It's the last days of October, a day before a major event, and with all the stress swirling around me, I've decided—on top of everything—to book an interview with Stella Petkova. What am I doing? I think to myself. A day before an event, do I really have time for this?
We meet at The Steps in Sofia. Within minutes of sitting down, I realize: this is exactly what I needed today. A window of brilliant conversation, a pause that doesn't feel like procrastination but like oxygen.
I often browse the internet in search of greatness—design that teaches me something new, work that moves with intention. That's how I came across Stella. Her websites had something special about them: clarity without coldness, simplicity with soul. Imagine my surprise when I noticed a small detail—a language toggle, a Sofia time zone. Wait. This designer is Bulgarian?
Who is this person, and how do I meet her? From there, the road to this conversation was three clicks and a message: Let's talk.
There's a strange duality in creative work — the tension between solitude and belonging. Stella, a designer from Sofia whose digital worlds are quietly celebrated across continents, lives inside that tension. Her process begins in silence, behind the glow of a monitor, but what she produces connects thousands of people she'll never meet. "My creative process happens in solitude," she says. "That's when I can go deep. Later comes feedback."
The word belonging returns often in her voice. For Bulgarian creatives who work globally, it's about having real people close to you, with whom you resonate on the same frequency. Stella tells me she spent years working with American clients from her apartment in Sofia. She always felt that she was among people who understand what she's building, who resonate with her, see her work, and whose temperaments are synced—regardless of time zone. "Over the years, I felt alone—borderline lonely," she admits. "Now that I have colleagues here again, it feels warm, cozy, human." The difference, she realizes, isn't about being understood through her work—that was always there. It's about physical proximity, the warmth of real human presence nearby.
I recognize this shift. Design once happened in studios—the Bauhaus, the Swiss schools, the agencies of Madison Avenue—where ideas bounced off walls and coffee-stained desks. Then came the internet, and suddenly the best work could happen anywhere. We gained the world but lost the room. For years, I moved between continents, always working but rarely with anyone in the same time zone. The screens connected us to millions, but disconnected us from the person next door.
When she describes how she began, there's no tidy origin story. Architecture was the plan—drawing had been her world since childhood—but mathematics ended that dream. "I started working in my first year of university," she recalls. "I learned everything through practice. I never graduated. I still have three exams left." She laughs at that detail, not apologetically but as a badge of practicality. Design, she discovered, offered her something architecture never could: freedom to work with the world.
The world, of course, can be a lonely place. She found herself in the strange position of collaborating with teams thousands of kilometers away while hearing no footsteps outside her door. It's a familiar paradox for modern creators: global reach, local isolation. Yet in that space, she learned something about the psychology of work. "We live in a dopamine society," she says, "but belonging—that's serotonin. It's ancient." She's right. Dopamine drives us to seek; serotonin tells us we've arrived.
When she speaks about design, the isolation dissolves. Her tone sharpens; ideas arrange themselves like clean lines on a grid. "Design isn't art," she says firmly. "It's a product that must meet goals—marketing, audience, metrics. Feedback, even when it hurts, is what makes you evolve." It's the humility of a craftsperson, not the posture of an artist. She believes in positive friction—the idea that small resistances can make an experience richer. "People think friction is bad," she says. "But a good friction can guide the user. Like nudge theory—it helps you make better choices."
Positive friction is everywhere once you notice it. The slight resistance of a well-designed door handle that tells you which way to push. The speed bump that makes you slow down before you consciously decide to. In my work with behavioral economics and policy design, I've watched how small, intentional obstacles can guide entire populations toward better choices—renewable energy adoption, public health decisions, civic engagement. The genius isn't in removing all barriers. It's in placing the right ones.
Her understanding of friction extends beyond design. She laughs at the obsession with minimalism that dominates modern aesthetics. "I'm tired of the word," she says. "Minimalism isn't emptiness—it's clarity. But lately it's become cold." She misses the warmth of imperfection, the pleasure of beauty that serves no function. "Aesthetics have purpose too," she says. "They make life lighter." She describes websites stripped of personality in the name of usability—the irony that design meant to serve humans has begun to feel mechanical. "It's too cold," she says. "I miss the elements that make something feel alive."
Her view of originality is equally unsentimental. "Everyone borrows," she says. "The key is to reinterpret, not copy. You take what exists and filter it through your own vision. That's how trends evolve." It's the same cycle you find in music or architecture—variation, not invention, moves culture forward. She's not threatened by the brilliance of others. "Better designers only inspire me," she says. "Never envy. Just inspiration."
When we talk about ego, she laughs again, softer this time. "Designers are ego people," she admits. "We think we know better than clients. But we don't. The moment you open yourself to critique, that's when you grow." She remembers early feedback that stung but stayed. "The mistakes that cause criticism are the ones that teach you the most." Feedback, even brutal feedback, is like lifting heavier weights at the gym—it's what makes your muscles grow.
Technology, for Stella, is not the enemy. "It enables me," she says simply. "What limits me is business demands." Still, she has reservations about AI-generated design. "It looks cheap," she says. "AI doesn't think. It mimics. Humans create from intent; AI just averages. Human work has depth—a soul." There's no fear in her tone, only clarity. Creativity, to her, is not about novelty but about meaning. Machines can simulate form but not purpose.
I think about this often: what will separate great designers from adequate ones in ten years? It won't be technical skill—AI will handle that. It won't be speed—AI is faster. It will be what Stella just described: intent, meaning, the ability to create work that feels human in a sea of statistical averages. The future bifurcates: mass-produced AI design for commodity needs, and artisanal human design for everything that matters. The question for Bulgarian creatives—for all creatives—is which side of that divide they'll occupy.
We talk about titles—art director, creative director, designer—and she waves them off with amused precision. "The art director stays close to the craft. The creative director sees the bigger picture. I love staying close to the work itself." Then, almost to herself, she adds, "But maybe someday I'll move toward creative direction. I need new challenges. If you stop learning, you stop living." The sentence lingers, honest and unforced.
Before we part, I ask what Bulgaria's creative community still needs. She thinks for a long moment. "To think bigger," she says finally. "Too many people stay enclosed in the local environment. They should understand business, not just beauty. Design isn't about making pretty pictures—it's about creating value."
Two days later, a message arrives. She's been reflecting on our conversation. "There's a third thing," she writes. "Bulgarian creatives need to learn to follow rules."
She explains: In Bulgaria, we grow up learning how to avoid rules without getting caught. When you check the work of Bulgarian artists who don't need to follow strict rules—illustrators, jewelers, ceramicists—their work is fantastic. But compare that with creatives working in environments where rules are unavoidable, like when you make websites or apps, and we fall short. We don't know what to do with them.
It's a sharp observation about the difference between art and design, freedom and discipline. The best Bulgarian work, she's saying, comes from spaces where imagination roams freely. The struggle begins when creativity must serve systems, users, businesses—when it must operate within constraint.
As she speaks, I think of the uncelebrated engineers and artists she mentioned earlier—Bulgarians designing spacecraft, building Mars programs, leading at SpaceX, and yet rarely known at home. Perhaps they succeeded not despite rules but because of them—because space exploration demands that creativity operate within the strictest possible boundaries.
Creative work, in the end, seems to oscillate between those two poles—solitude and belonging, freedom and constraint, isolation and recognition. Stella lives in that space comfortably now. Somewhere between the screens she works behind and the global clients she serves, between the rules she follows and the creativity she protects, she's found equilibrium. She doesn't call it success. She calls it balance. And balance, she knows, requires boundaries.
If you're interested in learning more about Stella, her vision and work, I strongly recommend that you head to her digital home: www.stellapetkova.com