Independent product & design studio · Brooklyn, since 2017
Ashke began in 2017 as a small, deliberate partnership: two practitioners who had spent the previous decade inside large product organizations wanted to build software the way we believed it ought to be built — slowly, in the open, with the people who actually use the work present in every conversation. Nine years later the studio is nine senior practitioners, self-funded, and still drawn to the same question: what does software feel like when the people who make it care how it is made?
The studio, by name.
Nine senior practitioners. No juniors, no account managers, no outsourcing. These are the people who would do the work.
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01
Maya Okonkwo
Studio Principal · Design
I care most about the seam between an interface and the person using it; I read research transcripts before I open Figma.
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02
Daniel Reyes
Founding Principal · Engineering
I write production code on every engagement because a design system that doesn't compile is just a picture.
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03
Hannah Pirsig
Research Lead
I've watched 800 hours of usability sessions since 2019; my favorite question is the one after the second silence.
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04
Theo Marchetti
Senior Product Designer
I sketched before I typed and I still do; the first hour is always on paper.
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05
Yuki Brandt
Senior Engineer · Systems
The best component API is the one the reader doesn't have to learn.
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06
Samir al-Khouri
Senior Engineer · AI Interfaces
I shipped my first neural interface in 2014 and I still treat every model output as a draft, not an answer.
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07
Priya Vance
Senior Brand Designer
Logos are the easiest part; the hard part is the typographic system underneath.
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08
Lior Tannenbaum
Senior Engineer · Web
Performance is a craft decision, not an afterthought at the end of the build.
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09
Anna Kowalski
Studio Manager · Operations
I keep the studio running so the eight of them can stay focused on the work.
Where we work.
A single studio in Brooklyn, on the fourth floor of a former printing house on the East River. The work happens here, together, in one room with the door open.
- Address
- 155 Water Street, Suite 4B
Brooklyn, NY 11201 - Studio hours
- Monday – Friday
10:00 – 18:00 Eastern - Visitors
- By appointment. Write to [email protected] and we'll find a Tuesday.
- Direct line
- +1 (718) 555-0142
"We don't have a process diagram because the work resists one. A studio this small runs on trust, taste, and the slow accumulation of decisions made in the same room. That is what we are selling, and it is what we refuse to scale."
Engagements
A few project conversations open each year.
We take on a small number of engagements at a time so that the people who write the proposal are the people who ship the work. If you are evaluating a long-term studio partner, the next step is a 45-minute conversation — no slides, no pitch.