Hey there, my name is Daniele Buffa. I’m a designer originally from sunny Rome, and I’ve been based in London for the last 10 years.
With over 10 years of experience in the design industry, I’ve had the chance to work with both industry leaders like Google, Sony, Headspace, and Spotify, as well as fast-growing startups. My work spans creative and interactive web projects, product design, and everything in between.
I love bringing a high level of polish to my craft by thinking in bespoke visual solutions, meaningful animations, and deeply considered experiences for the people who ultimately interact with my work.
Over the years, my work has been recognised with awards such as a Webby, Lovies, Cannes Lion, D&AD Pencil, CSSDA, FWA, and Awwwards Site of the Day. I’ve also had the opportunity to share what I’ve learned through courses curated for platforms like Awwwards, Dribbble, and Domestika.
I’m passionate about pushing the boundaries of design, and breaking the rules when needed.
Growing Up With Art
I grew up in a family surrounded by art and inspiration. My dad is an artist and my mum a writer. Our house was filled with paintings, artworks, and books, and cinema played a huge role too. We had an entire wall covered in VHS tapes, and I remember staring at it in awe.
That environment naturally sparked my desire to create. I started finding ways to externalise that creativity early on. When my dad began experimenting with Photoshop, I got curious and started playing with it myself around the age of 12 or 13, browsing design forums and teaching myself. Good old times.
I quickly realised this was something I loved. I studied graphic design in high school and then attended a design academy for three years, where I really started to own my craft.
Alongside formal education, I stayed open to inspiration from everywhere, movies, album covers, typography on the street, random writings on walls, and constantly tried to translate those influences into my design work.
Background
I started my professional journey in Rome, working at a small digital agency where I had the opportunity to create digital campaigns and websites for the film industry. I worked on experiences for movies like The Hateful Eight and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, and won my first CSS Design Award for the website made for Hacksaw Ridge.
In 2017, I moved to London to join Google Creative Lab. It was an incredible experience that allowed me to work on groundbreaking projects alongside incredibly talented people.
After Google, I worked with a number of agencies, most notably MetaLab, where I spent around five years. I joined as a Product Designer and left as a Creative Director. I then moved to Spotify as a Staff Product Designer, and I’m now leading design at one of the fastest-growing prop-tech startups, Huspy.
Still loving it like the first day.
Selected Works
Synthetic Theatre
Synthetic Theatre is a personal project I started last year, born from explorations around mixing design, motion, storytelling, and AI to create imaginative narratives. Eventually, I decided to turn those explorations into a living archive, and that’s how the project came to life.
As a personal project, it became one of my biggest achievements. Synthetic Theatre received multiple awards, including Awwwards and FWA Site of the Day, a Webby Award, and two Lovies.
Design Is Funny
Design Is Funny is my personal brand and portfolio. It plays on my last name, “Buffa”, which translates to “funny” in English, so there you go.
I strongly believe that the way you present yourself and your work matters. That’s why I always put a lot of care into designing my portfolio, treating it as a project in itself rather than just a container for work.
Fresco
What is Fresco? Imagine Apple CarPlay, but for recipes and smart cooking appliances in the kitchen.
We helped Fresco reshape and redesign the entire product experience, from “Guided Cooking” to “My Kitchen”. The challenge was solving complex usability problems while elevating the overall experience through distinctive “Fresco moments” that made the product feel both intuitive and delightful.
Insider
Business Insider approached us for a full redesign of their mobile app following their rebrand to Insider.
They cover a broad range of topics, from business to news to lifestyle, and needed a fresh, solid design system that could better represent their diverse content while staying current and flexible for the future. The goal was to reflect their new identity through a clearer, more cohesive, and more expressive mobile experience.
Final Notes
Over the past 10+ years, my journey through design has shaped who I am today. It made me a better human and helped me keep that creative spark alive.
I’ve explored design in many forms, from branding to web to product and beyond, and I’ve found renewed passion every time I started something new or created a personal project purely for exploration and learning.
Today, I’m working at Huspy, a prop-tech startup aiming to revolutionize the real estate industry. Like every challenge I’ve taken on before, this one is exciting, demanding, and exactly what keeps my passion burning.
If you’d like to get in touch, feel free to find me on Instagram, LinkedIn, or over at Design Is Funny.
