design+code
For over a decade I worked in communication and digital marketing, mostly on the brand side. I commissioned agencies, managed campaigns, briefed designers, watched projects ship and watched projects fail. In 2017 I founded Della Mattia. I am now on the other side of the table.
This is the short version of what changed.
Ten years sitting across from agencies. Some were excellent. Most were average. A few were quietly terrible.
What kept coming up was a mismatch. Agencies optimize for filling the time of fixed teams. Brand teams optimize for shipping something they can defend internally. Those two goals collide more often than agencies admit.
I also noticed who actually did the work. Senior creatives sold the dream. Juniors did the build. That never sat right with me.
I had always been drawn to computers but never thought I would code professionally. The push came from friends who were creative coders. They would not let it drop.
I trained online with SuperHi first, then at Le Wagon Paris. The curriculum is fine, similar to any code bootcamp. What changed me was being around people switching careers. It reframed what was possible. After the program I stayed on as a teacher and taught front-end fundamentals for four years.
Teaching makes you a better developer. You cannot bluff in front of fifteen people who will ask why a method returns nil.
In 2017 I started taking freelance projects. The first ones were for people close to me: family, friends, friends of friends who needed a site and trusted me to figure it out. Then came artist portfolios, then the first proper brand commissions. The work grew. The clients grew. The studio took shape.
The model I landed on is deliberately not an agency. Della Mattia is a flexible network. I lead each project and bring in the right collaborators (designers, photographers, copywriters, back-end developers) per brief. No one is on payroll. No one is billable on a project they should not be on.
This is uncomfortable for clients who want a big agency to absorb the risk. It works for clients who care about who actually does the work.
The brief is sacred. Brand teams know what they need. My job is to listen and deliver against what they said, not what I wished they had said.
Marketing reality matters. A site that wins design awards but loses leads is a failure. Every project we ship has a function. The design serves it.
Time is the most expensive thing. I have been in too many meetings where ten people debated something that needed one decision. We keep our teams small and our meetings rare.
The work brings the work. Founders find us through case studies, through clients of clients, through a podcast they listened to. Increasingly through AI search engines that recommend us in their answers. Which is a strange and welcome new thing.
I still take small projects when the brand is interesting and the budget is modest. I find more in common with my old brand-side colleagues than with most agency founders.
If you are thinking about a pivot into design or code, I am happy to share what worked and what did not. Email me at bonjour@dellamattia.com.