything else, and judges it on the one thing it knows how to compare: price.
Solun does not add value that is not there and does not build characters. It takes what already exists and gives it a form capable of being recognised, explained by others, and defended over time.
It is a distinction that changes the rest of the work: if the value is already there, the task is not to invent — it is to understand, decide, and give form.
Sol and luna: two ways of looking at the same thing
What exists
The sun reveals what is already there and nobody is looking at. This is the part of the work made of listening and analysis: understanding the company as it is today, not as it would like to be described. Before proposing anything, we uncover the value that has already been built.
What has yet to emerge
The moon lights what is not visible yet. This is the part made of direction and construction: the position that can be occupied, the form the brand can take, the systems that will keep it working when we are not there. Not a forecast — a decision.
A project lives between these two things: what it is, and what it can become. Holding both is the balance the studio is named after.
A brand and an intelligent system are not two separate jobs
Brand and technology are usually built by different people, at different times, from different documents. The identity then stays coherent on the surface and stops being coherent the moment someone actually uses it.
An assistant answering in a different tone from the site is not a technical detail. It is the brand contradicting itself at the exact moment someone is testing it.
We design them as parts of the same organism.
Iris, the assistant you can talk to on this site, is the first system we designed that way. Read how it is built
Three rules we settle before starting
Clarity comes before beauty
A beautiful form that is not understood has failed, even when people like it. First you decide what the viewer has to understand, then how to say it. When the two conflict, understanding wins. It is the more uncomfortable of the two choices.
We do not declare what we cannot show
This applies to numbers, clients, capabilities and channels. A case study without a client, a feature announced but not live, an icon leading to a dormant profile: they cost more than they return, because anyone checking finds out in a minute. We would rather say what is not there yet.
We deliver systems, not files
A logo inside a folder has never held up a growing company. What is needed is a set of rules clear enough that someone who was not there can add something without breaking anything. The work is finished when it holds without us.
The studio is led by one person
Solun Studio was founded and is led by Razieh Tavakolian.
Whoever listens in the first conversation is the same person who decides how a label is written three months later. It is not a matter of size: most of what makes a brand incoherent happens in the handover from whoever understood the problem to whoever executes it.
We design brand identity and intelligent systems as part of the same craft. Iris, the assistant on this site, was designed and written inside the studio, including the rules that forbid it certain answers.
Razieh Tavakolian — Founder · Florence
How the studio is built
Solun is organised to make the three rules above possible. Every structural choice comes from there.
Work starts from the moment, not from a price list
The programs are not bundles of activities but moments a company goes through: I am starting, I am growing, I look like everyone else, I feel outdated. You start from the sentence the client recognises, because that is the one that says what the problem actually is.
No price before understanding
We do not publish figures, ranges or durations. A quote given before knowing the problem is an invented number, and projects that start from an invented number end badly for both sides. Cost is defined after the first conversation.
What we deliver stays editable
Every text on this site can be changed from a panel, without touching code and without depending on a developer. It is the same rule we apply to what we build for clients: a brand that has to open a ticket to fix a sentence is a brand that will stop fixing them.
We build the technology ourselves
The intelligent systems we design are written in house, including the rules deciding what they must not do. That is why we can state their limits: we know them because we chose them.
The Discovery Session
A conversation, before any proposal. It is the first meeting, it happens online, and it costs nothing: it is there to understand where you are and whether we can be useful.
- Free
- No commitment
- No sales pitch
You say where you are
Where the company stands today, what it is trying to reach, what has already been tried. Nothing to prepare: what you already know is enough.
We look at the problem, not the project
What looks like a site to rebuild is often a position to decide. It is worth noticing that before starting rather than halfway through.
You leave with an answer
If we can be useful we say so, and we say how. If this is not your moment we say that too: knowing it is not the moment is a useful answer.
If you would rather write than book a call, that works just as well: neither route is the fallback for the other.
Book a Discovery Session