Founded by Michael Albers and Fabian Birgfeld,
W12 Studios has over twenty interaction, visual and motion designers,
strategists and creative technologists.
The majority of the team has worked together for years; a collaboration that began when Mike and Fabian were Heads of User Experience at the BBC. They developed the product vision and implementation for award-winning products such as the BBC iPlayer, News, Sport, Weather and Homepage and the 2012 London Olympics. W12 Studios helps companies develop innovative and exciting digital products and platforms.
Delivering consistent experiences requires a solid understanding of the users’ context, behaviours and needs, whether they are in a car or on the street on a mobile device, or sitting in front of a computer or a television. We make sure that we understand the business goals, technical constraints and who the target audience is. Our aim is always to determine the key purpose of the product and design from that starting point.
Firstly we define the hero moments, the things that need to be done first and foremost above and beyond anything else. This becomes the “model” for our product and informs the vision of what the product should be. It is similar to how an architect creates a model for a building, setting the overall vision of what the building will look like. In the subsequent phases we figure out all the details and go from a scale of 1:100,000 to a scale of 1:1. Crucially, we incorporate all disciplines right from the get-go, working together on all aspects of the design - visual, interaction, sound and motion.
We divide our projects into manageable design problems and sprints. It gives developers the flexibility to incorporate new ideas into product development and creates a more dynamic process.
We then simulate the actual product experiences to allow everybody to evaluate the proposed design and provide meaningful feed-back. Our aim is always to bring the original vision from concept to reality, working closely with everybody involved in making the product a success.

Mike is an award-winning designer with over a decade of experience. Prior to founding W12 Studios, Mike worked for IDEO, the BBC and Intel.
Born in the Netherlands, Mike received his MSc from the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea and a double BFA from the Savannah College of Art & Design in Industrial and Furniture Design.
In 2004 Mike won the prestigious CHI award, and in 2011 the Design Week award. He has been featured in Wired Magazine and has also been involved in numerous speaking and judging events.

Fabian has twenty years experience as a management consultant and design strategist working for Frog design, Method, BBC and Bertelsmann among others.
He has taught design at Princeton University, Syracuse University and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. His art and design work has been frequently exhibited in the US and Europe.
Born and raised in Germany, Fabian holds a BA in Economics from Harvard University and a graduate degree in Architecture from Princeton University.
Ivo is a designer with over seven years’ experience designing products. Before joining W12 Studios he was a senior interaction designer at IDEO.
Born in the Netherlands. Ivo received a Master’s Degree from the Design Interactions course at the Royal College of Art and a BA in Industrial Design from the Eindhoven University of Technology. His personal work ‘The Brunch’ has been featured on Wired and Fast Company.
Andy is a passionate visual and interaction designer. He has crafted experiences across all platforms for the BBC, Nokia, Virgin Media, Orange, and Channel 4.
Andy’s experience allows him to translate brands into iconic digital experiences that will delight and captivate users.
Tasos is a multi-disciplined designer with over thirteen years’ experience in digital media on projects ranging from websites to film titles and cross-platform experiences to digital installations.
He has worked on a broad range of agencies and clients, including LBi, Fjord, AKQA, Sony, Nike and Nokia.
w12studios
W12 Studios
Unit 506
Metropolitan Wharf Building
70 Wapping Wall
London
E1W 3SS
+44(0) 20 3432 9405