Areas of Expertise

Art Direction
Advertising
Branding
Packaging
Photography

Ciao! I’m Anja, an award-winning art director, designer, and marketer with a strong strategic mindset. For the past 13 years, I’ve been working in the field of advertising and branding.

I was once told that I’m obsessed with brands, so I made it my entire personality.

On a daily basis, I’m just a regular kid from the block who can’t survive without coffee, pasta, and gummy bears, and who fiercely defends the fact that carbonara is not a matter of opinion and that black is a vibrant color.

I wrote and illustrated my first storyboard for a commercial in the fifth grade. It was for Nokia N-Gage and it earned me a solid A. That was the moment when I realized I wanted to work in advertising, though I was still torn between that and becoming a professional diver. But we all know how that story played out.

Throughout my career, I’ve had the privilege of working for two of the best European studios in marketing, advertising, and design: Design Group Italia (Italy) and Futura DDB (Slovenia). Being a co-founder of the award-winning brand I Like Tofu and founder of Bitchy Club has allowed me to develop a keen understanding of how to build a brand from the ground up.

Beyond art direction, I mentor and lecture, collaborating with Anja Svetina Nabergoj (Stanford & University of Ljubljana) and write columns for the most important Slovenian magazine in our field - Marketing Magazin.

I recently leveled up my strategic expertise at Miami Ad School’s Strategy Planning Bootcamp and finished that 10-week-long program with the Top Dog title.

Hope you’ll enjoy surfing through my projects as much as I enjoyed creating them.

Your favorite art director!

Education

2009 - 2010

CITM (UPC) / Terrassa Catalunya
Centre de la Imatge i la Tecnologia Multimèdia
Graphic design and Photography

2006 - 2011

University of Maribor / Slovenia
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Media Communications - Graphic Communications

Courses and Cerificates

April 2025

Certificate
Stanford professors
Design Thinking workshop

April 2020

Certificate
d.MBA
Business course for designers

January 2025 - March 2025

Certificate
Miami Ad School
Strategy Planning Bootcamp / finished as Top Dog 🐶

May 2016

Course
London School of Photography
Food and Product Photography

Awards

2025

Silver award for Skrecka at SOF (Slovenian Advertising Festival)
Silver award for Filip is looking for a job (Philips) at SOF (Slovenian Advertising Festival)
Top Dog title at Mami Ad School - Strategy Planning Bootcamp

2024

Brand of The Year for Poli at SOF (Slovenian Advertising Festival)
Several silver and golden awards for Poli 50 years campaign at SOF (Slovenian Advertising Festival)
Several silver and golden awards for Poli Green at SOF (Slovenian Advertising Festival)
Shortlist for Lesnina at SOF (Slovenian Advertising Festival)
Grand Sempler for Poli 50 Years at Sempl 2024 festival
Gold Sempler for Poli 50 Years at Sempl 2024 festival


2015

Finalist in category of packaging with I Like Tofu at 7th Biennial of Slovene Visual Communications

Mentions

2015

I Like Tofu
Packaging of The World

You know, maybe this page is all about my professional work and appearance but a best friend recently told me I remind her of an onion because I have so many layers.

A couple of years ago, I trained for triathlons. I consider building LEGO sets my mental escape. I’m on a mission to collect all the stamps in my U.S. National Parks Passport. There were winters when I had over 40 snow days in a season and summers with more than 10 concerts.

I love to sleep, but I still set an alarm, even on Sundays, because enjoying life feels that important to me.

Hope we get to meet one day. Maybe we’ll even agree that Pluto isn’t a planet after all.