Italian Zebras
Project:Italian Zebras
Client:
Technische Hochschule Nürnberg Design Fakultät
My Role:
UX Research, UI Design, Logo Design, 3D Visualization, Webdesign, Photography, Scientific Research
Tools used:
Figma, Adobe CS, php, MariaDB, Apache, Nginx, Flask, Colab, Yolo11, Nikon D780, Handlebars, JavaScript, HTML 5, Visual Studio Code, Nngix Proxy Manager, Ghost CMS, WhisperAI, Firefly
Moodboard
Styleguide
Persona
Demographics
Age: 29
Profession: Freelance Communication Designer
Location: Munich, Germany
Income: Equivalent of ~€35,000 / year
Motto: “ Profit and Purpose – I don’t want to have to choose between paying rent and saving the world.”
Bio
Elena graduated with honors and has been working as a freelancer for three years. She is frustrated by the traditional agency world, which often focuses solely on increasing consumption and “faster, higher, further.” She feels repelled by the Unicorn model (Silicon Valley style) and is looking for ways to align her creative work with her social values.
Frustrations and Motivations
Painpoints
Financial Pressure: She often feels that “social projects” automatically mean being poorly paid.
Isolation: Her professional environment is still dominated by classic profit models; she lacks exchange regarding sustainable business practices.
Information Gap: She knows she wants to change something, but she lacks concrete knowledge about the legal and historical foundations of cooperatives
Website Usage
Elena reads the interviews and case studies of the nine cooperatives to gain practical insights.
She uses the visual content (photography) to get inspired and to make the topic emotionally tangible.
She looks for a networking area to get in touch with experts or other interested designers.
Goals and Needs
Alternative Business Models: She wants to understand how Italian social cooperatives are structured in order to transfer similar concepts to her own professional network.
Credibility: She is looking for real-life role models (“Zebras”) who prove that the common good and economic success are not mutually exclusive.
Networking: Elena wants to find like-minded people to build collective work structures instead of acting as a lone wolf.
Empathy Map
Says
“I want my design work to have a measurable social impact, not just sell more plastic.”
“Is it possible to run a business where the workers actually own the company?”
“I love the ‘Zebra’ concept—it sounds much more resilient than the typical startup hype.”
“I wish there was a clear roadmap to transition from a solo freelancer to a cooperative member.”
Thinks
Is our industry’s obsession with ‘Unicorns’ and rapid scaling actually destroying our mental health and the environment?
I hope I can find a way to earn a decent living without compromising my ethical standards.
Do I have the courage to stop working for traditional corporate clients and join a movement like the Italian cooperatives?
Does
Researches alternative business structures and reads about the Italian Constitution’s support for cooperatives.
Attends networking events for “Social Design” and “Ethical Tech.”
Shares photography and stories of successful social enterprises on her social media.
Actively looks for partners to start a collective studio based on democratic principles.
Feels
Frustrated by the “profit-first” mentality of most design agencies.
Inspired when seeing the “Italian Zebras” project and the real-life examples of people making it work.
Isolated in her current professional circle where success is only measured by money.
Empowered by the idea that as a designer, she can be an architect of social transformation.
Journey Map
USP
We don’t just critique the status quo; we showcase a functional alternative. Italian Zebras combines the aesthetic power of visual storytelling with the centuries-old, constitutionally anchored success of Italian social cooperatives to provide a roadmap for sustainable, democratic, and profitable entrepreneurship.
Logo
The “Italian Zebras” logo is a direct visual metaphor for a new kind of business philosophy. It works for three key reasons:
Profit & Purpose: Just as a zebra is defined by its black and white stripes, your project represents the harmony between two seemingly opposite forces: economic profitability and social responsibility. One cannot exist without the other.
The Power of the Collective: A single zebra is vulnerable, but in a herd, their stripes create a “motion dazzle” that confuses predators. This perfectly mirrors the Italian Cooperative Model, where individual designers and workers find strength and resilience through democratic collaboration.
A “Real” Alternative: Unlike the mythical Unicorn—which represents the “growth at all costs” Silicon Valley startup—the Zebra is a real animal. It is grounded, sustainable, and exists in the real world, much like the 80,000 cooperatives operating in Italy today.
Mockups
