Product Design Company in Berlin

Ask how many components the system has to carry and you already have most of a Berlin design budget: a focused product design engagement at Berlin rates over eight to twelve weeks for a single product surface (a fintech onboarding, a fashion D2C flow, a media subscription experience), covering research, IA, interaction, visual, and a starter design system, full product design for a Series A to B startup including a 70 to 150 component design system, dark mode, accessibility audit, and German and English language variants, or an embedded design partner engagement priced per senior designer. Berlin rates sit below Munich on enterprise and below London on fintech but above Eastern European agencies because of the Edenspiekermann, Zalando, and N26 talent premium. We give fixed-fee proposals against a written scope.

Yes. The Barrierefreiheitsstaerkungsgesetz (BFSG) implements the EU Accessibility Act (Directive 2019/882) into German law and became mandatory on 28 June 2025 for almost all private-sector consumer products and services: e-commerce, banking, e-books, transport ticketing, telecommunications, and consumer hardware UI. Our default deliverable meets WCAG 2.1 Level AA: 4.5:1 contrast, visible focus, full keyboard navigation, ARIA labelling, semantic structure, and tested screen reader compatibility (NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver, TalkBack). For BFSG-regulated procurement we ship an accessibility statement (Barrierefreiheitserklaerung) and a conformance report. Existing products had a grace period that expired with the 28 June 2025 deadline, so retrofitting is a frequent engagement type for our Berlin clients.

Yes. German UX writing has cultural conventions that machine translation and English-speaking designers consistently miss. Sie (formal) versus du (informal) is a brand voice decision: N26 uses du to project a modern, friendly neobank tone, while Deutsche Bank, traditional insurance, and most enterprise B2B default to Sie. Switching mid-product is jarring. We also handle the Eszett (Eszett) correctly (not replacing with ss in headlines), test umlaut rendering on every typeface, write impressum and AGB language that meets legal requirements rather than translating English boilerplate, and respect the cultural weight of words like Datenschutz, which carries far more loaded meaning in German than privacy does in English. Native German UX writers review every screen.

Yes. We ship UI for N26, Trade Republic, Solaris, and Raisin-style fintechs under BaFin (Bundesanstalt fuer Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht) licensing rules and the Revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2) strong customer authentication requirements. Account opening uses VideoIdent or eID with the documented evidence trail BaFin auditors require. Payment authentication uses the SCA flows (knowledge plus possession plus inherence) with the documented exemption handling for low-value and trusted beneficiary cases. SCHUFA consent disclosure is layered into credit product flows. MiFID II suitability assessment is built into investment onboarding. Final regulatory sign-off sits with the client's compliance officer and the BaFin notification process.

GDPR sets the EU baseline, the Bundesdatenschutzgesetz (BDSG) layers German specifics including the Betriebsrat (works council) consultation for employee monitoring features, and the Telekommunikation-Digitale-Dienste-Datenschutz-Gesetz (TDDDG, formerly TTDSG) governs cookie and tracking technology consent in Germany specifically. Our consent UX uses the IAB Europe TCF 2.2 framework where appropriate, ships granular per-purpose consent with no pre-ticked boxes, separates strictly necessary from analytics and marketing, and provides withdrawal in fewer than three taps from any screen. Dark patterns called out by the German Datenschutzkonferenz (DSK) and the European Data Protection Board are avoided absolutely. Final sign-off sits with the client's Datenschutzbeauftragter (Data Protection Officer).

Yes. Berlin briefs default to form-follows-function rigour grounded in the Bauhaus heritage and extended through Erik Spiekermann's Edenspiekermann and Meta typography lineage. Our design language stays restrained: typography does the heavy lifting (FF Meta, FF Berlin, FF DIN, IBM Plex Sans, Inter), colour is functional not decorative, motion is purposeful not ornamental. We do not import Silicon Valley over-rounded corners, gradient-heavy hero aesthetics, or decorative illustration into Berlin briefs unless the brand voice explicitly calls for it. When a brief asks for warmth (HelloFresh, Lieferando) we deliver it through illustration and warmth in copy, not through abandoning Bauhaus structural discipline.

Yes. Embedded engagements with Zalando, About You, N26, Trade Republic, SoundCloud, HelloFresh, and Axel Springer in-house teams are common. We slot into existing Figma libraries, follow the client's design system (Zalando's mosaic system, N26's design language, Axel Springer's publishing system), attend internal Squad critiques, and pick tickets from the client's Jira or Linear. We do not push agency aesthetics over established system patterns. CET hours mean we attend morning standups in person at client offices (Zalando in Tamara-Danz-Strasse, N26 in Klosterstrasse, Axel Springer in the new Rem Koolhaas building on Zimmerstrasse) rather than dialing in from a non-overlapping timezone.

For a scoped engagement we can start within ten business days from signed Auftrag. Embedded retainer engagements take three to five weeks to staff because we screen senior designers against the client's specific stack (fintech, fashion D2C, media, food, SaaS) and against German-language fluency where the product targets the DACH market. Discovery workshops happen on CET in person at our Berlin co-working or at client offices in Mitte, Kreuzberg, Friedrichshain, Prenzlauer Berg, Wedding, or the Adlershof tech park. Remote-first engagements run on Figma, Slack, and Loom with weekly synchronous reviews. We also serve Hamburg, Munich, and Frankfurt clients from Berlin with frequent travel.