Our Story
Hi, we’re Bella and Kostya. We’re glad you’re here! As a passionate designer-developer duo, we decided to bring our worlds together and founded Big Little Fish, a multidisciplinary remote design studio, in 2014.
Big little beginnings
Big Little Fish started out as a branding studio in the cozy living room of our home in Kampala. Our goal was to work with new and growing brands and help them change the world. With a few years of work experience under our belts, a whole lot of passion in our hearts, and a good dose of determination in our souls, we built a remote design studio we actually wanted to work in; availing us the freedom and balance of living life, raising children, tending to our plants, and making memories while doing work we loved.
Many things have changed over the past 10 years, while others remain the same. We have grown, moved across 3 continents and are working towards another big move in 2024. Our kids are now big, we have re-evaluated what we love and why we choose to do what we do, learned from past choices, and made steps to keep growing in our life’s purpose. We remain passionate about a lot of the same things, but continue to evolve, meet new exciting people, go to new and exciting places, and seek out meaningful and rewarding work.
Our stories coming together
Bella
HUMAN CENTERED DESIGNER
I have always loved to create things and nurture their growth. Whether that be plants, brands, relationships, my passion lies in helping things be the best they can be. From my early years I was drawn to designing spaces, telling stories, exploring the visual arts, playing outside for hours, taking notice of the things that often go unnoticed and surrounding myself with beauty.
My earliest experience as a ‘visual designer’ was playing in Paint on my dad’s 90’s desktop; discovering symmetry, shapes, color, typography, the wonder of a computer and color print. My love for design continued to grow through endless scrap booking, collecting magazines, finding inspiration in products and packaging, noticing how good product design functions, writing poetry, and telling stories in different ways.
In time I would discover that I had a designer’s brain, heart and soul; analytical, curious, insightful, desiring harmony, love for aesthetic beauty and the arts, and an unrelenting desire to keep improving how things work.
Attending a multi-disciplinary undergrad design program between Kampala and Helsinki exposed me to the real world of cross disciplinary design and teams, and cemented my passion for the field, as a growing visual designer. I have had exciting opportunities to grow in my career and shape it in a way that feels natural and aligns with my personal values. To me design is problem solving wherever it shows up in life. It’s saying yes to the opportunity to bring meaning and create a positive experience with anything tangible or intangible
As a young designer, my greatest motivation was to create meaningful work that could change lives; that has remained my motivation. Sometimes that’s through the products I create, other times it’s through the relationships that I get to build. There is always room to inspire, be inspired, spur someone on, or simply share a smile. I’m quirky, love to smile, laugh, connect with people, be in nature, be a kid, and bring a spark into the room because life is a party as long as you make it so.
Tell us about yourself
