Studio
Silk for how it feels.
Kern for how it's made.
Silk — because a good scroll should feel like fabric moving under your fingers. Kern — the typographer's word for adjustments most people never notice, but everyone feels. That's the whole philosophy, folded into one name.
The short version
Eleven years. One person. On purpose.
Silkern is an independent European studio, founded in 2026 — on eleven years of production code. The road here: boarding school in Switzerland, finance in London, and then programming took over entirely.
Those eleven years were built for other people's names — banks of employers' repositories, under NDAs, across Python, PHP and Laravel, JavaScript and C#. The portfolio under Silkern's own name starts small on purpose: two live productions, and the site you are reading. One person designs and builds everything — strategy, design system, motion, code, launch.
That's not a limitation we apologise for; it's the product. You talk to the person who moves the pixels. Nothing is lost between a strategist, a designer and a developer, because they share one chair. Decisions take hours. The style survives from the first sketch to the last commit.
The trade-off is honest too: one flagship project in production at a time, scoped conservatively, in writing. When the work is done properly, small is a feature.
The workshop, as imagined by the studio’s own tools — an illustration, not a photograph.
Photography: Bret Lama, Mariola Grobelska (Unsplash License)
Principles
Five rules the studio won't break
The site is the proof
We never claim what we can't show. This website runs every technique we sell — if it doesn't convince you, no slide deck will.
Custom code only
No templates, no page builders, no theme forests. GSAP, Lenis and vanilla JavaScript on the front; Laravel when there's machinery behind the curtain.
Motion serves the story
If an effect doesn't help tell your story, it gets cut — however good it looks in isolation. Restraint is what separates cinema from a fireworks show.
Performance is design
A site that stutters isn't beautiful. Fast loads and 60fps motion are part of the definition of done on every project, at every price.
Honest scope, honest content
Fixed fees agreed before work starts. Limits in writing. And no invented clients, testimonials or numbers — anywhere, ever. A section without a fact waits for the fact.
European hours
Working in English, on your clock: your London morning is our morning; New York wakes up to finished work.
The toolbox
Eleven years across the stack — Python, PHP and Laravel, JavaScript, C#. On the front: GSAP + ScrollTrigger, Lenis and hand-built design systems.
New studio, old hands
Founded 2026 on eleven years of professional development. The standards are old-fashioned; every decision behind them is battle-tested.