“Vivid’s app convinced me immediately, because it worked so well that I thought: finally, someone has done this properly.”
Marcel Staudt, Founder and Managing Director, Quandel Staudt Design GmbH
Five people, one photo motif, three weeks of work. Once it would have been a shoot somewhere far away. Now the setup can be generated with AI, and the five-person team sits at the screen working out which shoes the model is wearing and where the sun has to stand. That is a corporate communications project today at Quandel Staudt Design, the Frankfurt agency Marcel Staudt co-founded eleven years ago. Using AI makes the result better, Staudt says, but nothing is saved: “The investment is only being shifted.”
The agency has 18 employees. Staudt has been its sole shareholder since his co-founder Roger Quandel retired last year, and he shares the management with Matthias Neuer. The company’s money sits with two providers: a long-standing institution, and Vivid.
Eleven Years and the Ambition to Deliver the Best
Quandel Staudt Design GmbH was founded in 2015, when Marcel Staudt joined forces with Roger Quandel, whose earlier agency he had freelanced for. “After we had worked together for fifteen years, we decided to found a new company together,” he says. Asked what makes the company distinctive, he points to the work itself.
“I believe what makes our company special lies in the quality of the work. Everything we develop is thought through so thoroughly until we are genuinely certain we are delivering the best result. We have always done well with that, even if, compared with other design agencies, we were not always the cheapest.”
Marcel Staudt, Founder and Managing Director, Quandel Staudt Design GmbH
Big challenges come up constantly, he says, whether from artificial intelligence or from a shifting market; the office’s answer has always been flexibility.
The People Are What Make It Special
Matthias Neuer has been with the firm for fourteen years, longer than the GmbH has existed, and in the management team since 2022. Asked what makes the office special, he answers thoughtfully.
“I believe what defines us as an agency is the people who work together here. They decide which ideas can emerge.”
Matthias Neuer, Managing Director, Quandel Staudt Design GmbH
At its core it is the interplay of several factors: the people in the agency, the people they work for, the mix of different projects and briefs. The team works a lot and across a wide range, Neuer says, but a good balance between work and the life beyond it matters to everyone on the team. Alongside a more important work-life balance, other things have changed over his 18 years in the profession: the way they work and the projects themselves have become far more digital, and print projects have declined sharply. Client expectations have changed considerably too, not least because of AI: projects have to be delivered faster, at consistent quality and with just as much attention to detail.
AI as One More Tool
Inside the agency, AI has long been part of production: image retouching, extension and manipulation, video retouching, image-to-video generation, persona development, research in the concept phase. Elaborate shoots are partly replaced. What once meant expensive photo shoots with location and model scouting for certain campaign motifs can today be produced digitally with a well-conceived setup. The result is not necessarily a smaller invoice. It is more coordination and communication.
And still Marcel Staudt hears it constantly from clients: surely AI can do that faster, better, above all cheaper. That expectation, he says, is unfortunately not quite right in that form. A large part of the work lies not in the original creation but in the communication with the client. Designs and strategies have to be explained and agreed. On projects that mean fundamental change for a brand or a company, that can mean weeks of coordination rounds. This is work AI cannot currently do, he says; human competence stays in demand, in the advisory work and the alignment with the client. Then he names the crux of it.
“Our clients don’t know which design result they need. If they did, AI would be a great thing: you would only have to prompt it and you would have it. But good design is an advice-intensive and highly individual result that emerges through a process. That exchange cannot be short-circuited by AI.”
Marcel Staudt, Founder and Managing Director, Quandel Staudt Design GmbH
Neuer describes the limit from the production side. Texts the agency has AI produce always sound seemingly perfect. “When you read them again and check them critically, whether the connections in meaning have been captured correctly, you often notice that this is only 70 to 80 per cent the case,” he says. For him AI is another tool, one the team had to learn. He resists the word fear: what matters is mastering AI rather than being mastered by it. The question of the ecological footprint of working with AI belongs in any assessment of this tool too.
Staudt puts it more plainly. “I find designers don’t need to be afraid of AI at the moment, because our profession is so varied and offers such a wide spectrum that AI does find its place with us and you can work well with it, but it can’t take over the important part,” he says. Lawyers and tax advisers have far more reason to worry, in his view: their profession rests on a body of rules that AI masters much faster. “You have one case and AI can access thousands of cases,” he says. Designers have no rigid rulebook, and AI is not really creative so far: it draws only on the reservoir of the internet.
Asked for numbers, he considers a direct cost comparison between an AI subscription and an employee difficult. Look only at the costs, and superficially, and AI is ultimately the cheaper option; but he does not see it replacing an employee one to one. In programming AI is very strong: a form, for instance, is built far faster, and a developer can save time there. The agency’s work sits much more in the conceptual area, where AI can set impulses that the team picks up and carries to a better result. If it replaces anyone, it is someone doing research and support work, at the level of a junior designer just finding their way into projects, perhaps even a level below. The spending stays the same, but the results increase. AI is expensive, and in his view it should be, because it consumes an enormous amount of energy that has to be paid for. The usage costs will certainly rise further. Nobody at the agency has lost their job because of the use of AI.
The Boss Who Would Like More Time to Design
Staudt is a degreed designer who today runs a company. “Unfortunately there isn’t much time left for me to be creatively active,” he says. “I have to look after the organisational work in the company much more, maintain client contact and win new clients.” He views that with one weeping eye, because design is his life and his passion. With age you lose a little of your feel for young people’s trends, he says, but the impulses come from the team instead. The average age is relatively low, and interns contribute their part in a talk series that really is called The Latest Shit.
His partner in management adds:
“Marcel is an incredibly creative person. That is his great strength, which I don’t have in this form. And that is completely fine. We complement each other on that level. I would say I’m the one who proceeds a little more structured, but who also sets mental limits where Marcel still develops the better idea, and finds it, with more freedom.”
Matthias Neuer, Managing Director, Quandel Staudt Design GmbH
Staudt carries a great deal of responsibility and does not pass problems downward, Neuer adds; that makes him a good boss. The agency has grown every year since it was founded, apart from the Covid year. Winning larger clients and opening up new industries drives Staudt; the ambition to deliver high quality in everything stays. He sees the agency’s future positively: “I think we will be a high-performing company, will have to handle more jobs at the same time, and I hope the team stays stable and grows, perhaps even driven by developments in AI.”
Where the Company’s Money Sits
Staudt came across Vivid through an internet search. He had been looking for a second financial provider, so that the company would not depend on its long-standing institution alone; it still uses both. What convinced him first was the brand presence – very young, very trustworthy, and of genuinely high quality – which, as he says, naturally has to do with his profession. Then there were the conditions, the interest and the cashback. Then he downloaded the app.
“We’ve also worked on apps with fintechs, and I know how hard it is to build good apps,” he says. He knows the apps of established providers, which have to function as one building block in a large system and lose usability and appeal as a result. But it is good, he adds, when fresh air comes in and someone shows how it can be done differently.
Day to day, the two features he uses most are Cashback and the Interest Account. The second solves an everyday problem for anyone running a company: what to do with money that isn’t needed right now.
“When there’s liquid capital that has to be parked somewhere, the money can work that way and is still relatively quickly available.”
Marcel Staudt, Founder and Managing Director, Quandel Staudt Design GmbH
Has Vivid ever genuinely helped? He offers an example familiar to anyone who signs off company payments. “When the Finanzamt, the German tax office, gets in touch and wants a very large sum transferred, Vivid is very helpful in that situation, because I can simply send the amount as an instant transfer,” he says. From the beginning, he adds, Vivid has given him less complicated access to the company’s money, even when a larger payment is due.
What Vivid could do better is hard for him to say. He is very satisfied with how it functions at the moment, above all with the speed of transfers and the functionality of the app. “The scope is definitely already very good and the performance is really good,” he says. “So I wouldn’t have any wish there.”
Note: This article describes the individual experience of a Vivid customer and is provided for general information only. It is not legal, financial, investment or tax advice, and it is not a guarantee of future results. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of capital; values can rise and fall. Product availability, rates and conditions depend on the plan and may change. Information as of September 2026. Please seek advice from a qualified professional before making financial decisions.
