Codea’s new website and physical newsletter are a tribute to the lost purity of the internet

Ten years ago, the creative studio Codea had built itself a strong visual identity and an original website to boot, but as time went on, its focus shifted. “Our online identity no longer mirrored who we had become,” Clara Rodés, the head of strategy at Codea says. “It felt like looking at an old photo of yourself from a phase you’ve outgrown.” This new website, however, invites a wealth of aesthetic playfulness and visual opportunities for the creative company. “The transparent PNG layer that floats on top of content is our playful nod to Instagram stories” Clara says, remixing familiar visual motifs such as the moon, CDs, rocks and even the Michelin Man into digital portals that lead the visitor to individual projects.

“Every visit should spark curiosity and invite exploration,” says Clara. Users are encouraged to mess around with the playground of Codea’s hidden easter eggs and live chat functions. Their ‘about’ page is a portfolio of interactivity in of itself. It’s fitting that after scrolling down to the bottom (much like one would scroll on a phone), their core mission awaits : ‘Our work is a reflection of the pulse of youth culture.’ All over the website, there are moving collages mixed in with intelligent graphic design, prioritising a high hit-rate of satisfying images while seeking to avoid adverts and needless pop-ups.

Although Codea’s utopian, scholastic cleanliness is an emerging aesthetic in the post-internet, Codea have begun to incorporate physical newsletters into their creative direction, delivering on the promise of the roots their name derives from; the Spanish verb ‘codearse’, means to rub elbows, or connect socially. Embracing slow culture, Codea strives to connect with the ineffability of physical exchange outside of stacked bills and disposable receipts. “This past year we reflected a lot on slowing down consumption, interaction and life. Print enforces that delay and forces us to commit to a moment,” says Clara. “We yearned to gift people that small endorphin rush of receiving something thoughtful, personal, and unexpected.”

Codea appears to be part of a new generation of forward thinking creators and designers concerned with the ‘new internet’. They’re reinventing the blog space with a modern tint, and imbuing it with kitsch without the irony, proposing new ethnographic relationships to bloom from rediscovering the internet’s lost purity. “The newsletter is our small rebellion against atrophying analog muscles,” says Clara. “We believe authenticity is essential, even when it means making imperfect choices.” Whether it’s their new website and newsletter, or collaborations with Puma, fitness studios and campaigns to raise awareness around suicide, Codea are paving the way to approach visual ideas with grace and allowing creators to express earnestness in a no-judgment community of its own.