CONSISTENCY IS RADICAL

Irene Pereyra, co-founder of Anton & Irene, isn’t chasing trends. For her, UX design is about crafting systems that last, not jumping on the next shiny tool. In this conversation, she explains why consistency is radical, how small studios stay hands-on, and why design is as much about responsibility as it is about aesthetics. Irene will also be joining us as a speaker at Forward Festival 2026 in Berlin.

The design industry often glamorizes constant reinvention. Do you feel pressure to reinvent your practice, or do you find strength in consistency and refinement?
I don’t feel pressure to reinvent at all. The core design of our Anton & Irene website for example, hasn’t changed since 2014. We like it. We think it works. We don’t think it needs to change. The tech stack has changed over the years to account for newer browsers, but why change a design that isn’t broken? Just for the sake of changing it?

UX design has an almost anxious relationship with novelty (micro-trends, new patterns, new tools, new frameworks) often without asking what problem the “new” is actually solving. What’s interesting is that we don’t expect this from architecture. We don’t walk into a well-designed building and ask why it isn’t reinventing itself every two years. We value architecture for its ability to hold up over time.

I think UX should aspire to the same thing. For me, the real work isn’t chasing whatever next trend, but designing systems that can last, adapt, and still make sense long after the trend cycle has moved on.


You’ve worked with huge brands but also very intimate, small-scale cultural institutions. How does your approach change depending on the scale and personality of the client?

The fundamentals don’t change, but the power dynamics do. With large organizations, a lot of the work is about alignment and decision-making and internal politics. With smaller institutions, it’s often about protecting intention and ensuring the design process is adhered to and the whole thing doesn’t become too chaotic or overly reliant on the personal opinions of one single founder.

You’ve spoken about “designing deliberately.” In an industry that feels increasingly reactive, what does deliberate design look like in 2026?

Our process has always been the same. We ask questions. We try to understand the people we’re designing for. We think about structure, scalability, maintainability, and whether something can hold up over time. We also challenge our clients when necessary. That part of the work hasn’t changed.

Most of the reactivity, in my experience, actually comes from fear on the client side. Every new leader that comes in wants visible change, simply because they feel the need to leave a mark, and to prove why they were hired. It’s rarely about users. Or whether or not something is actually broken. It’s usually about ego.

I was talking about this with a friend in branding recently, and we realized how in branding, consistency is protected, whereas in digital, almost every client team has Figma, a handful of developers, and just enough confidence to constantly tweak things internally. Because these changes happen in-house, there’s very little pushback. People’s jobs are on the line, so internal design teams end up executing orders even when they don’t make any sense.

That’s why things change so often in digital, and there’s only so much I can control. I can argue for users instead of personal opinions, but once the work leaves the studio, it enters an ecosystem of fear, power, and internal politics.


Your studio moves fluidly between digital products, cultural work, and physical installations. What’s the biggest challenge - and biggest reward - of working across so many mediums?

One interesting side effect of working across mediums is that you quickly get categorized. When we did USA Today, we suddenly received a wave of inquiries for newspaper redesigns. After working with the Met and M+, we’re now almost always on the shortlist for museum websites.

The upside is that you understand the politics, the constraints, the legacy systems, the edge cases others might miss. Plus, you’ve already made the mistakes, so you’re less likely to repeat them. But the challenge is that you inevitably start reaching for solutions that worked before. And sometimes a team that has never designed a museum website (or a newspaper) might actually see the problem more clearly, simply because they’re not carrying all that baggage.

With AI rapidly embedding itself into creative workflows, how has your perspective on authorship, originality, and craft evolved?

I’m very much in favor of using AI to automate boring, unnecessary tasks (like transcribing interviews, synthesizing research, organizing material, fine-tuning decks). That kind of work drains energy, and offloading it makes sense. That said, I treat AI output the same way I would a junior designer’s work: I double-check everything.

What I find sad is using AI for actual creation like writing, designing, or concepting. Because I actually enjoy doing that work. It also assumes I already know what I want to say or make. I don’t. For me, the thinking happens in the doing. Writing is how I discover what I believe. Designing is how I figure out what the problem really is.

And as a teacher this really worries me. When AI first appeared and my students started using it, I was super pissed off. I thought they were being super lazy. But now I realize that many of them use AI because they’re insecure. They assume the machine must know better than they do. They don’t feel like they can compete with it. They’re afraid.

So now, a lot of my teaching is about building confidence. About telling them that you learn design by doing a lot of bad design first. You train your eye by being wrong repeatedly. You learn to explain your work by writing unclear, awkward sentences before you can write good ones.

But the real harm to our industry is the disappearance of entry-level jobs. How are young designers supposed to grow? How do you become mid-level or senior without being allowed to be inexperienced first? Craft, judgment, and confidence don’t appear fully formed overnight. They require time, mentorship, and space to fail. And AI is robbing the new generation of designers of that.


You intentionally keep your studio small. What has staying small enabled you to do that a larger agency model simply can’t?

It allows us to stay close to the work, to clients, to consequences. Smallness means we get to stay hands-on. It also lets us say “no” without collapsing a business model, which is a rare and powerful thing.

Forward Festival is about pushing creativity forward. What’s one industry habit or belief you think we should evolve beyond - and one we’re not embracing boldly enough yet?

We need to move beyond seeing design only as a way to help other people make money, or as a form of personal expression. What we’re not embracing enough is design as a civic practice: design that understands power, systems, and responsibility.


As a creative leader, how do you create an environment where ideas can challenge each other without ego getting in the way?

Since our studio operates more like an auteur model, we don’t have to argue internally, because each project is 100% designed by us, and we only hire people to do things we can’t (3D, motion, illustration, etc.). On top of that, Anton and I have learned over almost twenty years of working together which hill is, and isn’t, worth dying on.

Where ego really enters the picture is on the client side. If there is a strong ego there, my experience has been that there is very little you can do to change that. You can explain, you can reason, you can document decisions, but ultimately ego tends to win. The only real control you have is choosing whether or not to work with that client again in the future (spoiler alert: don’t).

You’ve pitched to global clients and cultural institutions alike. What’s one underrated pitching skill young creatives should start practicing early?

First I want to clarify that we never, ever pitch for free. We are 100% against doing free work for large corporations. So when we do pitch we get paid for it, and it’s usually between us and up to 5 other companies.

Anyways. A good pitch is a good story, and a good story has to be performed well. I have seen very weak work get bought because the story was convincing, and very strong work get rejected because it was explained poorly or delivered without confidence.

Pitching is closer to performance than most designers are comfortable admitting. Timing, presence, and the ability to read the room all matter. I sometimes joke with my students that they should have at least one acting class in the curriculum, because learning how to hold attention while remaining charming is just as important as the work itself.


UX design attracts a lot of people right now. If someone is just getting started, what’s one thing they should stop focusing on - and one thing they should double down on instead?

Stop obsessing over tools. Tools expire. Double down on understanding people instead (especially those who are not like you). UX is about real consequences in people’s very real lives, so think about that before you start doing anything else.


Imagine having a magic “Delete” button for the creative industry, which trend, buzzword, or habit would you remove instantly?

“Disruption”. It’s a very stupid and empty word that excuses harm. Most things don’t need to be disrupted. They need to be understood and repaired.


If young designers could steal one skill from you, which one should they steal - and which one would you guard like a dragon guarding treasure?

They can steal my ability to synthesize, the ability to connect dots across disciplines and industries. What I’d guard is judgment. That only comes from time, mistakes, and paying attention.

Interview by Raffaela Krenmayr