ABOUT
Me
This is a great place to tell your story and give people more insight into who you are, what you do, and why it’s all about you.
ABOUT
Me
This is a great place to tell your story and give people more insight into who you are, what you do, and why it’s all about you.
ABOUT
Me
This is a great place to tell your story and give people more insight into who you are, what you do, and why it’s all about you.
WE ARE AN ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE STUDIO
We exist to empower organizations, teams, and people to adapt to the changing context and be pioneers of the new economy.
Our methodology lies at the intersection of “design” and “facilitation.”
CORE TEAM
AyÅŸesu Çelik
Co–Founder, Senior Learning Designer & Facilitator
A true explorer at heart, AyÅŸesu collects clues, sees the relationships and creates an integrated design strategy for ara. She loves designing spaces where people find joy in discovering the “new”. An aha moment for her is when she notices people’s superpowers: she is the happiest when she sees people using their strengths in harmony.
After completing a B.A. degree in Economics from BoÄŸaziçi University, she attended Designation – a digital design bootcamp in Chicago where she worked with tech startups on UX research and design. As a design researcher and strategist, she worked on projects of various scales ranging from digital design to product–service–system design and spatial design. The clients she worked with include Turkcell, Garanti, TEB, Koç Foundation, Zorlu Holding.
It didn’t take long AyÅŸesu to discover her passion for a career in process design and facilitation. She designed and facilitated long-term innovation programs and more than 40 workshops with companies, NGOs, social innovators, social and creative entrepreneurs, and university students.
She finds pleasure in small rituals, ocean coasts, long dinners and queer parties.
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Ceylan UÅŸaki Erali
Co–Founder, Senior Social Designer & Facilitator
Ceylan is our mediator of peace and communication – both professionally and personally. She believes in the power of stories and enjoys opening spaces for dialogue. As the orchestrator of ara projects, she facilitates harmony among all stakeholders. She's the one who keeps projects on track and ensures things get done diligently.
She holds a B.A. degree in Product Design from Istanbul Technical University and M.A. degrees on Social Design from Design Academy Eindhoven and Cultural Management from Istanbul Bilgi University. She contributed in numerous social impact–focused projects as social designer, coordinator and manager. She worked as a teaching assistant in Istanbul Bilgi University. She then spent a year in Morocco where she joined the community of the first co-working space (insane!) established in Casablanca designing and implementing creative urban workshops as well as contributing to strategic planning.
Returning to Istanbul, she joined the ATÖLYE team where she was mainly responsible for managing and facilitating learning and incubation programs for both social innovators and students in multi-stakeholder environments.
She enjoys having spontaneous conversations with strangers, watching her plants grow, and finds peace near the sea.
Ece Çiftçi
Senior Visual Storyteller
Ece’s expertise in visual design and her background in psychology makes her our design therapist at ara. As a true–storyteller at heart, she thinks in words and pictures. Her magic in storytelling lies behind her infinite curiosity to make sense of complexities. She listens deeply to bring out the essence in seemingly complicated ideas. Be it writing a simple phrase or developing a comprehensive brand identity, she brings joy to everything she creates.
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Ece is a Brand Identity Designer, Illustrator & Children’s Book Author. She holds a B.A. degree in Psychology and Studio Art with a concentration in Photography from the University of Virginia. She also completed a portfolio program specializing in Art Direction in Miami Ad School, San Francisco. After a career in Advertising as an Art Director in New York and Istanbul (360i and Blab), Ece shifted gears to be able to work on more impact–oriented projects and joined ATÖLYE as the team’s first official graphic designer.
Since then, she has created her own brand as a specialist in creating visual identity systems for organizations that focus on community–building, communication, education, childhood development, technology, social impact and sustainability. Her work is driven by a desire to make people feel more connected through helping brands with a social mission to tell their stories.
She is a serial–doodler, a music lover and a comedy nerd. She is also a little obsessed her terrier Yulaf (Oat).
OUR COLLABORATORS
We never work alone. Why would we?
We are lucky to collaborate with talented creative professionals.
OUR PARTNERS
We are stronger together with our–long term partners that we share values with.
Cross Change is an experimental design lab triggered by creativity and with a mission to
ignite change.
Mindhood is a bite-sized learning app designed to
educate through life-like dialogues.
imece is a social innovation platform where people and institutions come together to generate solutions for social, ecological and cultural matters.
Design for Zero is innovation consultancy that help organizations to redesign their product – service systems from a circularity perspective.
BuÄŸra Çelik
Business Partner
Can Akat
Videographer
Duygu Kambur
Social Innovation Expert
Halit Soysal
Entrepreneur & Storyteller
Özgür Özçelik
Business Development Advisor
Selen Çatalyürekli
Producer
Serra Saygılı
Strategic Designer
TuÄŸçe Akbulut
Crossdisciplinary Designer