Boilerplate

Gaja Hanzel is a multidisciplinary designer working across fashion, visual communication, and brand storytelling. From a young age, she felt a strong creative curiosity that naturally guided her towards the world of design and visual expression. She studied fashion and graphic design at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Engineering in Ljubljana, where she graduated in 2011 with a degree in Fashion and Textile Design and in 2016 with a Master’s degree in Graphic and Interactive Communications. She received the Faculty Prešeren Award for her master’s thesis Typographic Textile Curtain, which explored the relationship between typography, textiles, and spatial communication. Since 2018, she has worked as an independent designer across both fashion and visual communication projects, combining aesthetics, storytelling, and thoughtful design approaches. Her work focuses on sustainable fashion accessories and visual identities, with a particular interest in the connection between contemporary design, craftsmanship, and more responsible approaches to design and production. She carefully researches innovative, plant-based, and recycled materials, exploring how thoughtful material choices can contribute to a more conscious future in fashion. Alongside fashion design, she also works in the fields of visual identity, branding, and graphic communication. In 2019, she received the Bronze A' Design Award & Competition for the logo and visual identity of the Ana & Gaja Art Gallery. In 2020, her cellulose handbag collection One More Time received the Made in Slovenia Badge of Excellence by the Centre for Creativity and the Museum of Architecture and Design in Ljubljana. The collection was later presented as part of the traveling exhibition The Future of Living at 32 international locations and events dedicated to design and the creative economy. In 2023, she was selected as a finalist at Zagreb Design Week, where she presented her collections Eternal Balance and Terra in Zagreb.