Product Management
UX Design
November 16, 2023

Five Berlin Design Studios to Work With In 2024

Victoria Kurichenko

UX studio is an expert design company that helps businesses worldwide design impactful digital products. Apart from working with established brands and startups, we assess the expertise of various companies and create our independent rating list of trustworthy design companies. We have reviewed Berlin design studios' competency, portfolios, and experience to define the best web design Berlin companies to work with.

Imagine you would like to design a new mobile app interface in Berlin. It’s a common request we often get from our clients. What will you do? Perhaps, you’ll start looking for Berlin design freelancers or product design studios in Berlin.

There are over 104 million Google results for the “design studio Berlin” query. Unless you have design companies’ recommendations from your friends or colleagues, it might be challenging to choose a trustworthy company that will fit your needs.

At UX studio, our experts analyzed dozens of UX design Berlin companies to help you find the most reliable and experienced design partner. In this article, we answer the following frequently asked questions:

  • What are the top design studios in Berlin to work with?
  • What can website design studios in Berlin do for you?
  • How much does it cost to work with a web design company in Germany?
  • How to choose the most suitable design partner?

As a design company with over ten years of field experience, we will share our expert tips on what you should know and check before selecting a design partner. Remember, good design is never cheap! This is why it’s essential to stay critical when you assess any design company’s expertise.

If you need a reliable design partner now, contact us. We are ready to help you with any design and research challenges you might have.

Top 5 Design Studios in Berlin

UX studio

An award-winning product design studio in the heart of Europe

UX design agency UX studio

We are proud to include UX studio in the list of the best design studios that work with German clients.

UX studio was founded by a UX design ambassador and TEDx speaker, David Pasztor, in 2013. Since then, our primary goal has been to help businesses worldwide create impactful digital products.

Our client portfolio is rich and diverse. At UX studio, we work with rising startups and established enterprises worldwide. As a design studio that often works with international companies, we’ve developed a remote collaboration process that lets us work effectively with our clients. Despite time differences, we hold weekly meetings and stay responsive via Slack, Jira, Zeplin, and emails meanwhile.

HBO, Netflix, Google, and United Nations World Food Programme are among our notable clients. Besides, we help startups create their digital experiences, like Xeropan, a language learning app, or Zignaly, a crypto trading platform, just to name a few.

As an expert design agency, we offer product design, and user experience research services, UX consulting, and customized solutions to address our clients’ challenges.

If you are looking for an experienced design studio in Berlin to help you with your product challenges, contact us. We will jump on a short call with you to discuss your goals and motivations and decide on the next steps.

Apart from designing impactful digital solutions for our clients, we develop our products at UX studio — UX folio and Copyfolio. These are drag and drop online portfolio builders for designers and content creators that help present their expertise at its best. Building our own digital products gives our UX team a unique perspective and priceless experience related to strategy, design, and user experience. We adopt the best practices, and we apply them when designing our clients’ products.

We are convinced that every design solution has a significant impact on the world around us, people’s lives, and businesses. At UX studio, we are motivated to challenge the former design standards and create every new digital UI for users and with users in mind.

The value we deliver to our clients and the positive impact from our work has been recognized by Clutch, the top rating and review platform for business services providers. UX studio has also been listed among the top design agencies, and we’ve recently become an official Zeplin partner agency.

Is there anything we can help you with? Message us through our contact form to book a free consultation with our experts. Let’s discuss your goals and challenges and define the next steps together.

Goodpatch

An independent design studio in Berlin, Munich, and Tokyo

Goodpatch design studio in Berlin

Goodpatch is a product innovation company in Berlin that aims to solve complex product challenges with a human-centered approach.

Goodpatch was founded in 2011 by Naofumi Tsuchiya after moving to Tokyo, Japan, from the Silicon Valley. Since then, the company has grown to a global design studio with branches in Berlin, Japan, and Munich and over 170 employees worldwide.

As a web design company in Germany and Japan, Goodpatch aims to fulfill the needs of raising startups and established brands. It offers product strategy, design, and development services. The company also has an equipped User Research Lab for in-house and remote user testing. Apart from conventional design and development services, Goodpatch offers a product hour initiative for companies seeking expert feedback on their product design.

Goodpatch Berlin web design company collaborates with a network of partners worldwide. Its client portfolio is quite diverse, with Renault-Nissan, Deutsche Börse, MUFG, Zenjob, Emmy Sharing, and NTT DATA being featured among their notable clients.

Apart from client work, Goodpatch has been developing their in-house product called Prott and Athena cARVR. These are a prototyping tool for mobile apps and a virtual reality tool for designing and testing experiences around a connected car.

Goodpatch’s hourly rate is around €100, according to DesignRush review.

Phoenix Design

An established Berlin design and innovation studio that’s been creating digital experiences since 1987

Phoenix Berlin design and innovation studio

Phoenix Design is one of the pioneers in product design and innovation that’s received over 800 design awards since 1987 and the Red Dot Design award in 2018.

Today, the company unites 80 skilled experts from Stuttgart, Shanghai, and Munich to create digital experiences that improve people’s lives.

To create a holistic brand experience, Phoenix Design validates their customers' business ideas, helps design and develop digital products, and supports products post-launch. Their service portfolio is diverse and includes physical and digital product design, design engineering and consulting, product development, support, maintenance, research, and prototyping services.

Phoenix Design client’s portfolio is impressive, considering its long history and impact. Audi, Schiedel, Huawei, Puma, and Stiebel Eltron are just a few notable clients featured on their product page.

Apart from client work, the company owns and runs Phoenix Design Academy to help young and talented designers create solutions for a better tomorrow.

Phoenix Design’s hourly rate is roughly €130, according to Clutch. At the same time, over fifteen German-based clients rated collaboration with the company as 4.3 out of 5.

app designing company

PDlab

Innovative product design agency based in Stuttgart, Germany

PDlab web design company in Germany

PDlab was established by a design expert, Özkan Isik, in 2015.

It’s a relatively small web design company in Germany with up to ten product design experts.

PDlab supports established global brands and newly formed companies with industrial and digital product design, development, and design thinking training for teams. Having only a few services compared to established design studios in Berlin, PDlab creates cost-effective design solutions for complex digital and physical products. Its primary focus is medical and mechanical design and physical consumer goods design.

PDlab is a niche product design and innovation company in Germany, with an hourly rate of €45 to €85, according to Clutch.

Adam Fard Design Studio

A design studio in Berlin scaling businesses through exceptional digital experiences

Adam Fard Design Studio Berlin

Adam Fard is an agile design agency named after its founder, a senior UX/UI designer with over eight years of field experience.

The owner’s passion for design and expertise led to the creation of a design studio that unites remote teams of designers, researchers, developers, and marketers, who work together from the headquarter in Berlin, and other locations, such as London, New York, and San Francisco.

Since 2016, Adam Fard’s design studio in Berlin has partnered with startups and Fortune 500 companies to transform businesses through digital design. Samsung, Hubspot, Red Bull, and T-Mobile are featured on their projects page among the notable clients.

Adam Fard offers Edtech, Fintech, and SaaS solutions that have proven to double in-app purchases and reach 10M+ app downloads for their partners.

Over twelve satisfied clients have rated their partnership with Adam Fard as 5 out of 5, according to Clutch. If you would like to work with Adam Fard’s design studio in Berlin, you should dedicate an hourly rate that varies from €45 to €85, according to Clutch.

UX agency London UX studio CTA

What can design studios in Berlin do for you?

The answer heavily depends on what you are looking for. Many established design studios in Berlin have a wide range of services and expertise. In contrast, small design companies serve niche markets with their services.

If you want to create a physical product, many design companies in Berlin offer design engineering, physical product design, and development. PDlab and Phoenix Design are among the top-ranking product design companies in Berlin reviewed by UX studio to help you design an outstanding physical product.

If you want to go digital and create a website or a mobile application, expert design studios in Berlin specializing in digital design can help you do so.

Dedicated product design companies offer user experience design and research, usability audit of an existing product, and expert consultation to help you make data-driven design decisions. If you face challenges, like poor conversion rates or product-market mismatch, we recommend looking for agencies with deep expertise in these fields.

UX design Berlin companies can help you with the following:

  • Digital product design
  • User experience research and usability testing
  • Usability audit of a website or an app
  • Product expert review
  • Digital product strategy
  • Business idea validation
  • Prototyping
  • Persona mapping
  • Branding

Not every company has the required expertise and enough capacity to develop a new product in-house. It’s a time and resource-consuming process. This is where expert design studios in Berlin or a remote one come in handy.

At UX studio, for example, we collaborate with established brands and startups worldwide. We like meeting our clients in person and brainstorming together. However, we’ve also developed a remote collaboration policy that helps us work smoothly together without feeling distant.

We dedicate UX teams of designers and researchers to helping our clients create impactful digital products. Our researchers conduct user interviews and recommend the best UX practices. Meanwhile, our designers implement the research findings and finetune the design to make sure it meets your business’ and users’ needs.

We’ve worked with a number of Western Europe companies, including Keystone Academics, Berlin Chemie, Targens, DeepCare, Zignaly, and Liligo, just to name a few.

If you are looking for a design studio, we would be happy to partner with you. Contact us to discuss your current challenges, goals, and next steps.

How to choose the best design studio in Berlin

Thousands of development and design studios in Berlin compete to reach you online. They want you to discover their websites and eventually work with them.

However, is it something you want as well? How can you make sure the Berlin design company you choose is the right fit for your business? As a client, you will pay quite some money for their services, and you want the quality standards to be high.

As an expert product design agency, we co-exist with many different design and development companies in the same market. Having over 10 years of field experience, our professionals have reviewed many design companies in North America and Europe.

At UX studio, we’ve created a checklist for those looking for a top design studio in Berlin or worldwide. Consider the following criteria when looking for a suitable design partner for your business.

Impact from work

Wherever you pay for any product or service, you expect it to solve your needs. Same with digital product design, companies reach out to dedicated agencies for help because they want to create products that work well.

You might not care much about the technical aspects of the new design solution if it meets your business’ and users’ needs. That’s what we call impactful design.

Many design studios in Berlin share what they do and how, but just a few reveal what they achieved with their designs. Perhaps, they helped their clients improve the product usability, increase the conversion rate, or reduce the cart abandonment rate. It’s the ultimate work result and the impact you should consider when assessing design studios’ portfolios.

A well-crafted portfolio that’s worth spending your time on has all the following components:

  • Examples of visual design and UI
  • Client names, logos, and links to their websites or apps
  • Project details (type of work, type of device, duration, etc)
  • Client testimonial
  • Evidence of impact from the work (what has changed or improved)

Not every company will have a standardized portfolio with all the information you need. However, we strongly recommend looking up this information to compare and choose the most competent and suitable design partner.

At UX studio, we believe in the power of data-driven design. We partner with companies worldwide to help them create impactful digital products. Our client portfolio is publicly displayed on our case study page. We openly talk about projects and highlight the value our UX teams brought to our clients, be it in-depth insights about the target audience or a list of recommendations to improve the product performance.

One of our clients, a software company, LogMeIn shared the following testimonial with us which proves the impact of our work:

"Analytics data proved that designs created by UX studio drastically improved the feature usage in our application, and we could double the active user base in our browser extension, which is a huge win."

If you are looking for trusted design studios in Berlin, pause for a moment before reaching out to them. Check their portfolio of former works. Look for proof of work. Look for impact.

Those companies that helped other businesses with their challenges will most likely help you, too, reach your goals.

app designing company

Credibility

Once you handpick a few web design agencies in Germany based on their portfolio, it’s the right time to assess their credibility.

Credibility is about a company's online presence and reputation. Perhaps, your chosen company has a reputable blog? Maybe they build their own products used by thousands of people worldwide. Are they part of a well-established design community or have any rewards? Do they have a Linkedin page? Did anyone leave a testimonial about their work?

I suggested a few questions worth thinking about when you are in the process of a Berlin design studio selection. To answer those questions, you might want to do a short Google research. Type your design partner’s name and see what others say about them.

For instance, UX studio has been featured among the Top UX Agencies, according to Clutch. Moreover, we became a member of the exclusive Zeplin design agencies group in 2020.

Rewards and notable achievements help design studios stand out from the crowd and help you make decisions favoring the best company.

Moreover, it is a great idea to get in touch with current or former employees and business representatives and ask questions.

If you are looking for an expert design studio, we will be happy to partner with you. Contact us to book a free consultation with our team. On a short call, we will discuss your challenges, goals, and the next steps.

How much does it cost to work with a design studio in Berlin?

If you would like to partner with a design studio in Berlin, it’s good to understand what impacts their pricing and whether it's economically viable for you to partner with German design companies.

Berlin does not rank among the top ten most expensive European cities, according to Eurocost. However, to live comfortably as a renter in Berlin, residents would need to earn at least €43,605 a year, roughly $51,650 as of 2020, according to HousingAnywhere.

If you would like to work with a local design studio in Berlin, you’ll have to consider the costs of living and your budget estimates. The project price you pay should cover the salaries, operational costs, office rent, taxes, and other miscellaneous expenses of the design partner's company.

Many Berlin design studios charge from € 45 to €130 per hour.

If you would like to work with web design companies in Germany, you should be able to allocate at least €8,500 budget for a project, according to Clutch.

Many German-based companies prefer local partners and can afford to work with expensive design studios. However, there are many benefits in remote collaborations as well, such as:

  • A broader selection of design and research experts
  • Affordable pricing
  • An external expertise
  • Bigger cultural diversity

UX studio is located in the heart of Europe. However, we’ve developed an effective remote collaboration process to partner with companies worldwide. These days, we work with clients from San Francisco and London to Mumbai and Shanghai. We're also a top UK web design company choice.

We choose a suitable time to hold weekly calls and discuss the latest design and research findings. Meanwhile, we stay in touch with our clients via Slack, Zeplin, and Jira collaboration tools.

Searching for a design studio in Berlin?

UX studio has successfully handled over 250 collaborations with clients worldwide.

Should you want to improve the design and performance of your digital product, contact us.

We will walk you through our design processes and suggest next steps. Our experts would be happy to assist with the UX strategy, product and user research, UX/UI design, and UX training.