ABOUT ME
Maja Rakić – the person behind Mozaikod
I’m Maja Rakić from Valjevo, a graphic and web designer, an informatics teacher, and the founder of the creative studio Mozaikod. I have more than twenty years of experience in design and sixteen years in education. For me, the two have always been closely intertwined.
When someone asks me what I do, the answer usually turns out to be rather long. Graphic and web design, informatics, education, photography, artificial intelligence… And if the conversation goes on long enough, we’ll get to beekeeping too.
The truth is, I’ve always been interested in many different things, and I’ve never seen a reason to give up one interest simply because I have another.
DESIGN
Design was there from the start
I started creating my first logos, business cards, websites, and printed materials while I was still a student. Over time, more substantial projects followed: working with clients in Serbia and abroad, taking on projects through the international platform 99designs, and designing visual identities, logos, websites, book covers, publications, and materials for print.
I love the whole process, from the first idea to the finished design. I can still spend hours thinking about typography, the arrangement of elements, or a shade of colour that looks exactly like the previous five to most people.
But for me, design isn’t just a matter of taste. A website can look fantastic, yet leave visitors unable to find what they came for. The same goes for a logo that may be beautiful but has little to do with the business or person it represents.
That’s why I need to understand the business, the people, and the purpose of what I’m designing. Only then does it make sense to think about how it should look.
EDUCATION
How did teaching fit into all of this?
Much more naturally than it might seem, actually.
At the Faculty of Technical Sciences (FTN), I earned a master’s qualification in Technology and Informatics Education. I also graduated from the Faculty of Informatics and Computing in Belgrade, completing the Computer Graphics and Design programme and earning a degree in Business Informatics Engineering.
Literature and the Serbian language were among my first loves. So much so that I studied Serbian language and literature at the Faculty of Philology until my third year, when I enrolled at FTN. I didn’t complete my studies at the Faculty of Philology, but books, writing, and a love of language have remained an important part of my life.
Even today, when I’m working on a website, I don’t think only about colours, photographs, and the arrangement of elements. What the website says, how its text is organised, and whether someone will truly understand the message we want to convey matter just as much to me. After all, even the best typography can’t really rescue bad writing.
That is how I brought together the things that interested me most: design, computers, the written word, and education.
I’ve been teaching in schools in Valjevo for sixteen years. Working with children can be demanding, unpredictable, and very often fun. One of its greatest benefits is that it keeps you learning. It’s hard to teach informatics while ignoring how much technology is changing.
Some of the projects I’m particularly fond of grew out of that experience.
I designed and built websites for the primary schools “Nada Purić”, “Andra Savčić”, “Vladika Nikolaj Velimirović”, and “Dragoljub Ilić” in Valjevo and the surrounding area.
Knowing the school system helped me a great deal with that work. When you work in a school every day, you understand how important it is for parents to find the information they need quickly, for teachers to find the website easy to use, and for the school to have a space where it can showcase its work.
It was especially rewarding to apply my design skills to education.
TECHNOLOGY AND KNOWLEDGE
Why do I teach people about AI?
Because I teach informatics, and because I see how quickly the world is changing.
Artificial intelligence isn’t something waiting for us in the distant future. It’s already part of our work, classrooms, design, writing, photography, and everyday lives. And by all indications, the changes still to come will be even greater.
As a teacher, I believe it’s important to prepare people for that world. Not just to teach them how to use an AI tool, but to help them understand what it can do, what it can’t, and when not to trust its answers.
Because, impressive as artificial intelligence may be, it can also get things wrong. Sometimes with such confidence that it’s almost an art form.
That’s precisely why I believe knowledge, critical thinking, and creativity will become even more important.
I explore and use AI tools in both my design work and my teaching. I’m interested in how they can make everyday tasks easier, support learning, open up new possibilities for creative work, and save time.
Through Mozaikod’s AI education, I want to share that knowledge with others. On my YouTube channel, I publish practical tutorials, explain how digital and AI tools work, and show how they can be used in education, design, and everyday work.
It matters to me that these resources are also accessible to people without much technical background.
I don’t think everyone needs to become a programmer or an artificial intelligence expert. But I do think everyone should have the opportunity to understand the technology that is already affecting their lives.
THE STORY BEHIND MOZAIKOD
And why Mozaikod?
Alongside design, technology, and teaching, I’ve been involved in photography for years. I love nature, hiking, literature, and beekeeping. In all of these, I find something that interests me, helps me unwind, or pushes me to learn something new.
Photography has taught me to observe the world more closely. Beekeeping, among other things, regularly reminds me that nature has its own rules and isn’t particularly interested in our plans.
Perhaps these different interests are the reason I’ve never wanted to limit my life and work to a single field.
When I was thinking about a name for my studio, the idea of a mosaic felt right. A mosaic is made up of different pieces that, only when brought together, form a new picture.
And “kod” — Serbian for “code” — represents technology, informatics, and the digital world that is such a big part of my life.
That is how Mozaikod came to be.
It brings together the work I do professionally: web design, graphic design, visual identities, digital communications, and AI education.
Mozaikod is a small creative studio based in Valjevo, but geography doesn’t limit its work. The internet has long made it possible for me to collaborate with people from different countries, and that is one of the things I love most about what I do.
Today, through Mozaikod, I continue to design, explore new technologies, learn, and share what I know.
I don’t know exactly what the world will look like in ten years. Today’s AI tools will probably seem quite outdated, just as the computers we used to work on seem to us now.
But I do know that I want to keep learning, creating, and finding new ways to connect everything that interests me.
Perhaps that is where we will find an idea to work on together.
If you need a website, a logo, or a visual identity, or would like to learn how to use modern digital and AI tools, take a look at my work and tutorials.
Maja Rakić
Founder of Mozaikod, Valjevo