How Piotr Stala runs an international branding studio from Poland

The Brand Identity: When Piotr Stala sits down with a founder for the first time, he often learns something the founder hasn’t told anyone else. That’s what happens when the person asking the questions is the same person who will design the identity, build the strategy and check in a year later. Stala has deliberately kept his practice solo, working across sectors as varied as autonomous cargo seaplanes for Poseidon Aerospace and fine jewellery for LÖF. His approach, which he calls ‘Refined Longevity,’ treats identity like architecture, making it structurally sound before anything visual is introduced.

“Most brand projects skip the first phase entirely,” Stala explains. “They go straight to aesthetics, and then wonder why the identity doesn’t hold.” In our conversation, he reveals the power of singular accountability, the thinking behind his four client frameworks, and why the best design decisions come from sitting with a problem for longer. TBI Hi Piotr! How are things going? PS Productive. I spent the better part of a year building systems that let me focus on the work rather than on managing the work. The studio runs quietly now. TBI STALA treats brand identity like architecture – strategically sound before it’s visualised.

Can you walk us through how that principle plays out in practice on a project? PS Early on, I learned something about the discovery conversation that I didn’t expect. A good discovery process reveals as much to the founder as it does to me. I’ve worked with people who believed they had a clear vision and discovered through the process that what they were building didn’t actually interest them. That’s a hard thing to surface. For a long time, I didn’t think it was my place to say it. I know now that being transparent in those moments is a functional requirement.

Silence isn’t politeness; it’s letting a project drift toward a dead end. There are three phases. Define the real problem, build something functional, reduce it to what’s essential. I call it Tertiary Research and Tertiary Design. Most brand projects skip the first phase entirely. They go straight to aesthetics, and then wonder why the identity doesn’t hold. TBI STALA is intentionally a principal-led, solo practice. What does a founder get from working directly with the person who both strategises and designs their brand? PS The person they briefed is the person who designs their brand.

That’s rarer than it sounds. When a founder knows they’re talking to the person making every decision, not a project manager, not an account lead, something shifts in the conversation. Even founders who are naturally outspoken speak differently when they know what they say won’t travel through a team, get filtered or get diluted. There’s something about knowing that one person is listening and is fully responsible for what happens next. In a larger structure, accountability disperses by design. That’s not a criticism, it's just how scale works. But it means that the kind of care I’m describing becomes structurally harder to maintain.

I stay small because I want to stay close to the outcome. Not just at delivery, but a year later, when the brand is running without me. I get deeply, inconveniently attached. A symbol earns its place when people don’t have to think about it. A symbol earns its place when people don’t have to think about it. TBI Your portfolio spans autonomous cargo seaplanes with Poseidon Aerospace, fine jewellery with LÖF and AI with Graphon. How does your process adapt when the sectors are that different? PS The first question I ask isn’t about the sector. It’s why this, and why now?

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The article presents a unique perspective on branding strategy that emphasizes foundational principles, making it significant and relevant for brand professionals, while also introducing a novel concept in 'Refined Longevity.'