Coding Systems is an avant-garde, hybrid design practice led by Tim Rodenbröker and Martin Lorenz. Operating at the innovative intersection of creative coding and flexible visual systems, the studio rejects traditional, rigid corporate branding in favor of custom code that generates living, highly adaptable visual identities. Rather than acting as a clinical, data-driven agency, Coding Systems positions human intuition, artistic experimentation, and critical thought far above algorithmic optimization.
This approach merges the distinct, complementary expertise of its founders. Tim, an educator and founder of the global learning hub trcc, views programming as a deeply philosophical tool to demystify technology and unlock human expression. Martin, a designer and author of the book *Flexible Visual Systems*, approaches branding through a systemic lens that meticulously balances structural constants with endless creative variables. Together, they view their design process less like engineering and more like gardening—seeding a flexible system into code and tending to it as it organically evolves. Embracing an “unfinished by design” ethos, they openly challenge full creative automation, championing code not as a replacement for human intuition, but as a powerful medium to make humans think, reflect, and create.
Photo: Patryk Wiśniewski
Coding
Tim Rodenbröker is a design educator dedicated to building a community-based online school. His teaching focuses on Creative Coding, an experimental approach to understanding computation and a versatile tool for designing across a wide range of media formats. His primary interest is in exploring Creative Coding as a philosophical method for shaping a new way of thinking about digital technology, overcoming anxiety, fostering curiosity and critical thinking. He also writes essays and designs visual identities. Tim has taught at a wide range of prestigious academic institutions, including Elisava (Barcelona), Glasgow School of Art, and ECAL (Geneva). As a freelance creative technologist, he has worked for clients such as The New York Times, IBM, the University of Pennsylvania, and Slate + Ash. Together with Martin Lorenz, he runs the design studio Coding Systems, which explores the synergies between flexible visual systems and code. Tim is also part of the curatorial team of the Design in Motion Festival.
Systems
Martin Lorenz is the grandson, son, and nephew of teachers. His escape plan from this family tradition was to become a graphic designer. He graduated from the Graphic Design department at the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) of The Hague, Netherlands, after studying communication design at the University of Applied Sciences in Darmstadt, Germany. While founding the design Studio TwoPoints.Net with Lupi Asensio and raising two boys, he enrolled first in a Master’s Degree and later in a PhD. Degree at the University of Barcelona, Spain, writing a doctoral dissertation about flexible visual systems. The thesis became a book, sold in its seventh edition in English, Spanish, and Japanese. Martin’s escape plan did not succeed. He became a teacher in 2003. He has taught at dozens of European Universities since then. Martin currently teaches at the Master’s Degree in Graphic Design of Elisava, Barcelona, the Film Academy of Ludwigsburg and is a professor at the University for Cooperative Education. He is also the co-founder of the School of Systems and Value Translation.
Coding Systems represents a creative endeavor, acknowledging that the outcome of coding is emergent. At its core, Coding Systems emphasizes the human element as the driving force behind the creative process, using technology as a tool. The belief is that technology should amplify thought processes rather than obscure them, with transparency in its incentives and underlying dynamics. Striving for a comprehensive understanding of the costs and consequences of our work, Coding Systems aspires to act responsibly.
Coding Systems seeks solutions beyond design software lock-ins. By crafting custom-made design tools, new, unexpected territories are unlocked. With a designer’s vision, not a technician’s, technology transforms into an enhancer of human creativity rather than a limitation.
We do not believe in hard data.
We believe in soft data.
- Brief: If you have a project we can help you with, we need a brief. With a name like ours, you might think we are data-driven, quite the contrary, we value human intuition highly. You know your product, competitors, market and recipients. You have a feeling for what is right. Instead of being data-driven, we prefer to be data-informed.
We do not believe in automation.
We believe in the interaction between human and machine.
- Creative Process of CS: In an ever changing complex world like ours, planning has become ineffective. Instead of being engineers planning the future, we need to become gardeners that seed a plant and tend to it carefully to see it flourish. We once believed that the automation of design processes is a strength of computational design. We now believe that it is a weakness. Code is a tool to make humans think and create.
We do not believe in static Identities.
We believe in flexible Identity Systems, setting clients free to design their own deliverables.
- Tools for Clients: Creating tools for our clients, so they can produce their own deliverables has three unbeatable advantages: A) Freedom. They do not need to call us each time they need to produce a new deliverable. B) Consistency. The Identity keeps consistent throught the years because the Visual System is embedded in the code. C) Efficiency. Total freedom is chaos. We carefully design the balance between constants and variables. The constants guarantee coherence and the variables flexibility. A tool defines the parameter in which you can become creative.