In 2020 Yani Vandenbranden graduated as an industrial product designer at Howest University. After her studies she complemented her knowledge by studying furniture design (VOMO) and the postgraduate Masterclass Industrial Design Engineering, change and innovation management.

Working as a designer and researcher she focuses on product design and circular strategies. Combining these fields, she considers herself a contextual designer. “Design gains value when objects, spaces, interactions, and processes are understood as one system.”

Yani’s work wants to prioritising design that elevates context & honest simplicity over self-expression; finding love in nuance. Design that enriches its environment by mainly going in dialoge with the space and its user. Her work focuses on material honesty and functional clarity. With a strong sensitivity for proportion, her approach seeks to connect past and future through optimistic, empathic, and purposeful design.

In her project studio she researches and works on systemic challenges, while those insights and philosophical thoughts seep trough as inspiration in the her design studio objects.