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Disclaimer

I am not, nor have I ever claimed to be a horror movie die-hard fan. However, there are millions of people who voluntarily subject themselves to jump scares, demonic creatures, paranormal activity, serial killers, and a whole host of psychologically disturbing events in the form of horror films.

And it’s fascinating.

As someone who isn’t a big fan of the genre, I’ve always wondered why. Why do we subject ourselves to being scared shitless time and time again? Maybe it’s just a psychological difference in brain chemistry that varies from person to person. Maybe it’s passed down by parents or grandparents who love the horror movies of old. I really don’t know. But one thing’s for sure.

Hollywood has gotten really, really good at designing horror.

In the 21st century, we may look back on old horror movies like Nosferatu (1922) or Dracula (1931) and not feel an inkling of terror in comparison to modern films, but they were the beginning of a visual language of unease that every great horror film, poster, and brand has learned to speak.

Great designers understand fear as an emotional design system. One that’s created through playing with contrast, discomfort, and suspense.

Let’s break the system down into 6 parts.

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1. Color: The Language of Unease

When we think of the colors of horror, we think of red. Red for blood, urgency, rage, and fire. We think of sickly greens and the ever consuming blackness of the dark– the unknown. We think of the pale muted tones in the way skin-tones feel off or life get’s sucked out of an environment. Color sets the tone of horror.

And the way color contrasts beyond what’s expected can create tension and manipulate emotion. Think of the stark, bright daylight horror of Midsommar. It creates fear through too much exposure and an over abundance of color. It tricks us into thinking we’re safe in fields of rainbow flowers and bright visibility.

Takeaway: Color palettes can immediately set the tone and allow us to break the bounds of expectation.

2. Composition: Building Tension in Space

Fear thrives on imbalance. It plays into our natural inclination as humans to want symmetry. Instead, it gives us asymmetry, emptiness, and creates the feeling that something is just off.

Negative space. We all know to get ready for something when the camera pans to a space and it’s completely empty. A lack of subject matter almost always translates into a potential threat in the design of horror.

There’s a host of spatial distortions used to create tension as well–like the way an artist chooses to crop, show proximity, or use lens effects. The distorted fish-eye close-up shot is often used in anime to show the unnerving, unpredictable mental state a character may be in.

Takeaway: tension comes from what you don’t show.

3. Typography: The Voice of the Monster

If I ask you to picture a horror title card, I’m sure what comes to mind is dramatic type dripping in blood or swirling gothic typography with distorted serifs and eroded textures. Those classic types of treatments have become ingrained in our minds as horror font archetypes.

But modern reinterpretations can be just as effective with more subtle treatments that contribute to the overall mood of the visual rather than a bold declaration of terror. Think of the eerie clean san-serifs fonts with just a little too much spacing, like Alien or the Witch.

Takeaway: Typographic restraint can be scarier than excess.

4. Texture: Glitch, Decay, Deterioration

Texture adds another layer of dread to the mix. The overly visible decay and evidence of time passing on the physical being create a sense of imperfection and wrongness. It tells a story in the blink of an eye, saying “something happened to this thing long ago that we are aware of but did not witness.”

Nowadays, texture can also translate into the horror of “the glitch.” When the system breaks and illusion erodes. Designers can use grain, glitches, and transformation of the analog to expand our world view and create the sense that the world we thought we knew is opening up before our feet. It turns the rules we thought we were playing by completely on their head.

Takeaway: texture can make emotion tactile and give us hints into a larger world.

5. The Uncanny: When Familiar Becomes Wrong

We should be familiar with the phrase “uncanny valley” by now. Rooted in Freud’s “unheimlich.” It’s the familiar turned strange. It’s why CGI of people that tries to be too realistic freaks us out, or why AI-generated faces and hyperreal dolls give us goosebumps.

We see it often in the way characters stare a little too long or tilt their head a little further than is normal. It signals to us that something is amiss even when we can’t quite put our conscious finger on it. It’s the design principle of near-perfection: when almost symmetry is used to unsettle.

Takeaway: Leave room for imperfection. It keeps us on our toes.

6. Fear as Marketing: Beyond the Screen

Horror has escaped the theater. It’s no longer confined to films. Now, it’s a marketing strategy. Brands, studios, and streaming platforms build anticipation for movies, and frankly, the entire “spooky season” through interactive marketing campaigns. These experiences can now enter your own home.

Take the marketing for the recent “28 Years Later,” for example. Before a single trailer dropped, cryptic teasers, unbranded street posters, and blood-red typography started appearing online and in cities. It was a breadcrumb trail of dread. I even got an ad on TikTok to purchase tickets when it released. When I excitedly clicked on it, the theater seat selection slowly filled in until it formed the biohazard symbol. I was thrilled. What a brilliant way to delight people rather than just asking them to spend money on a sequel!

Horror marketing today isn’t just about scaring you. It’s about making you chase the scare.

Takeaway: suspense is a design tool. The best campaigns don’t reveal; they infect.28 years later

Fear, like most highly regarded art, thrives in ambiguity. It creates conversation and leaves room for interpretation based on the viewer. The best designers know how to make people feel something before they understand it. With horror, that desire to understand is exactly what pulls us in.

So if you’re one of the millions of people who adore horror design, remember that it’s success doesn’t lie in showing you what’s coming but in making you feel it long before it arrives.

If you are reading this, it means you are beginning to question what comes next. You’re human. Congrats. You are wondering how to build something meaningful without losing yourself in the process. You are realizing that the traditional measures of success in this industry no longer make sense, and you are searching for a different way to play.

Eight years ago, I asked the same questions. How do I build a creative practice that lasts? How do I measure success when growth is not my only goal? How do I stay small in a world obsessed with being big?

I did not want to play a game where winning meant burning out. I wanted to build something that could keep going, something that could outlast the news cycle, the algorithms, and the ego traps of our profession. That is when I discovered the idea of the infinite game.

In the infinite game, there are no winners.

There are only players who keep showing up. The purpose is not to win but to continue the play, to advance a cause that is bigger than yourself, to invest in people and ideas that outlive your role in them. The infinite game is built on trust, purpose, and perseverance. It is slow, deliberate, and deeply human.

That has been the philosophy behind a small studio since day one. I did not build to be the biggest, fastest, or loudest. I built to endure. I built to bring peace into an industry driven by anxiety. We built to prove that clarity can create change.

And the truth is, we are living proof that endurance itself is an act of creativity.

How rare is a small studio, really?

• Less than 40% of small businesses in the United States make it to their eighth year (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2024).
• Only 3% of employer firms in America are Black-owned, contributing about 1% of total business revenue (U.S. Census B.E.D., 2022).
• In the design industry, Black designers represent about 3% of the professional workforce, and Black-owned studios account for less than 1% of all registered creative agencies (AIGA Design Census 2023, NADO Small Business Survey 2024).
• The average creative agency lifespan is five to six years, with fewer than 10% remaining independent beyond year eight (Agency Spotter Report 2024, Design Week Market Trends 2024).

When I combined those realities, I realized how rare this journey has really been.

Statistically, we exist within roughly the 0.0006 percent of businesses in America. That means out of every one million businesses, only about six look like us: Black-owned, independent, design-driven, and still standing after eight years.

That number is not something to pity. It is something to study. It is proof that peace, purpose, patience, and (let’s add another p word for drama) persistence can be a strategy for success. It is proof that creative longevity is possible when you focus on depth and meaning.

And now, as we enter our ninth year, a small studio is committing to what comes next.

These are the Nine Commitments that guide how we will keep playing the infinite game, and how we hope to influence others to join in on the fun.

1. Peace is the product

Design is not just how things look. It is how they feel. If our work does not bring calm, clarity, or confidence, then it is not design. It is sabotage. We exist to create the kind of peace that empowers people to make more authentic decisions and live intrinsically motivated lives.

2. Build the being before the brand

Before you create what the world sees, you must understand who you are. Brand without identity is decoration. Identity without intention is chaos. Every project begins with clarity of being, not surface-level branding.

3. Small on purpose

Small is not a stage to outgrow. It is a discipline that allows for depth, agility, and intimacy with the work. Staying small gives us the space to think, the freedom to care, and the courage to take risks what others avoid.

4. Move at the speed of trust

We have built a rhythm that prioritizes honesty over speed. Our team practices weekly Vibe Checks to align our energy and priorities, and we hold open Office Hours to review ideas, offer feedback, and share our creative truth without fear. When trust leads, the right work follows.

5. Global team, local impact

We may work around the world, but our heart is rooted in Cleveland. Through initiatives like Patina Capital, we are connecting creativity to real neighborhoods and people. Our work is judged not only by its beauty but by how it embraces and influences the culture of the communities it touches.

6. Apprentices who come next

We believe in apprenticeship because we must walk alongside those we are leading if we hope for a better future. Our leadership team averages 29 years old, which means we are learning and leading at the same time. Through Ding! and our recruitment process, we are building bridges for new voices to enter and influence the industry.

7. Live through design

Design saved my life. Cancer taught me to rebuild with intention, to measure success by the lives impacted, not the projects completed. Health, faith, and creativity are not separate categories. They are all part of one life. We now partner with organizations that see design as a tool for healing and hope.

8. Meaning over metrics, then both

Data matters, but meaning drives it. The most powerful outcomes are not always measurable in profit or reach. They are seen in trust built, peace achieved, and communities restored. Our goal is to balance results with relevance, performance with purpose.

9. Radical transparency

A value we have lived for 8 years. In an industry where we build walls around knowledge and seek to hold on to people rather than let them go, transparency can empower a generation to build something like this. We want to be a studio you can learn from, question, and grow alongside.

You are invited to ask us anything about our work, our process, our partnerships, and our journey. Nothing is off limits. The best questions shape the next era of our story.

To the next generation, this is your invitation to build with intention. To play the long game. To lead with empathy and build your endurance.

The world does not need more noise. It needs more meaning.

Build slowly. Build honestly. Build something that outlives you.

And remember, the game does not end. It continues as long as you keep playing.

‍We really mean it, ask us anything!

Some phrases are just weird juxtapositions; Jumbo shrimp. Pretty ugly. Artificial intimacy.

Intimacy, by definition, is supposed to be messy and real (we all know it). It is the unfiltered conversation, that awkward silence, the look across the table when words are not enough. It is built on vulnerability and trust, not on polish or pretense. Which is why the very idea of “artificial intimacy” feels like a contradiction in terms. Can you script closeness? Can you code affection? Can you design something that passes for genuine connection when the essence of intimacy is that it cannot be faked?

And yet, everywhere we look, intimacy is being staged.

Brands write emails as if they are your best friend. Streaming platforms recommend movies as if they know your soul. Influencers talk into their cameras like they are talking directly to you (deep breaths), when in reality they are talking to millions. Even AI is being trained to mirror empathy, offering words of comfort when no human is around to give them.

It is intimacy by design. But if it is manufactured, is it still intimacy?

The uncomfortable truth is that “artificial intimacy” works because it scratches at a very real need. People are lonely, which we also alluded to in a Ding article (the loneliest generation). They want to feel seen. They want to feel understood. And even if the relationship is staged or simulated, the feeling is real in the moment. The brain does not always distinguish between a friend who knows you and a feed that knows your habits.

This does not mean the intimacy is authentic, only that it is effective.

Some organizations and creators lean into artificial intimacy in ways that feel thoughtful rather than manipulative. Spotify Wrapped is a great example. Each year, Spotify hands you a neat little package that reflects your listening habits. It feels personal because it is personal, and people share it widely not because they are fooled into thinking Spotify loves them, but because Spotify helps them feel seen.

Duolingo has done something similar with its green owl. The tone is cheeky and exaggerated, but people engage with it because it feels like a relationship, even if it is an absurd one. The owl nags you, cheers you on, and somehow makes a language-learning app feel like a friend. Even the rise of parasocial relationships with podcasters shows the same principle. Listeners often describe their favorite hosts as “friends in their head.”

The connection may be one-sided, but the intimacy feels real enough to drive loyalty.

Then there are the moments when artificial intimacy overreaches and collapses. Think of a brand email that starts with “Hey bestie” when you have only bought a toothbrush from them once. It feels off, even insulting. Instead of warmth, it creates a sense of distance. Or worse, when algorithms pretend to “care” and end up striking the wrong chord. A few years ago, Target’s predictive analytics sent maternity coupons to a teenager before she had even told her family she was pregnant. What was framed as personalization felt invasive and creepy.

And of course, there are countless examples of chatbots stumbling into uncanny territory, offering “empathy” that feels hollow, or worse, manipulative. When intimacy is forced, it reveals itself as artificial instantly. For creatives, this tension is unavoidable. We are asked to make products feel personal, to craft experiences that mimic closeness at scale. A campaign that speaks “just to you.” A design system that feels alive. A voice that seems human, even when it is not.

Is intimacy something we should design for?

The question worth asking: is intimacy something we should design for, or is it something we should protect? When does making people feel “close” become a connection, and when does it become a trick?

Artificial intimacy is a paradox, and maybe that is the point. It reminds us that closeness cannot be mass-produced. You can design warmth, but not trust. You can design familiarity, but not friendship. You can design recognition, but not love.

The very act of trying to force intimacy makes it fragile. It is only when we let go of control, when we risk honesty, imperfection, and even rejection, that true intimacy appears.

Artificial intimacy may surround us, but it is not genuine. And maybe the best work we can do, as creatives and as humans, is to resist the urge to fake closeness and instead design spaces where the real version can emerge.

Because intimacy, the real kind, is never artificial.

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Children have a gift that adults often lose.

They ask why. Not once, not twice, but again and again until they land on a realization that feels true. Why is the sky blue? Why do we need to eat vegetables? Why can’t dogs talk? The questions might drive parents to the edge of their patience, but beneath that persistence lies something powerful. Children are not looking for surface-level answers. They are searching for meaning.

That exact relentless search for meaning is precisely what founders and creatives need today. Businesses are born at the speed of code. AI tools help launch startups before lunch, hype cycles carry them into the headlines by dinner, and by the weekend, they vanish into obscurity (painfully true). It is not because the technology is bad or the ideas are weak. It is because they never answered the question that matters most: why?

We hear so much about purpose that the word almost feels overused. Yet as the world shifts under our feet, it only grows more urgent. Attention is fleeting. Trust is fragile. People have more choices than ever, and they will not pause for something that cannot explain its reason for being.

Why for founders

Simon Sinek (a personal favorite) said it years ago, and it remains true: “Start with Why.” It is what keeps a company alive when trends fade and investors move on to the next shiny object. Founders who fail to define their “why” chase features, mimic competitors, or fall in love with short-lived trends. Customers sense it. Teams lose direction. Investors look elsewhere.

Without a clear “why,” a business may exist, but it rarely endures.

The companies that stand out in crowded markets are the ones that make their purpose obvious and undeniable. They give people a reason to not just buy, but to believe.

Why for designers

Designers face the same challenge. Every project is, at its core, a search for “why.” Why does this brand exist? Why should it feel distinct? Why should anyone stop, notice, and care?

Design without “why” is empty. It might look good on the surface, but it does not hold attention or earn loyalty. When designers push until they uncover the underlying reason, their work becomes more human and harder to ignore.

Design is an answer to a series of questions.

The wisdom of Y

There is something poetic about the fact that the most critical question for founders and designers ends with the letter Y. On its own, Y is already the most interesting letter in the English language. Visually, it embodies the very decision-making process it represents.

Look at it closely. You begin on a straight line, a single path forward. Then it splits into two branches. You cannot go both ways. You must choose. The shape of Y is a fork in the road, a visual metaphor for decision and direction.

That is exactly what “why” forces us to do. It asks us to choose. It pushes us to stop wandering down every possible path and instead commit to the one that matters. Just like the letter itself, “why” narrows the noise into a moment of clarity.

The alphabet gave us a perfect symbol for the work we do as creators and founders.

The question “why” ends not with finality, but with choice.

More relevant than ever

Yes, “why” has been talked about endlessly in books, podcasts, and keynotes. Some roll their eyes at the idea. However, the truth is that the faster the world changes, the more critical the question becomes. In a time when lives are packed with endless demands, when AI floods our feeds with sameness, and when every company claims to “innovate,” the only way to stand apart is to answer clearly: why does this matter?

The cliché is also the compass.

Be the why child

The best advice may come from the youngest among us. Children never stop asking why. They do not accept half-truths. They do not let you get away with easy answers. They keep pushing until they get to something real.

As designers, that is the same discipline we need. Keep asking. Why are we building this? Why will people care? Why should it exist at all? Every time you push further, the work becomes clearer. The fork in the road becomes easier to navigate. The Y shows you the path.

The world does not owe you its attention.

People are not waiting for your product, your campaign, or your brand to arrive. You have to give them a reason to stop and care. That reason is always found in the answer to why.

So, be like the child who refuses to stop asking. Let the letter Y remind you that clarity always comes at a fork in the road. Choose your path with purpose. And when you do, the work you create matters.

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Peace!

Hello 👋🏾 a small studio team, my name is blank and I am a blank with blank years of experience. I’d love the opportunity to bring my experience to your team and…

As I continue reading through the thousands of applications for our product designer role, it brings to mind my favorite childhood book, A Wrinkle In Time when Christopher Wallace is standing in a neighborhood of sameness: same houses, same children, same rhythm of the bouncing balls. Which made him say; “the repetition, it hurts.” My hopes for finding the next generation creative, one that would help usher a small studio into the next 8 years, began diminishing quickly.

Dread crept in quickly. You see, we haven’t posted a job description in over 2 years! Has the market changed that much? No, it couldn't have. Oh wait…that was before AI took over neural pathways and became our default for communication. Damn. I guess a lot has changed, I finally thought to myself.

Two years ago, we hired a Jr Product Designer and a copywriter. Both still with us today. I remember the 850 applications from all over the world being so tasteful and human. The portfolios for a Jr Product Designer were 10x better than what I was seeing today. How could that be? Is it because of AI? The lack of care to take the time to truly translate your designs through your unique perspective. Is it because of the over saturation of commoditized education? Every portfolio consisting of exactly three projects; a mobile app, a website, and a dashboard they designed in a design ‘boot camp’ that promised them a job. Or is it a personal theory I wrote about last year, is design is becoming a commodity? I guess if you think about it the commoditization of anything starts with the producers. Or this is how designers have chosen to represent themselves, the same as everyone else, the marketplace will treat them as such. All of these theories collectively are leading to this point, not just in design but in every industry.

This was just the first time I was on the receiving end of the robotic nature of the commoditization cycle.

Still, I remain hopeful and optimistic in the next generation of designers. Why? Because why not? I did a panel about Empathy and Design in the age of AI at MidwestCon in Cincinnati, OH a few weeks back. The curator of the conference posed a question, how do you respond to leaders who ask you why they should pay you when AI can do it cheaper and faster? Every other panelist answered traditionally, how our services can’t be replicated etc. etc. My response, “I agree with you. You are 100% right! You should go do that right now.” Why would I argue? The more I argue the more I prove their point. Instead I agree and continue using my gift of creativity to bring peace to people’s lives. That looks a lot different than it did two years ago, but not for the reasons you may think. We are an identity-driven design studio that specializes in helping leaders and organizations understand who they are and translate that powerfully and authentically into the marketplace. How is this relevant to hiring, John?

Well, this round of hiring showed me how unique this work actually is and how necessary it will be for the future of our industry. For all of the emerging designers or leaders reading this, the amount of time you spend reflecting on your identity is directly correlated to how much of a commodity you will be in the marketplace. To put it into perspective,

out of over 1000 applicants 15 got interviews with me.

Yep, I did every first round interview myself. That is less than 1.5%! Those 15 showcased their work in a way that proved to us that they had a unique perspective. Or at the very least, they have done some work on themselves to understand why they are different than most. Or what we like to call at a small studio, an anomaly. Identity is the first word on our website, if you show up as a commodity there is absolutely no way you can show up for someone else's identity. Full stop.

We are in the final stages of our 3 phase process, a process we have used since 2020. I will write about it more extensively in my next article. We have 4 finalist and surprise 3 of them are Gen Z. Every one of them is an anomaly but only one will join us this month. I can guarantee you that it will be the one who can best translate who they are through the designs they share with us. If you are struggling finding a job right now, I hope this gives you the inspiration you needed. Remember that everything you need is right inside of you.

The real question is how much time have you spent with yourself?

If it is less time than you have spent applying to endless jobs, odds are you are being overlooked within this plague of sameness. Instead of going on LinkedIn or Dribbble try this instead.

Grab a notepad and pen. Ask yourself one simple but profound question, who am I? From there you will find the right opportunity.

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Peace. ✌🏾

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Originality is somewhat of a misnomer.

Inevitably, we will create something influenced by something else. It’s an unrealistic goal to create what’s never been done before.

But originality is subjective.

Using movies as an example, I argue that we love stories and experiences that feel fresh. A movie can be original if it takes risks, deviates from the norm or even alters the focus of a previously explored premise.

Take a movie I recently saw: The Roses (2025), based on a novel called “The War of the Roses” by Warren Adler.

The trailer drew me in because Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch, two one-of-a-kind actors, play characters battling in a crumbling marriage. With little additional knowledge, I ended up enjoying it for its witty dialogue and gradual descent from love to bitter resentment.

What a wonderful, original movie, I thought after the screen faded to black.

Then, I told my parents they should see the movie, that they’d find it funny. My mom says she wants to, and that they had seen a movie in the ’80s called *The War of the Roses.*

What? This is a remake?! I was baffled and annoyed, wondering if anything in the theater is original anymore.

Since the pandemic, businesses have tightened their grip on nostalgia marketing. Now, it seems that sequels, reboots and spinoffs with the same tropes and characters have overwhelmed the media playing field:

• Tron: Ares
• Dune (2021)
• Mean Girls (2024)
• Alien: Romulus
• How to Train Your Dragon (2025)
• a Harry Potter TV series in 2027

The list unfortunately goes on and on.

These are the culprits, the clear money grabs. Jurassic World: Rebirth, for example, has made well over $800 million worldwide as of writing this article. Although the movie had a somewhat original plot, the storytelling was so derivative that it felt like a crude skeleton made from the fossils of Jurassic Park (1993), to which fans have an irreplaceable emotional attachment.

We need stories told in a way that make us feel and think about the world differently. It’s how conversations open, how inspiration is born. It’s also just more entertaining when your thoughts are provoked.

In my mind, The Roses achieved originality with its quick-witted dialogue, convincing performances and updated elements for the 21st century. The original story is still relevant, but today’s humor is different, women are now more independent and divorce rates are down.

Above all, I left the theater thinking a lot about the film choices and the conflict of career ambition and love. While I haven’t had a chance to read the book or watch the 1989 adaption, it’s clear this movie wasn’t made with nostalgia or profits in mind.

Original storytelling isn’t always just about writing, either. Sometimes movies can carry a plot and evoke emotion with things like character design, emotional performances or an intricate setting.

James Cameron demonstrated this with the Avatar movies, despite the story of colonizers uprooting an indigenous civilization having been done before. He uses astounding motion capture technology and whimsical music to live in the original CGI-designed world of Pandora.

Tell true stories, tell them differently. Or tell them similarly and give us something new.

Stories aren’t like brands of ibuprofen. You can consume as many as you want and experience something new each time.

Each of us has a unique concoction of backgrounds and life experiences. Filmmakers and other storytellers need to bring that to the table—not a fresh coat of paint on existing intellectual property every 20 years or so.

You have a much better chance of being authentic—being original—by telling a story in your vision, in a way that’s important to you.

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Did you know there’s an Emmy category for outstanding title design?

Most of the Emmys discourse centers around the prime time event, but there’s an entire world of creative arts that rarely gets discussed. In short, the Emmys can be broken down into two categories: the night for people in the creative industry, and the night for everyone else. It’s time to bring the Emmys' creative conversation into the spotlight.

So, let’s talk about one specific category within the creative arts: title sequences. They’ve changed over the years–a lot. For better and for worse.

The 2025 nominations for Outstanding Title Design were:

• Severance
• The White Lotus
• House of the Dragon
• The Penguin
• Dark Matter
• The Decameron

Can you guess the winner?

SURPRISE–it was Severance. However, if you’ve seen the title sequence and second season of Severance, that’s probably not surprising at all. The title sequence was filled with dissectible hints for what was to come and visually stunning. Oliver Latta & team 100% deserve their flowers for a beautiful sequence that dives into Mark's subconscious anxieties– a core theme of the season.

But these nominations, and the theme we’re seeing with nominations over the years, can’t help but make us wonder if title sequences are trending away from awarding the most creative, original, and thought-provoking work. Is great title design now synonymous with gritty, dark, and CGI? Have we lost the creative plot in our aim to make television feel more serious and cinematic?

The last 4/6 Emmy title design winners have similarly had creative visuals in this category of dark, micro-scale, CGI, where we’re often viewing a close-up set piece from the show recreated on a miniature scale. It’s certainly become a go-to type of visual for a number of shows.

Yet, title design has had a rich history and a wealth of styles over the years. For an art form with so much creative potential, why have we gotten stuck in such a limiting trend? We’re not saying all title sequences fall into this category. Even among this year’s nominations, The White Lotus, The Penguin, and The Decameron all explore differing styles. Yet the Academy hasn’t awarded a win to a sequence outside of this CGI-based darker style since The Good Lord Bird in 2021.

What happened to the playful identities of the 90s? Shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Friends, and the X-Files were fun, punk, and expressive.

What happened to the experimentation and graphic boldness of the 2000s? Shows like Mad Men, Carnivàle, and The Sopranos all had unique sequences that weren’t afraid of chaotic cuts and unique motifs.

What happened to the pure variety of title sequences during the “golden age” of television in the 2010s? Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, The Walking Dead, and  Breaking Bad all have completely unique-looking openers.

Title sequences are a beautiful art. They set the tone for what’s to come and create unique conversational opportunities for people to discuss hidden easter eggs and meanings. They’re an art that blossomed even more in our unique age of streaming. We love how visually breathtaking they’ve evolved to be, but we encourage more diversity and celebration of uniquely creative ideas in the medium.

Title sequences should be playgrounds for creativity, not an exploration of how many times we can create the same thing in a different font.

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When someone yawns near you, odds are you will yawn too.

If someone sneezes, you instinctively tense, maybe even sneeze yourself. And when a room erupts in laughter, even if you missed the joke, you find yourself smiling to fit in.

Humans are wired to mimic, and psychologists refer to this as allelomimetic behavior. It describes the way we copy what others do, often without realizing it. You see it in toddlers who mirror their parents’ expressions. You see it in groups where one person crossing their arms leads to others following. You see it in the way moods spread quickly, for better or worse, in a crowded room or a quiet meeting.

Culture behaves in the same way. Inside a team, behaviors are contagious. A sigh of frustration travels across the table or Zoom screen. A spark of enthusiasm lights up a room. Even silence carries weight, influencing how others feel and respond. You do not catch culture from a handbook or a mission statement. Other people infect you, and without noticing, you pass it on to others.

Researchers have studied this ripple effect for decades. A Yale research on emotional contagion shows that when one team member feels stress, disengagement, or burnout, those emotions are quickly mirrored by others. What begins as one person’s problem soon becomes a shared atmosphere. Stress multiplies. Burnout spreads.

A single negative presence can quietly shift the culture of an entire group.

The opposite is also true. Studies published in the Harvard Business Review show that small, positive actions can create measurable improvements in team performance. A calm response in the face of pressure lowers collective anxiety. Moments of genuine encouragement spark motivation, and leaders who listen openly create space for others to do the same. These are not abstract ideas, but are daily acts that spread across teams like invisible signals, shaping what people expect, tolerate, and repeat.

It is easy to assume culture only flows from the top. Leaders certainly set the temperature, but you also play a role in what you absorb. Think about the last time you joined a new team. How quickly did you notice the subtle rules? Maybe it was the way people reacted to mistakes. It could be how often they interrupted each other. Perhaps it was whether they celebrated small wins or brushed past them.

You start to mimic what you see, even when it conflicts with your natural instincts.

If a group normalizes cynicism, you will feel pressure to match it. If a team thrives on curiosity, you will find yourself asking better questions. What you pick up is not always conscious, but it shapes how you show up.

This is why being mindful of what you allow in is just as important as what you give out. You cannot always control the energy of others, but you can decide what you internalize and what you let pass through. Culture is a constant negotiation between what you absorb and what you reflect back.

Just as you absorb, you also infect. Every interaction is a chance to pass something on. A sarcastic comment can linger long after you forget it. Kind words can also shift someone’s day. Maintaining a calm tone during conflict can help reduce the tension for everyone.

Here are three reminders for your own role in a cultural contagion:

• Your reactions matter: In moments of stress, people watch more closely than you realize. If you escalate, so will they. If you stay steady, you give them permission to do the same.
• Your small actions add up: Smiling at the start of a meeting, acknowledging a good idea, checking in privately with someone who seems off. These feel small, but they are seeds of trust that multiply.
• Your consistency sets norms: What you repeat becomes what people expect from you. Over time, repetition becomes identity, not just for you but for the group you are part of.

This is not optional; it happens whether you intend it or not.

The real question is what you are catching from others and what you are spreading in return.

Ask yourself:

• If everyone mirrored my actions, would I like the culture that emerged?
• Am I unconsciously reinforcing behaviors I do not believe in?
• What do I want people to pick up from me in their own work?

Ultimately, culture is not that slogan or polished mission statement. It is the yawns, the sighs, the laughter, the energy that passes through people. It is what you absorb without thinking and what you send out without noticing; a Vibe.

Culture is not often taught, it is caught. And every day, you are both a carrier and a recipient. So be mindful of what you pick up, and be intentional about what you spread.

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For years, designers were relegated to the back office, out of sight in the boardroom. They were called upon when a pitch deck needed refinement or a logo required resizing. Business decisions were made elsewhere by MBAs with spreadsheets or engineers with roadmaps. Designers were expected to "make it pretty" once the real work was done.

But something has changed. The companies capturing the public imagination, the products that feel inevitable, the brands that shape culture; they're being led by people who understand design at a gut level. In some cases, they are designers. And now, taste is being taken seriously.

You don't need to squint too hard to see the pattern. Figma, which we absolutely adore at the studio, once dismissed as "Google Docs for UI," has just listed on the stock exchange with a multi-billion-dollar valuation. Canva, founded by someone who believed that ordinary people deserved access to beautiful tools, is valued at over $65 billion. Airbnb, led by graduates from RISD, didn't become a hospitality giant by owning more property. They built something people wanted to be part of. These aren't one-offs. These are companies leading their categories because of design-first thinking.

In today's market, functionality is expected. Feeling is what differentiates.

So what's really going on? Business is being reshaped, and not only by analysts or engineers, but by people who know how to make things feel right. We've entered an era where products don't win on what they do, but how they make people feel while doing it. We've written before about the power of emotional intelligence in leadership in "EQ vs IQ: The Future is Feelings", and this moment feels like the larger application of that truth.

Designers, especially those fluent in brand language and user experience, are trained to focus on the emotional side of interaction. They pay attention to friction, caring about mood, tone, space, and flow. That kind of attention, once dismissed as "soft," now creates value.

Terms like vibe marketing, vibe branding, and vibe coding have entered the business lexicon for a reason (expressions that we've been fixated on since forever at a small studio. We actually start the week with a Vibe Check). They reflect a market that rewards emotional clarity and connection. The best products aren't functional; they're loved. Designers know how to build that kind of loyalty, not by guessing, but by observing and understanding. We pay close attention to how people behave and their responses. We make decisions not only with logic, but with feeling.

That kind of sensitivity has always been valuable. Now it's profitable.

But let's not get carried away. While design is increasingly central to business strategy, leadership is still more than good taste. It's tempting to believe that just because a product is beautiful, the company behind it will thrive. That's not always the case. Design instincts don't always scale.

The ability to craft a great homepage doesn't mean you can manage a global team or run operations across multiple markets. There's a real danger of aesthetic overreach of prioritizing elegance over execution, or tweaking brand assets while the business model quietly erodes. In "Designed to Lead", we talked about how design needs clarity, not just charisma. That truth applies at the highest levels.

Leadership also requires navigating culture. Designers often speak in nuance, but business demands clarity. Most design work is refined over time in isolation (we avoid that through our processes). Leading a company, especially at scale, is collaborative, messy, and constant. The designer CEO has to resist perfectionism. They have to make decisions with incomplete information. And know when the work is done, even if the kerning isn't quite right. Great leadership is about people. It's about building systems. And sometimes, it's about stepping back from the product to focus on the process.

Still, we believe in the rise of the design CEO. Not because designers are automatically better leaders, but because the definition of leadership is evolving. We talked about this shift in "Creative Confidence", where trust, not ego, is the foundation of influence. The designers who will thrive in leadership roles are the ones who can connect emotional intelligence with strategic thinking. They won't just build nice things, but build organizations that resonate.
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Every CEO should understand design.

This doesn't mean that every designer should aspire to be a CEO. But it does mean every CEO should understand design. If the product is how a business presents itself in the world, then design is how it's perceived. And in a saturated market, being felt matters more than being noticed. The future belongs to leaders who care deeply about what their decisions feel like; not just to customers, but to teams, communities, and partners.

Taste in today's world is direction. A way of filtering complexity and creating clarity. And for the first time in a long time, it's being valued not as decoration, but as guidance.

Designers are here to make things work, while making them matter.

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Gen Z has an odd affinity for the outdoors.

How is it that the generation with the highest rates of digital eye strain has also created a huge cultural shift for so many outdoor brands? It’s pretty unexpected, but weirdly, it makes complete sense.

Recently, I had the chance to touch some grass and spend a blissful week away from my screen while exploring the beautiful sites in the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. It was jaw-dropping, breathtaking, majestic– I could practically hear the eagle ca caw’s echoing off the mountains as an American flag waved in the background.

But what inspired this article was much less grand– it was the limited edition Hydro Flask National Park water bottles. I spotted the Yellowstone edition in a gift shop and thought it was pretty sick. The design for all three (Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Zion) pays homage to screen-printing techniques and is reminiscent of the tech-meets-nature aesthetic rise (tatumbrandt has a really nice breakdown on this if you’re curious). Not to mention, Hydro Flask has ongoing initiatives to protect and preserve parks all across the US.

For their Gen Z audience, they’re hitting a confluence of environmental concern, a love for carrying around water, and on-trend designs that fit into the Gorpcore aesthetic (more on this shortly). That’s pretty smart. I guess Hydro Flask was the it-girl of “emotional support” water bottles for a reason (if you aren’t keeping up, it was Hydro Flask, Stanley Cups, and currently Owala).

Two of those things, environmental concern and Gen Z’s infallible ability to always have water, are just two of the many factors in our attraction to the outdoors.

Let’s talk about another, Gorpcore, for a second.

Gorpcore is when functional, outdoor clothing like hiking and camping gear is incorporated into everyday, urban outfits.
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GORP is an acronym for "Good Ol' Raisins and Peanuts." So, trail mix. It first came about in 2017 but surged in popularity during the COVID pandemic, unsurprisingly. There were huge increases in everyone doing outdoor activities at that time, not just Gen Z. But Gen Z has certainly been feeling the effects of having our education and, for a lot of us, our work, remain remote more than other generations.

Pair the desire to recharge away from a screen with a love for trendy fashion and romanticizing life on TikTok, and you have a generation that loves to be outside, loves to capture it, and loves to look stylish while doing both.

It’s led to Gen Z and even Gen Alpha reshaping what outdoor lifestyle brands look like. Big outdoor brands– Patagonia, North Face, Columbia, REI have certainly taken advantage of this surge in popularity to reposition themselves as more luxury brands you’d want to wear beyond the mountains.

According to a McKinsey report, sales of outdoor products increased by 24% in 2022 compared to pre-coronavirus times.

Don’t even get me started on the rise of run clubs, pickleball, and strength training. Fitness & wellness brands are all on the rise, and many of them are redefining the look and feel of outdoor hobbies in 2025 (if you want to see the proof, just check out brands like Bandit Running or accounts like @outside.reference ).

And you know what, we’re loving it. When a group of people is pushed hard in one direction (in this case, towards the digital world), the pendulum will inevitably swing back the other way. We’re excited to see where this generation pushes this particular niche of lifestyle brands. So get outside, definitely get a support water bottle if you don’t have one already, and enjoy this little outdoor life.

Let’s talk about the expiration date that doesn’t exist.

There’s this quiet fear floating around in the design world. What if I’ve peaked? What if I’m not as quick-witted as I used to be? What if I’ve aged out of the magic?

Designers often carry this anxiety more than they should. And it’s strange, because almost no other creative field shares it. Directors don’t age out. Neither do musicians or artists.

They’re expected to grow, mature, and evolve. Which is exactly what we celebrate them for.

Martin Scorsese is still making genre-defining films at 82. Spielberg refined his storytelling long after his breakout years. Greta Gerwig is evolving from actor to indie darling to blockbuster director, and she’s just getting started. We don’t ask these people to stay frozen in time, we expect their work to deepen.

Musicians? Exactly the same. Beyoncé is doing the best work of her life in her 40s. Kendrick Lamar gets exceptional with every album. Jon Batiste, St. Vincent have all proven that range and age can co-exist beautifully. Nobody asks them to sound like they did at 21. We’re here for the growth.

Even visual artists are given space to change. Nobody told Yayoi Kusama to stop exploring. David Hockney moved from painting to iPad art and people didn’t laugh, they leaned in.

So why do designers worry so much about age?

Why do we act like creativity has a prime window and if you miss it, you’re done?

Here’s the truth: creativity doesn’t decline with age. Access might change. Priorities might shift. But your taste, your vision, your ability to solve and shape, that doesn’t expire. If anything, it gets stronger with time.

We see this at a small studio all the time. Being a mix of millennials and Gen Zs. Some of the sharpest insights we’ve had come from millennials who’ve lived through three waves of digital trends. They know what sticks and what’s noise. They don’t chase novelty, they pursue what lasts.

We also learn from the next generation. Designers just starting out who bring instincts we didn’t see coming. The remix culture, visual fluency, and courage to break rules. They remind us that curiosity is age-proof.

Your creative shelf life isn’t a countdown.

Your creative shelf life isn’t a countdown. It’s a timeline. You’re not losing relevance but collecting tools. Learning new rhythms, building range, and honestly it matters more than likes or titles.

So next time you feel “too junior” to speak up or “too senior” to pivot, pause. Ask yourself what you're still curious about. That’s your signal. Curiosity doesn’t age.

You don’t need to sound like your younger self. Or look like your old portfolio. You need to keep moving, learning, and showing up.

Creativity doesn’t peak, it definitely compounds.

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Too often, we mistake visual polish for clarity, assuming that if something looks impressive, it must be working. We lean on aesthetics to do the heavy lifting and hope the viewer fills in the blanks. But the hard truth is, when something isn’t clear, it’s just noise. It doesn’t matter how refined it looks if people are confused. If your audience doesn’t get it, you didn’t communicate, you just decorated.

If your audience doesn't get it, you didn't communicate, you just decorated.

This is the halo effect at play; designers fall for it all the time. We think good visuals will bias people into believing the message is strong. That a slick layout will earn trust, a beautiful typeface will carry a weak idea. It might work for a moment, but it won’t last. When people walk away unclear, the design surely took an “L”, and not a “W”. (call a Gen Z to interprete, if the last line threw you off).

This is the halo effect at play; designers fall for it all the time.

Design has a job, and all of us at a small studio, are often clear on what that job is. It’s not to impress, but it’s to express. Absolutely not about personal taste, but more about shared understanding. Unlike art, which invites interpretation, design must deliver intention. Art can leave people wondering, design should leave them knowing, acting and sharing.

We see this every day in our work through Identity Architecture. Clients bring complexity, multiple goals, scattered messages, a long list of needs. They’re often sitting on something great, but they can’t quite shape it. Our work gives their thinking a form that’s readable and usable. We create a system that organizes, reveals, and directs. We do this not because simplicity is trendy, but because it’s powerful beyond measure.

Our work gives the thinking of our partners form that’s understandable and actionable.

Clarity doesn’t mean boring, like most designers seem to assume. Some of the most striking design in the world is incredibly clear. It stops you, speaks to you, and sticks with you. And the best part is that they aren’t loud, but quite precise. Expressing what needs to be said or done, and nothing more.

The best design helps people feel smart. It gives them confidence, making ideas easy to remember and hard to ignore. Bringing friction down in interfaces, and thought processes. And that’s the real win, when someone sees your work and immediately understands what to think, feel, or do next.

The best designs helps people feel smart.

So the next time you’re refining a piece, look past the details and ask yourself if it works at a glance. If the story lands and the idea holds. You can still chase elegance, but make sure you lead with clarity.

Build trust first, let beauty follow on purpose.

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I’ve been sitting with this feeling for a while now. A kind of quiet, persistent guilt that creeps in during moments that are supposed to feel victorious. I knew I couldn’t be alone.

When I walked across the stage to accept my graduate degrees, an MBA and a Master of Architecture, I wasn’t thinking about the job I’d land next or the salary bump. I was thinking about the empty seats. The folks who started with me but didn’t finish. The ones who got pushed out. The ones who gave up. The ones who never got a chance.

I was the only Black person in my class.

The only one from my family to ever leave Cleveland.

The only one to get married.

To get paid to be creative. To make it eight years deep into the design industry when most studios don’t last past three.

And then came the cancer.

I survived. I recovered. I kept running.

But here’s the thing no one tells you: survival isn’t the end of the story. It’s the start of a strange, new one. Where you’re alive, thriving even, but constantly aware of the people who didn’t make it.

That’s what survivor guilt feels like.

And lately, I’ve been feeling it more than ever, especially when I’m leading a community full of emerging creatives.

Welcome class of “WTF Happens Now?”

Let’s be real: the creative industry is not well.

I have the honor of working with four incredible Gen Z designers at a small studio. They’re smart, driven, and capable of doing work that moves culture. But they all know probably 10 classmates/peers, who are still jobless, underpaid, or working at a coffee shop with a BFA in their back pocket.

It’s not just anecdotal. The numbers back it up:

• Only 57% of design grads find full-time roles in their field within a year.
• Entry-level roles in design? Oversaturated.
• Job growth for graphic designers? Projected to be just 2% through 2033. That’s not a typo.
• Not to mention the burnout.

And if you’re Black, Brown, or queer? The barriers multiply. Fast.

I walk into classrooms, Zoom panels, portfolio reviews, and I feel it. The energy. The hunger. The anxiety. The students ask about resumes and rejection emails, but what they’re really asking is, Is there still a place for me here?

And sometimes, I don’t know what to tell them.

I thought I had it bad when I got out of school in 2010, the landscape today humbles me quickly.

Design Is Becoming a Commodity

This might piss some people off, but I’ve been saying it for years: design is becoming a commodity.

We’ve trained a generation of leaders to reward speed, sameness, and optimization. Canva, all the AI, Upwork, Fiverr, dribbble…fast and cheap. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that the tools are bad. It’s that they’ve changed the rules of the game mid-play and if you are not in a leadership role you may have missed the boat.

So what do we tell the kid who just spent four years learning systems design, not just slides? What do we tell the creative who still believes in meaning? Still believes that there are people out there who value design deeply.

Because I still believe in them. But damn, it’s hard.

Carrying the Weight

When you’re the one who made it, you start to second guess the joy.

Every client win, every full-circle moment, every check that clears… you start wondering: Why me?

Why did I get a seat at the table when the person who inspired me to design is delivering Amazon packages?

Why did I beat cancer when people younger than me are dying?

Why am I so blessed with an incredible team of young passionate creative leaders when most struggle to find talent?

The truth is, I don’t have clean answers. But I’ve learned how to carry the weight without letting it crush me.

And maybe that’s the point.

How I Continue to Live Through It

1. I tell the truth.

To my team. To my clients. To students. This industry is hard, and pretending otherwise doesn’t help anyone. I don’t hide my struggles because the fact is that we all struggle. Radical transparency allows us to operate with grace and support each other as we survive.

2. I lift as I climb.

I don’t just mentor, I invest. I don’t just speak, I share experience. If I know I struggled with something I do my best to make it easier for the next person. I only survived because people did that for me. You know how heavy the door is, hold the damn door for the next person!

3. I redefine success.

Success for me used to mean prestige. Now it means peace. Stability. Time with my family. Creative integrity. A studio where no one feels like a commodity. It’s simple really. Think about what you have survived already. You are successful, you just won’t let yourself believe it.

4. I turn guilt into fuel.

I started a small studio to inspire because I was uninspired. I started Get Off My Butt to raise awareness, because I was oblivious. My guilt often turns into anger, and Julia Cameron tells us anger can serve as a guide. Guilt helps me realize where I should focus my time and energy.

5. I stay human.

I let the hard moments hurt. I don’t numb out. I listen to the struggle and remember that empathy is a form of leadership, too. No matter how much they tell me it’s bad business. My humanity is how I make sure I never become a commodity.

You Didn’t Make It Just to Make It

If you’ve ever felt survivor guilt, whether you made it out of a bad agency, a war zone, a toxic home, an illness, or just a rough year, I want you to know you’re not alone.

So don’t let the guilt silence you.

Let it shape you. Let it deepen your commitment. Let it remind you who’s not in the room, and what you’re going to do about it.

We didn’t survive just to survive.

We survived so we could build something better.

Let’s make room. They need you now more than ever.

For years, the design world encouraged us to specialize. Be the motion expert who never touches type, or the UX designer who leaves the visuals to someone else. The brand designer who doesn’t get near code or doesn’t even care to consider the devs. That path made sense: the more focused you were, the deeper your expertise, the clearer your niche.

But today, the creative ecosystem feels like it is shifting. Teams are becoming smaller, budgets are tighter than ever. Deadlines are faster (oh! we have loads of opinions on this). Many studios and startups can’t hire a specialist for every task, they need people who can flex, connect disciplines, and make the whole feel coherent. In this environment, is the age of the generalist returning?

There are strong arguments in favor of generalists, when tools converge, so do roles. Think about how Figma now blends design systems, prototyping, and collaboration. Webflow now pretty much allows designers to build live without handoff. When the software combines functions, it helps to think and work across boundaries. A generalist mindset can make you faster and more adaptable in this space.
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When tools converge, so do roles.

Generalists can also see the big picture, because come to think about it a brand isn’t just a logo. It’s a system of visuals, voice, motion, and interaction that has to work together across every platform. Specialists bring depth to individual pieces, but generalists often make sure those pieces fit. They spot gaps, connect dots, and help the work feel whole.

At the same time, there are solid reasons to value specialization. The complexity of modern design challenges means deep skill is critical in many areas. If you’re building an accessibility-first platform, you want a specialist in inclusive design. If you’re animating for AR, you want someone who’s immersed in that world. Specialization pushes the boundaries of craft in ways generalists often can’t.

Specialization pushes the boundaries of craft.

There’s also the risk that generalists stretch too thin. Trying to cover too much can mean being surface-level across the board. Some teams value that versatility. Others want people who go deep, mastering the nuances of one area so they can innovate in it.

Maybe it’s not about picking a side. The strongest teams might be the ones that combine both: specialists who go deep, generalists who connect the dots, and a shared respect for both roles. The best designers might be those who know when to narrow their focus and when to widen their lens.

So the question is: Are generalists making a comeback or are we just redefining what it means to be a strong designer today?

Here’s how you can reflect and act on your own behalf:

1. Map your skills. Where do you go deep? Where do you flex?
2. Pair with someone outside your focus on a project this month.
3. Try a short course or tutorial that nudges you just beyond your core discipline.

In the end, it’s not about the label. It’s about how you contribute, connect, and create.

Peace.

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As designers, we seem to have trained ourselves to over-refine. Taught to perfect before we share, to present the final file, the flawless mock, the case study where all the messy parts got cleaned up. That instinct makes sense; we want to look competent, thoughtful, and in control. But here’s the truth: the work that resonates most, the work that builds trust and community, often isn’t the final product; it’s the process.
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The work that builds trust and community, often isn’t the final product; it’s the process.

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Building in public invites people into the making, instead of hiding the journey and only showing the destination, you let others see the decisions, pivots, and experiments that lead to strong design. This isn’t only about openness or transparency, it can be a strategic way to grow faster, build community, and attract meaningful opportunities.

People are curious about how great work happens. Sharing your process helps others learn. It turns your portfolio from a gallery into a learning space. Designers who build in public position themselves as thinkers and collaborators, not just executors. Platforms like Figma Community, Are.na, Substack, and Instagram Stories are filled with creatives who share works-in-progress, sketches, and early ideas. That transparency builds credibility more powerfully than a finished mock ever could.
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People are curious about how great work happens. Sharing your process helps others learn. It turns your portfolio from a gallery into a learning space.

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Clients and collaborators want to see your thinking, not just your deliverables. The final outcome shows what you can do. The process shows how you approach problems, how you navigate challenges, and how you respond to feedback. When people see that, they trust you with more complex, more rewarding work. And that’s the work that leads to growth.

Sharing work-in-progress creates connection rather than applause. When you post only completed projects it’s easy to fall into the pattern of chasing approval. Sharing the process shifts the goal. You’re inviting dialogue. You’re saying, “Here’s where I am; what do you think?” That kind of openness brings real critique, ideas you hadn’t considered, and collaborations that matter.

Building in public can feel risky, you might worry about someone taking your idea. You might feel vulnerable showing work that’s not fully developed. And yes, you might get fewer likes. But your idea isn’t what sets you apart. How you bring it to life is what makes it yours. Designers who share their thinking aren’t giving away value, they’re increasing it. Likes might drop, but trust will rise. And trust leads to opportunity.

Likes might drop, but trust will rise. And trust leads to opportunity.

If you’re ready to start, keep it simple. Honestly, we are also about to go all out on this to continue to empower our community. We already have our Office Hours, on a daily basis, which allows us to collaborate and lovingly critique whatever any member of the team is building, but we intend to do more. If you read this far, you too can start by sharing a screenshot of an early wireframe or a sketch. Write two sentences about a design choice, why that grid, why that color, why that layout. Share the option you discarded and explain why. Ask for input that helps you grow. Pick platforms that match your communication style. Use Stories for informal shares, Threads for quick thoughts, or a newsletter for deeper reflection.

Building in public isn’t showing off, it's inviting others in. And in a world full of finished products, that’s what makes your work stand out.

Here’s to designing in public!

Peace!

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The design world has never been noisier. Open Instagram, Behance, or LinkedIn, and you’re bombarded with millions of case studies, viral trends, and endless hot takes (we all know them). The big platforms, once spaces to connect and learn, have become crowded arenas where quantity often beats quality, and visibility depends more on algorithms than merit. In that environment, the most meaningful creative connections aren’t happening in public. They’re happening in micro-communities.

Micro-communities are small (pun very well intended), focused groups of creatives who gather in intentional spaces. They meet on Discord servers with fewer than 100 members, Slack workspaces formed around shared goals, private Telegram or WhatsApp groups, and niche newsletters like Ding! that feel more like personal letters than mass emails. Unlike sprawling forums or social feeds, these small groups foster trust, depth, and generosity.

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The conversation shifts from shouting into the void to having real dialogue.
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Why are these spaces gaining momentum? First, big networks no longer nurture connection. It’s hard to build authentic relationships in a 10,000-person group or under a tweet with 500 replies. The structure of those platforms encourages performance, not vulnerability. Micro-communities reverse that dynamic. They create spaces where people can show unfinished ideas, admit doubts, and ask genuine questions. When you share work-in-progress in a group of 10 trusted peers, the feedback is thoughtful. There’s no race for likes, no fear of trolling, just focused input.

Second, algorithms favor engagement, not depth. The work that gains traction on public platforms is often the most provocative, not the most thoughtful. A punchy visual or a hot take gets attention because it triggers immediate reactions. But thoughtful critique, nuanced discussion, or slow exploration of ideas rarely wins in those settings. Micro-communities change the rules. When your audience is small and intentional, you can prioritize depth over speed, insight over impression.

Third, these small circles foster safety. Big platforms make it easy to feel exposed. Sharing unpolished thinking to a wide audience can feel risky, especially for early-career designers or those exploring new skills. In micro-communities, that fear fades. You’re surrounded by peers who share your values and respect your process. The result?

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You share more openly, take creative risks, and grow faster.

What happens inside micro-communities is different from the big-platform grind. Ideas become intentional because feedback comes from people invested in your growth. Collaboration forms naturally because you know and trust the people in the group. Trends aren’t just noticed, they’re unpacked. In a small space, you can debate why something resonates, what’s behind the aesthetic, and how it connects to culture. That level of conversation rarely happens in comment threads chasing clout.

If we are being honest, micro-communities need intentional effort to thrive. The best ones have clear expectations: participation matters. These aren’t spaces for lurking or passive consumption. Everyone contributes, whether through critique, resource sharing, or encouragement. Kindness comes first. Micro-communities work because the social contract is stronger; members agree to generosity over posturing. And regular rhythm is key.

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Many groups set up monthly check-ins, critique sessions, or shared challenges to keep momentum and connection alive.

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If you’re wondering how to start, you have two paths. You can join a group or build your own. Joining means looking for communities that align with your values and interests. That might mean applying to smaller Discord groups, subscribing to interactive newsletters, or reaching out to designers you admire who mention their circles. Building means starting small. Three to five people is enough. Pick a platform that fits how you communicate; Slack for structured channels, Discord for casual chat, WhatsApp or Telegram for quick exchanges. Set a clear purpose, whether that’s critique, accountability, or shared exploration. Then nurture it.

Here’s how you can act:

• List 3 designers you admire and could invite to form a small group.
• Leave one large, noisy group this week that doesn’t help you grow.
• Set aside 30 minutes weekly to engage meaningfully in a small space; offer critique, ask questions, or share something unpolished.

Micro-communities are a necessary shift. As public platforms become noisier, small circles of trust will define how the best work gets made, how careers grow, and how creative confidence is built.

If you want to thrive in 2025 and beyond, don’t just scroll the feed.

Find your circle or build it. That’s where the real power lives.

Peace.

Curiosity isn’t just about asking questions. At its root, the word meant something else. It comes from the Latin cura; which means care. Attention. To be curious is to care enough to look closer, to wonder why, to sit with the parts that don’t make sense. At a small studio, that’s what we do. Every day. We care deeply, about the people we collaborate with. About what things mean. About getting it right, not fast.

Most of the world moves quickly. Scroll fast, ship fast, answer fast. But curiosity doesn’t move that way. It takes its time. It questions the brief. It pulls at loose threads. It asks again, “What’s this really about?” That kind of slow thinking can be uncomfortable. But it’s how we make work that lasts. We don’t chase clarity. We build it. One question at a time.

You’ll notice it when we talk. Our meetings often begin with questions that don’t seem necessary—until they are. “What does this remind you of?” “What’s missing here?” “What keeps coming up?” These questions don’t come from a script. They come from a habit of paying attention. Clients sometimes come in thinking they need a logo. What they often find is a new way to tell their story. That’s the power of curiosity. It doesn’t settle for the surface.

There’s a difference between polishing and understanding. Many identity studios are good at polish. They know how to make things look clean. But looking clean doesn’t mean being clear. We dig deeper. We ask the uncomfortable questions. We don’t stop when something looks finished. We stop when it feels honest. That’s why our identity systems hold up. They’re not just beautiful. They’re true to the people behind them.

We don’t stop when something looks finished. We stop when it feels honest.

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That mindset of looking harder, listening longer makes us hard to copy. You can replicate a font. You can mimic a layout. You can even steal our color palette. But you can’t copy our thinking. You can’t replicate the moments when we’re asking questions no one else thought to ask or the extra explorations we experimented with because something still doesn’t feel right. That part doesn’t live on a template. It lives in how we work.

Curiosity also changes how we work together. It makes collaboration stronger. It removes ego from the room. When everyone’s trying to learn, no one has to be right all the time. We question our own ideas. We shift direction if something better appears. Because it’s not about winning, it’s about making the work better. Curious people don’t just take up space, they make space for others.

Curious people don’t just take up space, they make space for others.

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It’s also why we’re not trend-driven, we’re not watching for what’s cool next. We’re listening for what matters now. That requires different muscles. The work becomes paced, deeper, more grounded. Because it’s built on real needs, not guesswork. The things we make aren’t made to impress, they’re made to connect.

Even our operating framework reflect this. Identity Architecture isn’t a checklist. It’s a set of thoughtful prompts. What do you stand for? What are your non-negotiables? What do you want to be known for? The answers don’t arrive all at once. They take time. Reflection. Honesty. That’s the point. Our framework is built to invite clarity, not force it.

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Our framework is built to invite clarity, not force it.

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The truth is, we don’t always know. We start with questions, not answers. And we stay open for as long as it takes. Curiosity protects us from arrogance. It reminds us to keep learning, keep listening, keep paying attention. The best design doesn’t come from knowing everything. It comes from being willing to keep looking.

We are curious by design not because it’s a strategy, but because it’s who we are.

Peace.

Good design doesn’t always look impressive. Sometimes it just feels right.

You’ve felt it before. The door that opens with a push when your hands are full. The light switch placed exactly where you expect it. The crosswalk signal that beeps for someone who can’t see the light change. These aren’t flashy. They don’t trend. But they help people move through the world with a little less friction. That’s invisible design.

It happens when someone thought carefully about the details. When they asked, “What will this feel like for the person using it?” and didn’t stop at the obvious answer.

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“What will this feel like for the person using it?”

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At a small studio, we talk about this kind of design often. We try to build it into every brand system, every product flow, every presentation. We ask: does this add noise or reduce it? Does it make someone’s day a little easier? Does it work without needing to be explained?

So when Apple revealed their liquid glass interface, we paid attention. Some people aren’t sure how to feel about it yet. It’s quiet, minimal, and a little abstract. But if they get it right, we probably won’t notice it for long. It will just become part of how we interact. Smooth. Expected. Unspoken.

This kind of design aligns closely with something we’ve explored for years. We often use glass as a part of our visual identity, especially when we talk about radical transparency. Not because it’s trendy. But because it represents clarity and openness without being loud about it. Glass doesn’t hide. It doesn’t shout either. It just lets you see what’s there.

People don’t always remember good design. But they remember how they felt. Calm, clear, respected. And they remember the bad stuff. The broken form, the confusing checkout, the tiny text. That’s why invisible design is powerful. It doesn’t fight for attention. It builds trust quietly, over time. The best design fades into your routine, until it feels like it was always there.

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Invisible design is powerful. It doesn’t fight for attention. It builds trust quietly

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If you’re curious about this topic, there’s a podcast called 99% Invisible by Roman Mars. It’s all about the small details in design that shape our lives. The ones that often go unnoticed but have been carefully considered by someone. From the shape of park benches to the layout of airport signage, it’s a reminder that good design is everywhere. You just have to look.

Invisible design matters. Not because it impresses people, but because it respects them.

Peace.

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As Eme Lawton said last week, it can get lonely as a remote creative. Since COVID hit in April 2020, a small studio has been fully remote. It’s allowed us to recruit remarkable talent from around the world and lead global projects from right here in Cleveland, Ohio.

But I’d be lying if I said I never fantasized about having my team around me. Honestly, I think about it every day. That casual tap on the shoulder. An impromptu walk-and-talk. A spontaneous airbrush session. Come on, that’s how many of us were trained to collaborate. I even catch myself wondering what it would be like to pull an all-nighter again. (These days, all-nighters are reserved for my toddlers.)

Eight years into this journey with a small studio, here’s one truth I’ve come to believe: in-person still matters.

My rule of thumb? One in-person retreat can recharge a remote team’s creative chemistry for at least six months, depending on your culture, much longer. These retreats have taken all forms: a two-night Airbnb weekend, a week in the woods, a campsite near a lake. They’re always overnight, always immersive, and always intentional. I think of them as detox for our culture, filtering tensions, clearing blockages, and energizing us for what’s ahead.

A few weeks ago, I got to experience this firsthand when Jake, Ella, and I met in Wildwood, New Jersey at Jake’s beach house. It was our first time being together in person. It was short, but it was epic. Here’s why:

We lived together.

Jake’s house was just blocks from the beach. We shared awkward good nights and tiptoed around bathroom etiquette. I did burpees outside Jake’s bedroom door because, well, that’s who I am. It was intimate. But in that intimacy, something beautiful happened: we collaborated more naturally. The boundaries were clear, the vibes were relaxed, and because it was Jake’s home, we all felt welcome.

We played together.

Our only formal goal was to align on summer strategy. Outside of that, we intentionally had no agenda. We mini-golfed (I lost), biked to the beach, watched dolphins, and laughed through a surprisingly decent Netflix movie. Ella even challenged me to a martial arts match. (Jake was entertained) It’s in these unscripted moments that you get to know the human behind the Zoom square. According to a 2023 Buffer report, 52% of remote workers say they struggle to feel connected to their coworkers. That stat didn’t apply to us that weekend; we remembered what connection felt like and, for Jake and Ella, established a true connection.

We created together.

Ella and Jake have designed hundreds of things side-by-side, virtually. But this was the first time they got to create in the same space. Each of them with their own process, posture, and rhythm. What’s usually flattened through a screen became animated and alive. They didn’t just make something, they made magic. With an airbrush, a stencil, a laptop, and a healthy dose of curiosity. That energy was contagious. Everything we did together fed that moment. It was the kind of creative synergy that could fuel a team for the rest of the year.

Then we went home. Back to our cities, our screens, and our Slack channels.

But we were different.

The thing about working remotely is you can build a career, complete a project, even scale a business, without ever seeing the people you work with. But when you do see them? When you break bread, breathe the same air, and witness each other’s weird little habits?

You don’t just build better work.

You build trust.

You build momentum.

You build something real.

If you lead any team, find a way to be in person. Even just once or twice a year. It doesn’t have to be big. It just has to be intentional.

Because behind every great creative team is a moment where someone finally got to say:

I see you. For real.

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I’m a Gen Z creative who works fully remotely, something I never thought I would say. Let’s talk about it.

As a former a small studio intern, I’d gotten a taste of full-time remote work through my 10-week stint here in the summer of 2023. I was living with my two younger siblings, my dogs, and my mom, who has worked from home as an architect and interior designer my entire life. Having both parents working from their garage-turned-home-studio was my everyday growing up, so for me, working from home was not new at all. In fact, it was expected.

What WAS new to me was sharing a workspace with my mom. Other than some differences in expectations around the acceptable level of office clutter, I absolutely thrived in a shared space with another creative. It was something I’d missed in college, since my senior year was almost entirely remote. I didn’t realize how much I craved this kind of daily connection: sharing tools and resources, getting another set of eyes on my work, casual conversations and brainstorm sessions all added a level of fun to my workflow I had been missing out on.

Fast forward a few years: I moved out, and I’m finally starting to make the shift towards spending more hours with the incredibly talented, fully remote team at a small studio. As I move through this transition, I’m learning a lot about myself, my needs, and how I work best. The biggest roadblock I’ve faced so far was, as an introvert, unexpected: I’ve been feeling incredibly lonely.

If you’re also feeling isolated at your remote job, good news! You’re not alone.

The US Career Network estimates that by the end of 2025, up to 14% of adults in the US will have fully remote WFH jobs, which is about five times more than the 7 million Americans who held those positions pre-Covid. With 70% of Gen Z prioritizing work-life balance, many choose to work from home in order to maintain that balance. That being said, Gen Z proves to be the loneliest out of all generations currently in the workforce, with 79% of remote workers aged 18-24 reporting they sometimes, or often, feel lonely at work. Many also say they feel disillusioned with work, especially those who joined the workforce during the pandemic.

Harvard Business Review points out that remote workers experience three different kinds of virtual distance that contribute to this feeling of isolation:

- Physical distance, which can be exacerbated by working from different time zones or drastically different locations from coworkers.
- Operational distance, including factors that make connection and collaboration more difficult than it needs to be (internet issues, miscommunication, or clunky and inefficient workflows)
- Affinity distance, which refers to the quality of connections created in the workplace.

So what do you do when you start working alone in your bedroom, and those quality conversations and connections become few and far between?

Lean into creative community, something I always took for granted.

I’ve always surrounded myself with people whose creative energy was infused into every interaction we had. These connections not only made my friendships and partnerships exciting and fulfilling, they were also essential for my growth and development as both a person and an artist and designer. Losing touch with these people and environments lead to a feeling of emptiness in my social interactions and lower satisfaction with my own work, even though I’m consistently contributing to meaningful and engaging projects within a small studio.

I’ve had to make a conscious effort to direct my energy into things that make me feel connected to and supported by others, which, in turn, boosts my own confidence and brings my artistic spark back. Some things that have helped me on my mission to fight remote work isolation:

Yap Time
Set up a consistent time to talk to someone who makes you feel inspired and excited. For me, that means two close friends from school who also work remotely in creative positions. We’re all able to get outside perspectives on our artistic endeavors, and support each other through our feelings of remote work isolation.
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Hobby Era
Finding a non-work related creative outlet, and sharing it with others. This could be anything! Fiber arts, illustration, collage, Pinterest boards, collaborative projects - anything that gets you excited to create. Having a buddy to check in with and hold you accountable for these hobbies also creates a little support network when you’re feeling uninspired, and it always sparks a moment of joy and fulfillment when you get to share or receive a part of someone else’s creative journey.
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Sharing is Caring
Exchanging resources, advice, tips and tricks, tools and supplies, or constructive critiques often helps to save time, money, energy, and stress for everyone involved. Sharing what you have, whether it’s a physical item or a new Illustrator shortcut you just learned, can help lower the barrier to entry in these often exclusive or expensive creative fields. It also reinforces the care and trust that are essential to supportive connections, and you might walk away with some new insights and perspectives you wouldn’t have access to otherwise.
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Touch Grass
Literally. Take a walk, go for a run, bike to a coffee shop, lay out in the sun for a few minutes. Any small amount of outside time is better than none, especially when you’re sitting and staring at a screen all day. Getting fresh air and moving my body is my favorite way to ground myself in the physical world, and remind myself that there’s much more to life than Instagram posts and Notion boards. Your friends don’t hate you and you’re not a bad designer, your back just hurts from sitting at your desk for 9 hours, and you should probably have a snack. While you’re at it, maybe drink some water too!
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Get Personal
Community looks different for everyone, so think about what this means for you. It could be a group chat, a club, a coffee meetup, a pen pal, anything that fosters connection with others. This could also include taking the time to get to know your coworkers beyond your 1-on-1s at work. Spending time contributing to these communities, whether it’s in person or virtually, can be an amazing way to encourage mutual support and shared creative energy.

Feeling comfortable putting yourself out into these spaces and relationships takes time, and can feel vulnerable. But sharing that vulnerability with others, and being open to supporting them through their raw moments as well, is what helps community grow.

Trusting these relationships to lean on in times of loneliness and creative block, as well as in moments of accomplishment and excitement, is not an easy thing. But, like most things, community and connection thrive when you choose to put in the work.

At the EOD (End of the Day), these communities and relationships are what you’ll remember, not your level of activity on the team Slack channels.

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At some point, we decided that "diverse teams" only meant gender, race, or role. But there’s another kind of diversity quietly shaping the best creative teams out there: age. The generational mash-up. Gen Z meets Millennials meets Gen X meets Boomers. A group chat or Slack channel full of timelines, work ethics, TikTok references, and font preferences. It can be messy, but it’s also magic.

This isn’t some utopian theory. It’s exactly how the world’s most creative companies actually work.

Look at Pixar. The studio behind Toy Story, Finding Nemo, and basically every animated film that made adults cry into their popcorn (hello Inside-Out). Their founding team wasn’t a youth cult. It was a perfect storm of fresh eyes and battle scars. John Lasseter, the creative Disney exile in his twenties, jammed with Ed Catmull and Alvy Ray Smith, both in their forties and already legends in computer science.

Lasseter pushed the creative envelope. Catmull and Smith engineered the systems that turned the ideas into reality. That mix? That’s why Pixar’s early films didn’t just succeed. They changed animation forever.

Now, take Google. Larry Page and Sergey Brin were two PhD students in their twenties, building a search engine in a dorm room. They had the ideas, but even they knew genius needs guardrails. So they brought in Eric Schmidt as CEO, a steady hand in his forties. He wasn’t there to “fit the culture.” He was there to challenge it, steady it, scale it. The result? Google became more than a smart idea. It became the backbone of the internet.

And then there’s Apple. Everyone remembers Jobs and Wozniak as kids in a garage, but the Macintosh team was a real generational melting pot. Steve Jobs in his twenties, Jef Raskin in his forties, Bill Atkinson in his thirties, plus a mix of old hands and bold upstarts.

The “pirate” culture people love to talk about was not just about rebellion. It was real creative friction between new thinking and the wisdom to actually deliver.

Skip to Figma, one of the biggest design breakthroughs in the last decade(a small studio's biggest love). Dylan Field might have been a twenty-something prodigy, but Figma didn’t win on youth alone. They deliberately recruited seasoned product managers and engineers from places like Adobe and Google.

The result? A platform that’s digitally native and unreasonably intuitive, but also sturdy and ready for enterprise. Figma proves that innovation comes from generational remix, not a monoculture.

Let’s be honest. It’s not always easy. Gen Z think in memes. Boomers think in systems. One group wants to collaborate on Figma. The other wants to talk on the phone or send actual text messages. But the friction is the point. That’s where the fire starts. That’s where the best ideas show up.

Gen Z think in memes. Boomers think in systems.

Younger creatives bring trend instincts, digital fluency, and unfiltered curiosity. They remix, disrupt, and just go for it. Seasoned creatives bring depth, wisdom, and the all-important calm under pressure. In the middle, Millennials keep the ship moving. They speak both Discord and “let’s schedule a call.” They’ve survived rebrands and come out the other side.

When these generations create together, something rare happens. Ideas sharpen. Blind spots shrink. The team gets both speed and perspective. Culture and context.

The team gets both speed and perspective. Culture and context.

But this only works if we stop trying to flatten everyone into one uniform “culture fit.” Let the twenty-three-year-old show the fifty-two-year-old how to edit a Reel. Let the forty-something show the twenty-something how to read a brief with a highlighter. Cross-pollinate the chaos.

Here at a small studio, we don’t care how old you are. We care if you bring your gifts. If you’re curious. If you believe in doing meaningful work with other brilliant humans. The future isn’t young. It isn’t old. It’s built by both. Together.

Peace.

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Two years ago, when I wrote "My Creative Marathon," I wasn't just sharing lessons about running, I was preparing myself for the toughest season of my life. The marathon was never about the race itself and any endurance athlete will tell you the same thing, it was about building the resilience, purpose, and intentionality I’d need to navigate the unexpected journey ahead. Stepping onto the starting line of the 2025 Cleveland Marathon marked an incredible full-circle moment! Last week, I achieved a goal I set back in 2023, a sub 3-hour marathon running a 2:59:31. The most important stat is that this was 5 minutes faster than I ran before I went through cancer treatment.

For me, this wasn't about finishing another marathon it was about proving to myself, and hopefully inspiring others who've faced cancer or supported loved ones through it, that we can emerge better, stronger, and more purposeful than ever before. As the old saying goes “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Here are some insights that have made me stronger along this journey. Whether you are running a marathon, starting a business, or tackling a new creative project, it’s time to level up.

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“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

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The Spiral of Growth

Life doesn't move in perfect circles, repeating endlessly without change. Instead, it's more like an upward spiral or helix, continuously elevating us to higher levels. After every challenging season of our lives we have an option to elevate through it or sink because of it. Running this marathon again wasn't about returning to where I started—it was about recognizing how far I'd risen since that initial diagnosis. Cancer wasn’t just a season to endure; it became the catalyst for profound personal growth, deepening my empathy, sharpening my focus, and ultimately redefining who I am today.

And if there’s one thing I want you to take away from this, it’s this: you are allowed to grow through the hard things. You are allowed to arrive back at the same place with a new perspective. You are allowed to be stronger, wiser, and more grounded because of what tried to break you. Let your own upward spiral be a testimony, not just to surviving, but to the creative, hopeful, purpose-filled life that can emerge from it. Keep showing up. Keep spiraling upward. Keep becoming your best.

Less Is More

Approaching this marathon, I learned an essential lesson about balance. After accomplishing a bucket list item, completing the Boston Marathon, just a few weeks earlier, my instinct was to train harder because I didn’t technically reach my goal. I missed my PR by seconds. You see, it wasn’t enough that I just completed a marathon after beating cancer and not just any marathon but the most famous marathon in the world. I really wanted to run faster than before. So, my instinct was to train harder. I was so close!

Instead, I chose to rest, to trust in my preparation, and to prioritize recovery. When race day arrived, I felt refreshed, clear-headed, and physically strong. This reinforced an important truth: sometimes, the most impactful thing we can do is less.

If you’re in a season where you feel behind, burnt out, or uncertain let me be the one to give you permission to pause. Sometimes choosing not to push is the bravest move you can make. Recovery doesn’t mean you’ve stopped growing; it means you’re preparing to level up.  Whether you’re facing your own marathon or just trying to get through the next mile of life, remember carrying less on your plate makes it lighter. The lighter you are the higher you can go. It’s simple physics. Trust your pace. Trust yourself.

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"Sometimes, the most impactful thing we can do is less."

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Just Run

My high school coach and longtime friend gave me simple advice before race day: “Just run.” Initially, I rolled my eyes—26.2 miles is a long way to “just” do anything. Also, we released an article last year that said the opposite. But during the race, those two words transformed into something much deeper. “Just run” became an invitation to return to a sense of childlike wonder, a concept we hold close at a small studio.

I found myself soaking in every cheer, every kid looking for an high five, and every power up sign. I yelled “let’s go Cleveland” every chance I got, made the quiet fans feel bad, fist-bumped fellow runners, and encouraged strangers up hills like I was ten years old playing a game I loved.

That sense of awe, of lightness and curiosity, carried me forward. It reaffirmed a value that I had yet to bring into running. We move best when we tap into that wonder. Trust me, it’s not frivolous; it’s fuel. And in the hardest seasons of the hardest miles, it’s the very thing that keeps the joy alive.

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“Let’s go Cleveland!”

It Wasn’t About Me

Hands down, the most transformative insight from this marathon was realizing it wasn’t about me. Unlike two years prior, this run wasn’t driven by personal ambition but by an unwavering responsibility to others. Through founding the Get Off My Butt Foundation, I came to understand that grace isn’t just about receiving help it’s about offering hope freely, without needing anything in return. Over the past two years my goal became clear: to break the silence around butt health to empower young people to recognize early signs, and to encourage open, honest dialogue. I did not know I would be doing this by running marathons.

Every mile I ran was a mile lifted by the stories of others I encountered on this journey. All those friends who went and got a colonoscopy just because the respect they had for me and my health. This marathon was my way of giving back. My way of inspiring hope. Action, when born from grace, becomes expansive. It heals, it uplifts, and it never asks to be repaid. It just gives. And that’s why this race meant more than any I’ve ever run.

Start with grace. Extend it to yourself, to your process, and to the people walking alongside you. The finish line you’re chasing may not look like what you imagined, but the journey can still be powerful, purposeful, and full of hope. Let every step forward serve. Allow every line in your story shine. And no matter what trust that what you’re doing might be lighting the way for someone else.

My Creative Space

Throughout the hardest moments, a small studio was my lifeline. At one point, to ensure the team's survival, I stopped paying myself for four months, a decision I hoped I never have to make, but one I knew I had to share. Radical transparency isn’t just about vulnerability it’s about inviting others into the truth so we can move forward together. I told my team everything. Honestly, they knew before some of my family. I let them into the uncertainty, the struggle, the financial sacrifice, because I believe that honesty builds strength. Having a safe, creative haven where I could show up as I was, kept me grounded.

It helped me stay focused on my creativity rather than my illness. Creativity isn't just about producing work; it's about fostering spaces within yourself and with others where truth is welcome, where healing can happen, and where showing up authentically is the most powerful form of work. That’s what sustained me throughout cancer and that’s what kept our studio alive.

Transparency invites connection. Don’t be afraid to let people in. You don't have to carry the weight alone. In fact, your honesty might be the very thing that inspires others to stay in the race with you. Courage isn’t pretending everything is okay. Courage is saying, “This is where I am,” and trusting that truth will make a way forward.

Today, a small studio is stronger and more vibrant than ever. We've survived challenges most don’t, emerging resilient and refined. Not just as a company, but as a creative village. It hard to grasp how grateful I am for every person who gracefully walked alongside of me during this creative marathon. To my incredible creative partners, you know who you are.

You didn’t just keep the studio alive, you reminded me what it means to belong. In the midst of uncertainty, you showed up. You made space for me during my weakest time. That sense of belonging was our strength. It still is.

As I close the page on this level of my life, I’m proud to be looking down on it from above. This journey has made me better in every aspect of my life. That’s why I can honestly say I am grateful for everything that has happened to me because now I know that every obstacle is just another opportunity to level up.

What are you going to do with your opportunity?

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📸 by: PhotocredNed

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“Follow your passions.”

Has anyone ever given you the advice to translate your passions into your career? It’s advice that might be less common now following a generation that’s embraced the mindset of working to live rather than living to work. Yet, there are still plenty of us, Gen Z included, who would love to turn our passions into our life’s work. It may not always pan out, but when it does, it can be an extraordinary pursuit.

But for many creatives, our passion revolves around a medium. A medium that started as a hobby and became something more. How many of us continue to create in that medium outside of work after it’s become our career? The answer might be many. It might be a select few. I’m really not sure, but I can say for certain that it’s not me. Quite frankly, I don’t want to do more design work, even for fun, after sitting at my desk for eight hours doing design work.

That leaves one in a tricky spot. Your passion turned into your career, and now you don’t want to do your passion for fun. I guess we’ll all just stop being creative outside of working hours….jk it doesn’t work like that. A creative wants to create, and they’re going to do it to their detriment or not. So, pick up a secondary creative hobby to do outside of work, BUT make it selfish. Create off the job for your fulfillment alone. That means do not attach monetary pressure to your secondary creative hobbies.

Every person at a small studio has creative hobbies that are outside the sphere of design: photography, tufting, stained glass, and illustration. When you constantly put pressure on your passion to support your financial needs, it can become something you resent rather than an unbridled creative outlet. Something that was once intrinsically fulfilling has become an economic necessity. That’s no way to fuel yourself.

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When you constantly put pressure on your passion to support your financial needs, it can become something you resent rather than an unbridled creative outlet.

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I can’t stress how nourishing having a hobby like photography outside of my daily design-oriented career has been. I can do it whenever I want, as much as I want, and take it as seriously or easily as I choose. I feel like I have the freedom to experiment and play as much as I want. I’m not working towards any direction given by a client or working to create anything within a given set of standards. I can only describe these types of creative hobbies as an exhale after sucking in air for long periods of time.

I recently got back from a trip to The Netherlands. These moments of travel are always my favorites for exercising complete creative freedom. Sometimes I have my camera out all day. Sometimes I have it out for five minutes. The only thing that matters is what I want to do in that moment. That’s often the things that can feel the most rejuvenating— not just the photography but the choice of participating in the act.

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That’s often the things that can feel the most rejuvenating— not just the photography but the choice of participating in the act.

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It’s hard these days to escape the pressure of making every passion “worth something.” But value isn’t always measured in income. If you’ve turned your creativity into a career, be proud of it. But don’t forget to nurture the parts of your creativity that exist outside of deadlines and deliverables. At a small studio, we’ve built careers from our craft, but we’ve also learned to protect the spaces where creativity exists purely for joy. That kind of worth—the kind that fills you up instead of draining you—is just as important.

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When most people picture the creative process, they often imagine a wide-open canvas, infinite resources, and no deadlines in sight.

It sounds dreamy, but the truth is, unlimited freedom usually leads to chaos, not brilliance.

Constraints, the budgets, the timelines, the tricky client briefs, are not barriers to creativity.

They can be viewed as strategic pressure points that can turn raw ideas into sharp, timeless work.

Studies from Stanford have shown that constraints actually increase creative output by forcing people to think differently, combine ideas in novel ways, and avoid default solutions. When your choices are limited, your imagination has to stretch wider.

Instead of endless brainstorming with no clear direction, constraints focus your energy, creating a kind of disciplined inventiveness that produces real results.

Whether we are navigating a brand refresh on a tight timeline, designing a system that must work across dozens of formats, or crafting identities for companies still discovering who they are, the boundaries make the work better.

Constraints sharpen ideas because they strip away the indulgent extras and force us to get to the heart of the matter faster.

The classic saying "necessity is the mother of invention" holds up because it reflects how real breakthroughs happen.

Google’s early homepage? A minimalistic marvel born not from aesthetic preference but from technical limitations.

The early design of Twitter(X)? Originally restricted to 140 characters because of SMS constraints.

Even Dr. Seuss famously wrote "Green Eggs and Ham" using only 50 words because of a bet, and it became one of his most beloved works.

Constraints demand that you make decisions. They force you to clarify your ideas instead of endlessly tinkering.

They help you prioritize what matters most, instead of chasing the endless possibilities that, let’s be honest, usually lead to no finish line at all.

We have touched on our mindset on this before in "The Orchestra," where creativity was described as a collective rhythm rather than solo genius. The rhythm exists because there are rules, shared timing, shared understanding.

Without structure, the music would fall apart.

In design, as in music, constraints provide the structure that allows true improvisation and originality to emerge.

They are not there to punish your creativity; they are there to provoke it.

They ask better questions, like:

• How can you tell a complete story with half the space?
• How can you deliver a brand experience with limited time and attention?
• How can you design something powerful for someone who might experience it in only a few seconds?

Those are the questions that lead to better, smarter, more resonant work.

Constraints are not the enemy.

They are the best creative partners you did not know you needed. Treat them that way, and you will not only do better work, you will also find more satisfaction in the process.

Next time a project hands you a tough limitation, do not roll your eyes. Say thank you.

It just handed you the keys to doing something you might not have thought possible.

Peace.

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Hustle culture sold us a very polished lie: that exhaustion is a badge of honor, and if you are not overwhelmed, you must not be trying hard enough.

Thankfully, the science—and the experience of every creative person who has ever burned out—tell a different story.

Multiple studies, including a widely-cited Harvard Business Review report, have found that employees who regularly rest and recharge are not just happier but also significantly more productive.

In fact, taking regular breaks can boost productivity by up to 31% and increase creativity by 50%.

Those are not marginal gains; they are fundamental advantages for anyone trying to do meaningful work.

At the neurological level, rest is even more critical.

Research from the University of California, San Francisco, shows that the brain’s default mode network—the system responsible for imagination, future planning, and memory consolidation—is most active when we are resting, not when we are actively trying to solve problems.

In short, you are more likely to have a breakthrough idea while walking your dog than while staring at your project file at 11 PM.

We are intentional about protecting the space needed for real creativity to emerge, at a small studio.

In "The War on Focus," we talked about the dangers of digital dopamine hijacking our attention. Rest is one of the best defenses against that erosion of mental clarity.

Rest does not just improve how you feel; it improves how you think.

Well-rested brains are more agile, better at emotional regulation, and more capable of making sound decisions.

An MIT study even finds that moments when you are nodding off are sweet spots for creativity. You become even more creative after waking from the earliest stage of sleep.

Companies that normalize healthy rest habits are seeing lower turnover rates too. Deloitte’s recent research highlights that businesses that prioritize employee well-being can reduce voluntary turnover by 50%.

Investing in rest is not just an act of kindness—it is a strategy for better work and stronger teams. We often treat rest as a luxury we can only afford once everything important is done. But rest is not the dessert after the main course of work; it is the essential ingredient that makes the work possible in the first place.

If you wait to rest until you are already depleted, you are not managing your energy—you are gambling with it.

What would happen if you started treating rest as a critical part of your workflow instead of an optional bonus?

Peace.

When people talk about mentorship, they often picture grand speeches, formal programs, and career-altering advice delivered across mahogany desks (the cliche).

In reality, the most transformative mentorships are much quieter. They happen in the cracks of everyday work, often without anyone labeling them as mentorship at all. Formal mentorship programs can sometimes feel stiff, like a networking event where everyone is trying too hard.

Meanwhile, real mentorship unfolds naturally in moments most people overlook—a quick comment on a draft, a casual suggestion after a meeting, a passing compliment that boosts someone's confidence right when they need it most.

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Meanwhile, real mentorship unfolds naturally in moments most people overlook—a quick comment on a draft, a casual suggestion after a meeting, a passing compliment that boosts someone's confidence right when they need it most.

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Research from Gartner shows that team members who have mentors are promoted five times more often than those who do not.

Interestingly, a study by Olivet Nazarene University revealed that over 61% of mentoring relationships form organically rather than through formal programs.

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61% of mentoring relationships form organically rather than through formal programs.

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This organic nature is what makes micro-mentorships so powerful. They fit seamlessly into the rhythm of real work and real life, making them more authentic and accessible.

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We see the effects of micro-mentorship daily, at a small studio.

Whether it is a design critique during office hours, a quick Slack exchange, or the collaborative spirit of a vibecheck, small moments of guidance are baked into how we work.You can see echoes of this approach in "Creative Confidence," where we explored how trust—not bravado—is the true engine of creative growth.

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Micro-mentorships succeed because they lower the stakes, allowing learning to happen without ego or performance pressure.

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They speed up development by providing immediate, practical feedback instead of waiting for a quarterly review. And they encourage a culture where everyone, no matter their title, can be both mentor and mentee. You do not need a formal title or program to be a mentor. See more on this is previous Ding article, “Anyone can be a mentor”.

You need presence, curiosity, and the willingness to share what you know when the opportunity arises. You also need to stay open to lessons arriving in casual, unexpected ways. The best career advice you ever receive might not come in a performance review.

It might come in a five-minute conversation after a meeting you almost skipped.

Where in your day could you start noticing the lessons that are quietly unfolding around you?

Peace.

Is it just me or has there been a huge uptick in the number of people decorating their homes in the past few years? Since the COVID-19 pandemic, something’s been different. People have realized the joy and peace of having a beautifully curated space.

This isn’t new to us, as creatives. We’ve always been inclined to decorate our spaces in ways that express our artistic interests. It seems the world finally realized how depressing four white walls and endless monotone furniture is once they were forced into the captivity of their homes for two years. The result? A maximalist decoration movement🪑.

Everything in art and design is reaction. Art history is just as much about the events of a time period as it is about the painting techniques. The Pop art of the 1960s was a direct reaction to what people felt was an elitism in abstract expressionism. Before that in the 1930s, Surrealism was a direct response to Rationalism and the horrors of World War I.

So what do our decoration trends and their increase in prevalence say about Gen Zs feelings on the pandemic?

It says: damn, those kids were really craving a space to make their own after being stuck at home for years. So much so, that they went out and stuck up anything and everything on their walls.

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It says: damn, those kids were really craving a space to make their own after being stuck at home for years.

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I was certainly feeling this and so were my apartment walls. I, along with many overzealous Gen Z decorators, found a love for surrounding ourselves with what makes us happy– “proper” decoration rules be damned.

As a creative, that’s meant somehow creating a space that encompasses my love for movies, anime, books, mid-century modern, cooking, plants, vinyl, and the refusal to use overhead lighting. It’s come a long way since I first inhabited it at the start of 2024, but at the end of the day, I’ve created a space that inspires me to create.

It’s not perfect, but it’s a place I love existing in. It’s hard to get into a state of unbounded creativity when your office is more reminiscent of a cubicle than a museum. So go design a space that inspires you. You likely do this for brands, clients, passion projects…why should your home be any different?
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So go design a space that inspires you.

It doesn’t have to be perfect. Like we said in the perfect flaw, “There will always be room for refinement. But perfect isn’t the destination—it’s the delay.” It might be intimidating to start, but as we know, most of the fun is in the process of creation or in this case, curation 🖼️🏠🌈.

Artificial intelligence is no longer a distant theory—it’s here, and we’re curiously experimenting with what it can and can’t do. It’s generating mood boards, sketching concepts, proposing copy, creating wireframes etc. These tools are fast, responsive, and oddly insightful. They offer suggestions you didn’t ask for and occasionally solve problems you didn’t know you had. But with all this new speed and power comes a quiet question: where does your instinct go?

Where does your instinct go?

Welcome to the age of algorithmic intuition.

The tools we use today—Midjourney, ChatGPT, DALL·E, Firefly,Manus—are changing our process. They generate ideas in seconds, often presenting us with dozens of options before some of us have even had our first coffee (mine are quite early). That sounds like a dream. But the more decisions a tool makes for you, the easier it becomes to lose track of your own taste. The risk isn’t laziness. It’s detachment. The work gets sleeker, faster, smarter—but does it still feel like yours?

The risk isn’t laziness. It’s detachment.

This is where intuition becomes essential. Algorithms are trained on history. Your instinct is tuned to the present. It’s what notices that a typeface feels too clinical, or a layout too polite. It’s what tells you when a concept is technically perfect but emotionally empty. AI can’t feel nuance, tension, discomfort, or resonance—but you can. And that’s what makes you irreplaceable.

In the article Creative Confidence, we wrote about trusting your process, especially when you’re unsure where it’s leading. In Small Wins, we reminded ourselves that progress is a daily practice, not an instant download. These moments of self-trust matter more now than ever. Because when you’re flooded with options, clarity is your greatest creative tool.

When you’re flooded with options, clarity is your greatest creative tool.

The trick isn’t to resist the algorithm. It’s to stay alert while using it. Let it stretch your thinking, but don’t let it override your judgment. Use it to explore, not to escape the harder parts of the work. Be suspicious of anything that feels too easy to say yes to. When a design pops up that’s "almost right," ask yourself why it still doesn’t feel like it belongs. That gap—that lingering feeling—is often where your best instincts live.

That gap—that lingering feeling—is often where your best instincts live.

And remember, intuition doesn’t mean working in isolation. It means knowing when to pause, when to question, and when to trust that quiet voice in your head that says, “try something else.” Because in a world increasingly optimized for efficiency, originality often shows up in the moments when we hesitate, reconsider, and go off-script. That’s where design still surprises us. That’s where you still matter most.

In a world increasingly optimized for efficiency, originality often shows up in the moments when we hesitate.

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Peace!

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“Done is better than perfect.” We’ve heard the phrase. We’ve probably said it. But living by it? That’s the real challenge. For years, design culture has quietly idolized perfectionism. Flawless decks. Pixel-perfect prototypes. Infinite iterations. The myth that great work must be pristine has not only slowed down creative momentum, it’s quietly burned out entire teams.

But something’s shifting.

More designers are stepping into a new way of working—one that values progress over polish, clarity over complexity, and impact over idealism. It’s the rise of post-perfectionism, and it’s saving our sanity.

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It’s the rise of post-perfectionism, and it’s saving our sanity.

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This isn’t a rejection of high standards. It’s a rejection of paralysis. Perfectionism, research shows, doesn’t actually improve outcomes—it delays them. The American Psychological Association links perfectionism to anxiety, depression, and chronic stress. Harvard Business Review notes that the most effective teams don’t obsess over doing things perfectly—they ship, they learn, they improve. In other words, “good enough” isn’t a cop-out—it’s a strategy.
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In other words, “good enough” isn’t a cop-out—it’s a strategy.

At a small studio, we’ve talked about this before. In Vulnerable Brilliance, we explored the value of showing up, even when things feel unfinished. In My Creative Marathon, we emphasized pace over perfection. These weren’t just feel-good ideas. They were design survival skills.

The post-perfectionism movement redefines what creative success looks like. It’s not about flawless first drafts—it’s about clear intentions, authentic voice, and the courage to stop tweaking. Strategic imperfection invites feedback. It leaves room for evolution. And most importantly, it lets us move forward. Because at some point, more revisions just become fear in disguise.

Because at some point, more revisions just become fear in disguise.

And there’s freedom in that. When we allow ourselves to be unfinished, we make room for other people to participate. We invite critique, conversation, collaboration. We let design breathe. The best work we’ve made as a team didn’t come from grinding alone—it came from releasing control, sharing early, and improving together.

There will always be room for refinement. But perfect isn’t the destination—it’s the delay. Let’s aim instead for real, thoughtful, and alive. Work that reflects the moment it was made in. Work that doesn’t wait to be flawless to matter.

Peace!

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When you start out in design, it’s natural to build what you know. What you like. What you’d use. You center yourself, your taste, your context—and that’s not wrong. But at some point, to create work that lasts, you have to get out of your own head.

The best design doesn’t reflect just you. It reflects the world.

The best design doesn’t reflect just you. It reflects the world. It moves with it, listens to it, grows from it. “Don’t build for you” isn’t about losing your voice—it’s about expanding it. It’s about crafting solutions with empathy, not ego. And that shift? It changes everything.

Self-referential work might win short-term praise. It might get you noticed. But timeless work—the kind that earns trust and stays relevant—comes from a place of humility. It starts by asking, “Who is this really for?” and letting that answer guide every choice.

“Who is this really for?” and letting that answer guide every choice.

We see this in branding. In Branding on Purpose, we shared how identity is not a mirror, but a bridge. It connects your values to your audience’s reality. Similarly, in Designed to Lead, we focused on clarity—not charisma—as the true foundation of influence. Both articles circle the same truth: when you stop creating for applause and start creating for service, your work levels up.

When you stop creating for applause and start creating for service, your work levels up.

Design that lasts isn’t always the flashiest. It’s often quiet. Functional. Subtle. Think of a subway map, a well-loved book cover, a classic pair of jeans. These aren’t about showing off—they’re about showing up. For people, over time. The more you study timeless design, the more you realize: relevance is a relationship, not a trend.

Relevance is a relationship, not a trend.

That kind of relevance requires curiosity. You have to want to know what matters to someone else. You have to listen more than you speak. That means putting down your preferences, resisting the urge to impress, and doing the slower work of observation. When you care about context as much as composition, you start designing with longevity in mind.

And here's the good news—designing for others doesn’t mean erasing yourself. It means evolving. Your voice becomes sharper, not softer. Your taste refines, not retreats. Because when your work is built on generosity, it doesn’t just stand out—it stands up.

When your work is built on generosity, it doesn’t just stand out—it stands up.

Peace!

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Thinking should be easy. After all, it's what our brains are built for. But in a world where decisions are made at the speed of a scroll and opinions are formed in the time it takes to read a headline, real thinking—the kind that refines, questions, and considers multiple perspectives—has become a lost art.

We're bombarded daily with information, arguments, and hot takes. Some are loud, some are persuasive, and some are designed to manipulate rather than inform. It's easier than ever to pick a side without truly understanding it, to react instead of reflect, to assume instead of analyze. But real clarity? That requires effort. It requires space. It requires thinking.

For us at a small studio, every design decision we make is rooted in Identity Architecture—a framework that forces us, and more importantly, our client-partners, to pause and reflect. We don't just build brands; we help shape how people see themselves and how they show up in the world. That kind of work demands authenticity, and authenticity doesn't come from impulse but from deep, intentional thinking.

Before any project launches into the world, we challenge our clients to ask:

What do we stand for?
Who are we speaking to?
What kind of impact do we want to have?

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It's not about just making something look good. It's about making something true.

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Identity Architecture reveals and delivers a creative operating system. It provides a structured way for our client-partners (and us) to evaluate decisions through three essential lenses:

Values: What do we believe in, and how does this choice align with that?
Anchors: What are the non-negotiables that keep us grounded?
Strengths: What unique qualities set us apart, and how can we lean into them?

When every decision passes through this matrix, clarity becomes second nature. Instead of being overwhelmed by endless possibilities or outside opinions, our clients can confidently decide and digest information with precision. It's not about making the "right" decision in the abstract—it's about making the right decision for them.

The ability to think critically has never been more crucial in our personal and professional lives. We live in an era of chaotic perspectives—divisiveness is profitable, outrage spreads faster than nuance, and the loudest voices often drown out the wisest ones. We risk letting the world think for us if we're not careful.

So, how do we cut through the noise?

1. Pause before deciding. Just because something feels true doesn't mean it is. Take a breath, sit with an idea, and give yourself time to process.
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2. Seek multiple perspectives. If everyone around you agrees, you're probably missing something. The best decisions come from a mix of viewpoints, not an echo chamber.
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3.Use a system.Without a structured way to evaluate choices, decision-making can feel chaotic. Identity Architecture offers a repeatable framework for weighing options clearly and effectively.
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4.Know what you stand for.When you're clear on your values, making choices that align with them is easier. Authenticity isn't a brand strategy—it's a way of moving through the world.

Thinking is a small thing to do, but it changes everything. It makes us better designers, better leaders, better humans. It allows us to create work that isn't just visually compelling but deeply meaningful. And in a world that thrives on distraction, making the effort to truly think? That might just be the most radical act of all.

Peace!

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Your smartphones now demand more attention than a toddler with a sugar rush. The battle for our focus has begun, and spoiler alert: most of us are losing gloriously.

Remember when "checking your messages" meant walking to the mailbox once a day? (I doubt you remember that.) Now, we peek at our mobile devices roughly 2,600 times daily—once every 33 seconds of waking life. We've developed what Linda Stone aptly termed "continuous partial attention"—a state where we're perpetually half-listening, half-reading, and wholly ineffective.

Our brains, those magnificent thinking machines that evolved over millennia to solve complex problems, have been reduced to notification-seeking missiles. Each ping delivers a tiny dopamine hit, and like lab rats pressing levers for treats, we've become conditioned to expect and crave these micro-distractions. The result? A collective inability to focus deeply on anything more substantial than a TikTok dance tutorial(eye roll).

You might think that constant task-switching makes you efficient. Wrong! It makes you the cognitive equivalent of a leaky faucet. Research from the University of London found that constant multitasking can lower your effective IQ by 10 points—roughly the same effect as missing an entire night's sleep. Congratulations, your "productive" multitasking habit has effectively turned you into a sleep-deprived zombie.

The costs extend beyond cognitive decline. There's the mounting psychological toll: increased stress levels as your brain struggles to keep up with information overload, anxiety from the fear of missing something important, and decision fatigue from the endless stream of micro-choices ("Should I respond to this now or later?").

When was the last time you had a genuinely original thought? Probably somewhere between "just checking email really quick" and "I'll just scroll for five minutes." Creativity doesn't thrive in fragmented attention; it requires mental white space—something increasingly endangered in our notification-saturated environment.

Creativity doesn't thrive in fragmented attention; it requires mental white space

Your brain isn't designed for constant stimulation but for rhythmic oscillation between focused attention and recovery. Research on ultradian rhythms suggests we naturally cycle through roughly 90-minute periods of peak focus, followed by shorter recovery periods. Fighting this natural rhythm is like swimming against the current—exhausting and ultimately futile.

The neurochemical star of this show is dopamine, which doesn't just reward us for achievement but, more insidiously, for seeking new information. This is why scrolling on Instagram feels irrationally good, even when nothing important comes from it. Your brain isn't rewarding the result; it's rewarding the hunt itself.

Flow state—that magical zone where work feels effortless and time disappears—requires at least 20 minutes of uninterrupted focus to initiate. With the average worker being interrupted every 11 minutes (and taking 23 minutes to fully refocus), genuine flow has become as rare as a distraction-free meeting.

Winning the Focus War: Practical Hacks

Digital Minimalism

Your smartphone doesn't need to be a 24/7 carnival of notifications. Try this radical concept: turn off every notification except calls and messages from actual humans who might need you. Your Instagram followers will survive without your immediate validation of their breakfast photography.

Batch process emails at designated times rather than responding to each one like it's an urgent telegram from the future. Remember: email is someone else's to-do list for you. Treat it accordingly.

Time Blocking

Stop treating your calendar like a suggestion and start treating it like a fortress. Block out deep work sessions—preferably following your natural energy peaks—and defend them with the ferocity of a medieval castle guard. "Sorry, can't make that meeting; I'll be having an intense relationship with my actual job" is a perfectly reasonable response.

Single-Tasking

Multitasking isn't an achievement; it's an admission of poor prioritization. Instead, embrace the revolutionary concept of doing one thing at a time, giving it your full attention, and then—hold onto your ergonomic chair—moving on to the next thing. Your prefrontal cortex will thank you by actually working properly.

The 5-Minute Rule

When facing a task you're avoiding, commit to just five minutes. The hardest part of any task is starting, and this micro-commitment bypasses your brain's resistance. Once momentum builds, continuing becomes surprisingly painless. It's like tricking your brain into productivity—which, let's be honest, sometimes needs a good bamboozling.

Environmental Design

Your workspace should be a temple to focus, not a shrine to distraction. This means no phone within arm's reach (studies show that even having it visible reduces cognitive capacity), a clean desk (visual clutter equals mental clutter), and ideally, some signal to coworkers that interrupting your flow will be met with consequences ranging from mild disappointment to elaborate revenge fantasies.

The modern workplace celebrates the appearance of productivity: endless hours, constant availability, and perpetual busyness. Yet history's greatest achievers—from Einstein to Hemingway—weren't known for their extensive hours but for their intensive focus.

The multitasking myth persists despite overwhelming evidence that humans perform terribly at it. Your brain doesn't actually multitask; it task-switches, which is about as efficient as constantly changing lanes in traffic—lots of movement, minimal progress, and increased risk of accidents.

The war on focus isn't just about productivity—it's about reclaiming your cognitive autonomy in an economy that profits from your distraction. Every notification ignored, every deep work session protected, and every single task completed with full attention is a small battle won in the larger campaign for your most precious resource: your mind.

So the next time you feel the magnetic pull of your phone or the siren song of your inbox, remember: you're not just deciding how to spend the next few minutes—you're deciding who controls your attention. And in the age of digital dopamine, that might be the most important decision you make all day

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Peace!

Digital design has been obsessed with getting things right for far too long—pixel-perfect grids, smooth gradients, rounded corners, and typography so meticulously kerned it could bring a typographer to tears. But lately, something’s changed. A new design movement is storming the web, breaking rules and questioning everything we thought was sacred.

Enter Brutalist and Anti-Design—two rebellious approaches throwing a wrench into the pristine, user-friendly world of digital interfaces. They reject perfection in favor of raw, unfiltered expression. Ugly? Sometimes. Hard to navigate? Often. But that’s precisely the point.

Brutalist design has nothing to do with being rude (unless you count aggressively bold typography). It takes inspiration from Brutalist architecture—think raw concrete, exposed beams, and a general "we don’t care if you think this is ugly" attitude. In digital spaces, it means stark contrasts, harsh edges, unstyled buttons, and an intentional lack of polish.

Remember Bloomberg’s 2016 site redesign? It was a shock to the system. Blocks of text, clashing colors, and layouts that felt like they were built on pure chaos. People hated it. People also couldn’t stop talking about it.

While Brutalism still technically follows the rules of usability, Anti-Design flips the whole table over. It thrives on discomfort—text that overlaps, misaligned elements, navigation that forces you to work to find what you’re looking for. It’s not about being user-friendly; it’s about making the user feel something.

A perfect example? Balenciaga’s website If you’ve ever visited, you probably wondered if you accidentally clicked a phishing link. It exemplifies Brutalist design with its minimalistic layouts, stark typography, and unpolished elements, reflecting the brand's bold and rebellious approach to fashion.

For years, digital design has followed the same formula. Clean, minimal, efficient. But when every brand starts looking the same, what’s left to stand out? Chaos. Aesthetic rebellion. The willingness to be wrong on purpose.

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Lately, brands and artists have been running full speed toward this new wave of design anarchy. Charli XCX’s 2024 album Brat embraced blurry Arial text and a highlighter-green background that practically vibrates. Former Vice President Kamala Harris’ Kamala HQ borrowed from Charli XCX to bridge a generational-divide, that created a cultural vibe that felt more meme than political campaign.

And then there’s Chappell Roan’s "Good Luck, Babe!" music video, which looks like it was made entirely in PowerPoint—with Comic Sans, watermarked clip art, and transitions so stiff they’d make a middle school slideshow jealous.

Jaguar's radical rebranding and the unveiling of the Type 00 concept car showcased a bold departure from traditional automotive design, embracing brutalist aesthetics to provoke and engage audiences.

Not everyone loves it. Critics argue that these approaches sacrifice usability, accessibility, and common decency. And to be fair, they’re not wrong—navigating an Anti-Design website can feel like an escape room with no clues. But for brands looking to shake things up, it’s a breath of fresh air.

If you’re designing a hospital website, maybe don’t embrace Brutalism. But if you’re working on a creative portfolio, an album cover, or a campaign meant to make people stop scrolling—this might be exactly what you need.

For years, we’ve been obsessed with making digital design easier. Maybe it’s time to make it more provoking.

Until next time—keep breaking things (intentionally).

Peace!

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You've heard the stories: the child prodigy who composed symphonies before learning to tie their shoes, the teenage tech genius who built an empire from their garage, the "natural" who seemed to master their craft without breaking a sweat. These tales of innate brilliance have shaped our understanding of genius for centuries. But they're missing the most fascinating part of the story:

True excellence isn't inherited—it's cultivated, nurtured, and sometimes painfully extracted from the depths of persistence.

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For every Mozart who burst onto the scene in diapers, there's a Bach who took the scenic route to greatness. We've all had our moments of stumbling and fumbling, and that's what makes the journey to excellence so relatable.

Most people don't wake up exceptional. They stumble, fumble, and eventually work their way into it, like trying to fold a fitted sheet—it takes practice, patience, and the willingness to look slightly ridiculous along the way.

In "Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise," Anders Ericsson demolished the myth of natural talent through decades of research. His findings? The most accomplished individuals in any field aren't necessarily those with the highest innate abilities—they're the ones who engaged in deliberate practice with the stubbornness of a toddler refusing nap time.

Malcolm Gladwell popularized Ericsson's work in "Outliers," introducing the famous 10,000-hour rule. While the exact number might be debatable, the principle isn't: mastery takes time. Lots of it. And not just any time—focused, intentional, often uncomfortable time. It's the difference between playing piano for 10,000 hours and practicing deliberately for 10,000 hours. One makes you really good at playing the same mistakes; the other makes you exceptional.

Success doesn't come with an expiration date. Eric Yuan was just another tech guy at Cisco until he Zoomed into relevance at 41. Susan Boyle went from local choir singer to global sensation at 47, proving that raw talent has no shelf life. David Baszucki built Roblox at 41, giving kids (and let's be honest, plenty of adults) a whole new way to game. And Stan Lee? He didn't create the Marvel Universe until almost 40, showing that sometimes superpowers develop later in life.

Adam Grant's research in "Hidden Potential" reveals something fascinating: what truly sets high achievers apart isn't their initial talent, but their ability to leverage every opportunity for growth. The most successful people aren't necessarily the ones who showed early promise—they're the ones who mastered the art of turning setbacks into setups. Take Claude Monet—he didn't invent impressionism because he was born with a paintbrush in hand. He developed it through years of experimentation, failure, and a stubborn refusal to paint like everyone else.

Carol Dweck's research on growth mindset shows that our brains are more plastic than we thought. Intelligence isn't fixed—it's malleable like Play-Doh left in the sun. Every time you learn something new, your brain physically changes, creating new neural pathways. You're literally rewiring your brain through persistence, taking control of your growth and making yourself smarter through sheer stubbornness.

Angela Duckworth's work on grit adds another layer. In "Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance," she demonstrates that the ability to stick with something—even when it's hard, especially when it's hard—is a better predictor of success than raw talent.

It's not about being the smartest person in the room; it's about being the one who keeps showing up, day after day, with the determination of a toddler trying to open a closed door.

Excellence isn't a sprint—it's a creative marathon run in costume. It's messy, often unglamorous, and occasionally involves making a fool of yourself in public. But that's exactly what makes it accessible to anyone brave enough to try.

So if you're feeling behind or think you've missed your window of opportunity, take a deep breath. You're exactly where you need to be. Because the best time to start wasn't twenty years ago. It's now. Right now, while everyone else is waiting for their genius to manifest spontaneously. Your journey is unfolding at the perfect pace for you.

Remember: Mozart had a head start, but Bach had patience. And history remembers them both.

Keep going. Keep learning. Keep creating. The world needs more freaks of nurture—those wonderful oddballs who refuse to believe that excellence has an age limit or that mastery comes with an expiration date.

After all, the only real prodigies are the ones who never stop becoming who they might be.

Your time is coming. Actually, scratch that—your time is now.

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Peace!

For decades, we've placed intelligence on a pedestal so high it would give Everest an inferiority complex. High IQ was the golden ticket to success, the measure of human potential, and everything else was considered as substantial as a politician's campaign promise (let’s not dive into this). But let's face it: in today's world, where creativity flows like coffee in a tech startup, and collaboration is more essential than Wi-Fi, soft skills are the true superpower.

Think about it: solving complex problems is impressive, but can you navigate a conversation with your manager about why you deserve a raise without breaking into a cold sweat? You might have a mind brimming with brilliant ideas, but can you convince a room full of skeptics that your plan to revolutionize the company's design system isn't just another passing fancy?

In 1995, psychologist Daniel Goleman dropped a truth bomb that would reshape our understanding of intelligence. He proposed that the ability to understand and manage emotions wasn't just some touchy-feely concept invented by HR departments to justify team-building exercises. It was, in fact, just as crucial as IQ, if not more so.

This isn't just a nice-to-have feature for creative leaders. It's more like a beating heart; you're not going anywhere without it. Creativity doesn't flourish in a vacuum (though scientists might argue otherwise). It needs trust, vulnerability, and human connection, elements that require more emotional intelligence than solving a Rubik's cube blindfolded.

Goleman's research identified four fundamental domains of emotional intelligence;

Self-Awareness, the art of understanding your emotions and how they influence your decisions. It's like having a personal emotional GPS telling you why you're upset (feeling that emotion).

Self-Management, the ability to regulate your emotions under pressure. Think of it as your internal crisis manager, preventing you from sending that strongly-worded email at 3 AM (we've all been there).

Social Awareness follows, which is professional mind-reading minus the crystal ball. It's about practicing empathy and recognizing emotions in others, even when they're trying their best to hide them behind a "per my last email" facade.

Finally, Relationship Management is the grand glue that put it all together to build trust, navigate conflict, and inspire people. It's like being a conductor of an emotional orchestra, ensuring all the feelings play in harmony.

The professional landscape has been dramatically transformed.The traditional model, where raw intelligence, years of experience, and authority were the holy trinity of success, is becoming outdated.

Remote work has flipped emotional connections. Without those spontaneous water cooler conversations and in-person meetings, leaders with high EQ have become more valuable than reliable. They're the ones keeping teams engaged and connected.

Meanwhile, AI is automating hard skills faster than you can say "machine learning." But the kicker is: creativity and emotional intelligence remain stubbornly human traits. No matter how advanced AI becomes, it still can't truly empathize with humans' daily emotions and thoughts.

Unlike IQ, which is somewhat set from birth, EQ can be improved with practice. Thanks to neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to rewire itself based on repeated behaviors. In other words, what you do repeatedly becomes who you are.

Think of it like training a muscle. If you lift weights consistently, you get stronger. If you practice self-awareness, empathy, and emotional regulation, your brain forms stronger neural pathways that make these responses more natural over time.

Building EQ often feels uncomfortable at first. Why? Because it requires slowing down, reflecting, and unlearning old habits. If you're used to reacting immediately, pausing to consider someone else's emotions may feel unnatural. If you tend to avoid conflict, learning to navigate challenging conversations with empathy will push you outside your comfort zone. But just like any skill, the more you practice, the easier it gets.

If you want to strengthen your EQ, start here:

1. Listen like you mean it. Focus entirely on the speaker instead of mentally preparing your response. People can tell when you're truly present.
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2. Clarify before reacting. Before offering your opinion, reflect back what you heard: "So what I hear you saying is…" This builds understanding and prevents miscommunication.
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3. Ask better questions. Instead of jumping to solutions, ask, "How do you feel about this?" or "What do you need?" This shifts conversations from transactional to meaningful.
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4. Practice emotional regulation. When something frustrates you, take a breath before responding. Emotions are normal, but how you manage them defines your leadership.

This results in stronger relationships, better collaboration, and an increased ability to inspire and lead. EQ is a long-term investment in how you connect with the world around you.

Consider the best leader you've ever had. Now think about the worst one. The difference probably wasn't their ability to design with exception or recite company policies. It was likely their emotional intelligence or lack thereof.

A leader with high EQ creates an environment where people feel more valued. They understand that emotions are as contagious as a yawn in a meeting, and they use this knowledge to spread positivity rather than panic.

Our secret at a small studio is the ability to understand and connect with every team member, as humans first and employees second. Creating an environment where mistakes are learning opportunities, not career obituaries, and creativity flourishes because people feel safe enough to take risks.

The implications of enhanced emotional intelligence extend far beyond office walls and Zoom meetings. A society that values EQ creates stronger communities where understanding beats judgment, and empathy isn't just a buzzword in a corporate mission statement.

It fosters leadership that prioritizes long-term sustainability over short-term gains, and accountability over ego. When leaders truly understand the emotional impact of their decisions, they're more likely to consider the human and environmental costs of their actions.

The Future is Feeling

Our world is becoming increasingly automated, but where your power and mine come in is, as humans, emotional intelligence. While hard skills might get you through the door, your soft skills will keep you in the room, help you read the room, and eventually own it.

The future belongs to those who can combine the processing power of IQ with the human touch of EQ.

At the end of the day, people don't remember what you did or said nearly as much as they remember how you made them feel. And that's something no algorithm can replicate.

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Peace!

The romance of the tortured artist has evolved from observation into aspiration, morphing from a description of creative struggles into a prescription for creative success. It's a peculiar transformation; what began as a documentation of artists' genuine hardships has become a blueprint emerging creatives feel compelled to follow.

Van Gogh didn't choose his psychological struggles. Frida Kahlo didn't elect to experience chronic pain. Yet somewhere along the way, our creative culture began to view their suffering not as obstacles they overcame to create but as essential ingredients of their genius. This misreading of history has led to a dangerous pattern: emerging artists unconsciously adopting destructive behaviors in the belief that they're following in the footsteps of the Masters.

The irony is stark. While the icons we reference were often creating despite their challenges, not because of them, today's creatives frequently seem to be manufacturing chaos, as if disorder were a necessary studio supply. We've turned suffering from a circumstance into a strategy.

Singer, Grimes (real name Claire Boucher) famously claimed to have been inspired by the 12th-century composer Hildegard Von Bingen, she locked herself away for 2 weeks, trying to do everything possible to actually go insane in order to make her ‘Visions’ album.

But here's what the research actually tells us about creativity and well-being:

Studies from the University of Kent have shown that positive mood increases creative problem-solving and cognitive flexibility. The Harvard Business Review reports that happiness raises worker productivity by 31%, with creative professionals showing even higher gains. Research published in the Creativity Research Journal demonstrates that regular exercise enhances creative thinking for hours afterward, with aerobic fitness being positively correlated with creative output.

Well-being doesn't dampen creativity – it amplifies it.

Let's even consider sleep for a moment. While we romanticize the image of the artist working through the night, sleep deprivation actually impairs divergent thinking—the exact cognitive process crucial for creative work. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has found that good sleep hygiene significantly improves novel problem-solving abilities.

Meditation and mindfulness, practices that reduce chaos rather than court it, have been shown to enhance creative thinking. A study in Frontiers in Psychology found that even brief meditation sessions can lead to better creative performance. The calm mind, it turns out, is better at making unexpected connections than the tortured one.

Yet our creative culture continues to perpetuate this myth of necessary suffering. We see it in how we talk about the creative process ("bleeding onto the page"), in how we structure creative work (all-nighters as badges of honor), and in how we celebrate creative achievements (often focusing on the struggle rather than the strategy).

This unconscious embrace of the tortured artist archetype manifests in subtle ways. For example, creatives who feel guilty about taking breaks view their anxiety as a creative fuel they dare not quench and wear their exhaustion as a badge of authenticity. We've created a culture where taking care of oneself is somehow seen as less committed to the craft.

What if the great artists of the past created not because of their suffering but despite it?

But what if we've been reading the historical evidence backwards? What if the great artists of the past created not because of their suffering but despite it? What if their work was great not because they suffered, but because they found ways to channel their unavoidable pain into something meaningful?

The truth is that many of history's most prolific creators also had strong self-care practices. Mozart was known to be an avid billiards player, finding relaxation and social connection in the game. Dickens took long walks through London, often covering miles a day, crediting these walks with keeping his creativity flowing. Georgia O'Keeffe maintained a disciplined lifestyle that included healthy eating and regular exercise well into her later years.

Contemporary neuroscience supports what these artists intuited: the brain's default mode network (crucial for creativity) functions best when we alternate between focused work and genuine rest. The constant stress of manufactured chaos inhibits the cognitive processes we're trying to enhance.

It's time for a new creative culture, which is very much what we are building at a small studio. One that recognizes that well-being isn't the enemy of creativity but its foundation. One that understands that routine, health, and stability don't dampen the creative fire – they give it the oxygen it needs to burn brighter and longer.

Well-being isn't the enemy of creativity but its foundation

Our dedication to this new creative culture is constantly being displayed by the existence of this medium, the incredible projects delivered by our interns; Creative Check-up, and our open invitation for creatives to connect with us, because we know for sure that it is an industry of anxiety.

Your creativity doesn't need your suffering. It needs your clarity, energy, and presence. Most importantly, it needs you to be well enough to show up for it day after day, year after year.

Your creativity doesn't need your suffering. It needs your clarity, energy, and presence.

The next generation of great creativity won't come from those who best perform the role of the tortured artist. It will come from those who dare to be well, who have the courage to care for themselves, who understand that creativity flourishes not in chaos but in the fertile soil of a healthy mind and body.

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Give yourself some grace. And the words of the Man at the Garden, Kendrick Lamar;

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You deserve it all!

"Greatness is in the agency of others."

I don't know who said it first. I wish I knew because I'd thank them. This idea has rung true for me every day since I first heard it. Greatness isn't about one person, one idea, or one perspective. It happens when different minds come together, individual talents align, and trust allows something bigger to emerge.

That's precisely what a small studio has stood for since we started seven years ago. Creativity isn't a solo act; it's a symphony. My role has always felt like that of a conductor, not dictating every note but ensuring that when we play, we create something greater than the sum of its parts.

Building this team has been one of the greatest privileges of my life. Every person here brings their own sound, rhythm, and way of seeing the world. And yet, we're always on the same wavelength. Without forcing it, we sync. It's always so harmonious; sometimes, it feels other-worldly.

Everyone at a small studio passes the vibecheck. There's an unspoken understanding, a shared rhythm that keeps everything moving. We all play with full authority, unrestrained and uninterrupted. And still, every note, every detail, every idea fits into a composition that moves. Our client-partners feel it. They don't just see our work; they experience it. They hear the rhythm we create, and it resonates.

We've shared a few editions of Ding! about our culture and why it works. About how we find our flow (Find Your Vibe), how we listen to each other (Active Listening), how we collaborate (The Creative Assist), and how we embrace a bold generation to do their best work (Is Gen-Z Lazy?). Each of these pieces speaks to what makes us who we are; why, regardless of our differences, we create in perfect sync.

Despite our different strengths, we always seem to read from the same manuscript. The vision is clear. The destination is composed. Ultimately, we create something that brings peace to us and the partners we collaborate with.

I couldn't be prouder of this team. Every single person, every single note, has mattered. It's been an honor to compose alongside you.

We're about to deliver our best piece for peace this year, and I can't wait!

✌🏾

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Picture your organization as a boat navigating unpredictable waters. The structure—your strategies, goals, and processes—might be expertly crafted, but the crew and their shared understanding keep it moving forward through calm and storm alike. That shared understanding? It’s your culture.

Culture is your compass, guiding decisions. It’s the sails that catch opportunity and the anchor that steadies you when challenges arise. Without it, even the most sophisticated boat can drift aimlessly or struggle to stay afloat in a shifting body of water.

The phrase “culture eats strategy for breakfast” isn’t just a clever saying; it’s the truth. Strategy sets the course, but culture determines how the journey unfolds. Bain & Company reports that nearly 70% of business leaders view culture as their most significant competitive advantage. Forbes found that companies with strong, intentional cultures grow revenue four times faster than their peers. These organizations innovate better, attract top talent, and inspire loyalty.

I’ve seen this firsthand. Building a culture that emphasizes collaboration, trust, and empathy doesn’t just make work more productive—it makes it meaningful.

A well-designed culture doesn’t happen by accident. It requires intentionality and the willingness to reflect, refine, and invest in what truly matters.

Culture isn’t a catchy slogan stitched onto your sails or the glossy paint on your boat—it’s what happens below deck. It’s visible in how you celebrate wins, manage setbacks, and communicate under pressure. It’s shaped by your organization’s purpose, values, and people.

As Tahir Qazi once said, “A company’s culture is not created arbitrarily but emerges from its unique existence.”

To build something enduring, you have to start with clarity. What do you stand for? What do you prioritize? What’s your North Star?

At the studio, we focus on practices that reflect our values and set the tone for how we work together. Here are a few:

1. Vibechecks: Weekly team gatherings to align and recalibrate. A shared moment to define how we want to work and support each other for the week.
2. Autonomy: Micromanagement has no place here. We trust our team to own their work, which fosters creativity and accountability.
3. Empathy: People come first. Always. This means celebrating wins, offering support when challenges arise, and making space for life outside work.
4. Radical Transparency: Collaboration thrives when everyone has access to the same information. Open communication and shared goals keep us aligned.

These aren’t extras—they’re the foundation for everything we do.

Every great boat needs a North Star. A purpose-driven culture connects your team to something bigger than profit, creating a shared sense of meaning and direction.

As Rodolphe Durand and Ioannis Ioannou put it, “Companies may profess a commitment to purpose, but without a supportive culture aligned to that purpose, employees won’t be supported to enact shared values in their work.”

Purpose transforms a corporate statement into a lived reality. But alignment between purpose and culture doesn’t happen on its own. This belief inspired us to develop Identity Architecture—our trademarked framework that delivers a creative operating system that helps organizations define their values, strengths, and identity statement. It provides a solid foundation for building an authentic, long-term culture that drives performance and sparks creativity.

Culture starts at the top. Captains don’t just issue commands; they set the tone and lead by example.

Culture starts at the top. Captains don’t just issue commands; they set the tone and lead by example. McKinsey’s research on cultural transformation emphasizes action:

“Don’t just tell—show. Don’t assign—enroll.”

Leaders must model the values they want to see. Empathy, accountability, and transparency aren’t just buzzwords—they’re behaviors that need to be visible every day. Through Identity Architecture, organizations can uncover the key cultural strengths and growth areas that empower leaders to act with intention and authenticity.

A strong culture also requires a growth mindset. Leaders who embrace curiosity and experimentation, create environments where progress is celebrated, not perfection. This fosters innovation and builds resilience, two traits essential for navigating a changing body of water.

Building culture isn’t a one-time effort. Like maintaining a boat, it requires regular attention, reflection, and adjustment.

Building culture isn’t a one-time effort. Like maintaining a boat, it requires regular attention, reflection, and adjustment. Practices like vibechecks and open communication ensure that teams remain aligned and adaptable.

For organizations ready to dive deeper, Identity Architecture helps uncover the unique rhythms and values that inform their culture. It’s not about copying trends or mimicking competitors—it’s about building something authentic that supports long-term success.

Culture is the wind in your sails; it’s the system that keeps your boat moving forward. It shapes how you navigate challenges, celebrate wins, and inspire your crew to stay the course. With the right tools and intentionality, you can build a culture that doesn’t just survive but thrives.

Define your values. Align your actions. Invest in empathy and trust. When culture takes the helm, there’s no limit to where your organization can go.

Until next time, stay focused, stay curious, and keep building something meaningful.

The word confidence often conjures images of boldness, certainty, and bravado—a performer center stage, fearless and captivating. But the root of the word tells a quieter, more profound story. Derived from the Latin confidere, it means "to trust," while creativity comes from creare, "to make, bring into being." Together, creative confidence isn't about ego or perfection. It's about trusting oneself to bring something new into existence, even when the outcome is uncertain.

Just a few days ago, as we reflected on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy, his life offered a powerful example of creative confidence in action. Dr. King trusted his vision of equality and justice, even when the odds were overwhelmingly against him.

Consider his decision to write and deliver the now-iconic "I Have a Dream" speech during the 1963 March on Washington. King faced immense pressure—political tensions were high, and countless voices critiquing his approach to civil rights were present. Yet, despite the uncertainty and the weight of expectation, he trusted his ability to craft a message that would resonate deeply.

Many don't know that Dr. King improvised part of his famous speech. The line "I have a dream" wasn't in the original draft. In a moment of inspiration, he pivoted from his prepared remarks and spoke from his heart. That act of creative trust—rooted in years of preparation and unwavering belief in his message—changed the course of history.

Dr. King improvised part of his famous speech. The line "I have a dream" wasn't in the original draft.

Dr. King's story reminds us that confidence isn't about the absence of doubt or fear. It's about trusting your voice, even when the stakes are high, and believing your contribution can create meaningful change.

Emerging and seasoned creatives often misunderstand confidence as an innate, unshakable trait when it's actually a practice. True confidence is not about knowing all the answers; it's about trusting your process and showing up authentically—even when doubt creeps in.

This distinction is crucial in today's AI-driven creative landscape. As tools like generative AI become increasingly capable of automating tasks, it's easy to feel threatened, even obsolete. After all, who can compete with software that drafts ideas in seconds or polishes visuals with pinpoint accuracy? But here's the secret: authenticity, intuition, and the messy brilliance of the human touch remain irreplaceable. AI may optimize creativity, but it cannot originate the soul of it. Confidence in your unique perspective is what keeps your work distinct and relevant.

Authenticity, intuition, and the messy brilliance of the human touch remain irreplaceable.

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For emerging creatives, building confidence can feel like standing at the bottom of a mountain, gazing up. You may wonder, "Do I belong here? Is my voice enough?" But confidence grows in action, not stillness. Share your ideas, seek feedback, and embrace imperfection. Remember that creativity thrives in vulnerability—when you risk being wrong, you unlock your potential to create something truly original.

For seasoned creatives, confidence isn't static. Even with experience, impostor syndrome can knock on the door. The solution? Continual learning and adaptability. Challenge yourself to collaborate with others, explore unfamiliar mediums, or even mentor those just starting out. In sharing your knowledge, you'll reaffirm your value while empowering others to find their footing.

The rapid evolution of AI highlights a crucial truth: skills alone won't safeguard a creative career. Authority and authenticity (which comes from clarity) will. Clients, collaborators, and audiences crave voices they can trust—not only for technical expertise but for insight, storytelling, and connection.
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Skills alone won't safeguard a creative career. Authority and authenticity will.

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2025, is a pivotal moment for creatives to reclaim their voices and redefine confidence. While barriers to entry have fallen, the deluge of content demands discernment. Creatives who step forward with authority, offering depth and authenticity, will set themselves apart from the noise.

At a small studio, creative confidence is woven into every aspect of our culture. When hiring, we look beyond portfolios and technical skills, seeking individuals who trust their instincts and approach challenges with curiosity. In mentoring, we empower emerging creatives to own their unique perspectives, helping them understand that doubt is part of the process—not a sign of failure.

Collaborating with corporate partners, we bring our confidence to the table, not as arrogance but as quiet trust in our ability to deliver innovative and meaningful solutions. This approach has allowed us to foster relationships built on respect and mutual understanding—essentials for long-term success.

Let this be the year we honor the sanctity of craft and the sanity of creators. The world needs voices willing to trust their instincts, to challenge the status quo, and to create with conviction. Creative confidence is a practice—an ongoing trust in our ability to bring new ideas into being, no matter how uncertain the path.

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Creative confidence is a practice—an ongoing trust in our ability to bring new ideas into being, no matter how uncertain the path.

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To all creatives, whether you're just starting or redefining your place in the field, know this: Your voice matters. Trust it. Amplify it. And most importantly, show up with authenticity at every opportunity. Because creativity, at its core, is an act of faith—in ourselves, our craft, and the infinite possibilities waiting to be made real.

Peace!

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Happy New Year! 🛎️ As we step into 2025, let’s talk about resolutions. There’s nothing wrong with dreaming big—“new year, new me” has a nice ring to it. But what if we told you that the real magic doesn’t come from radical transformation, but from the quiet power of small, intentional actions every single day?

Simon Sinek, in The Infinite Game, points out that success isn’t about winning—it’s about making consistent contributions toward progress. Success doesn’t need to be showy or instant. It’s the result of small efforts, repeated over time, stacking like bricks to form a foundation of growth.

Stephanie Harrison, author of The New Happy and a frequent collaborator with a small studio, echoes this beautifully. She challenges the belief that we’re static beings—just one version of ourselves. Instead, she suggests we’re in constant evolution, molded by our experiences and daily actions. The secret is to embrace this transformation and recognize the value of small steps that shape who we are.

The science is clear: tiny, consistent actions build momentum and lead to lasting change. Research from Harvard Business School’s Teresa Amabile revealed that small, daily progress boosts motivation and happiness. In her Progress Principle study, Amabile found that when individuals see evidence of incremental achievements—no matter how small—they experience an emotional uplift that drives them to keep going. It’s not about perfection; it’s about persistence.
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It’s not about perfection; it’s about persistence.

Another study from the University of California showed that gratitude exercises, like sending a kind text or reflecting on positive moments, measurably improve emotional well-being and relationships. Small actions ripple outward, creating compounding benefits over time.

Take Jerry Seinfeld, for example, who famously credits his success to a simple habit: writing jokes every day. He once shared his secret to productivity with a young comedian: get a wall calendar and mark off a big red X for every day you accomplish your goal. “After a few days, you’ll have a chain,” he explained. “Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. Your only job is not to break the chain.”

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“After a few days, you’ll have a chain, just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. Your only job is not to break the chain.”

This habit didn’t rely on grand leaps of creativity but on small, steady actions that compounded over time. Seinfeld’s daily commitment to writing jokes—good, bad, or in between—helped him build one of the most successful comedic careers of all time.

This philosophy of intentionality isn’t just something we admire—it’s woven into how we work. At a small studio, we created Identity Architecture to help individuals and organizations uncover who they are and who they aspire to become. It’s not a one-time discovery—it’s a daily practice, and why we often refer to our output as a Creative Operating System, which continues to evolve, but has foundational principles.

Identity Architecture is rooted in the idea that meaningful change happens incrementally. It invites people to reflect on their values, strengths, and impact as individuals and as a collective. Whether it’s the simple act of writing 100 words, taking 15 minutes to explore a design trend, or reaching out to someone you care about, these seemingly small actions define who we are.

Success isn't a single monumental leap.

As we move through 2025, let’s remember: success isn’t a single, monumental leap. It’s a series of steps—a quiet text to a friend, a longer hug, or five extra minutes of research on a topic you love. These actions may feel insignificant in isolation, but they’re anything but. They’re the seeds of transformation.

This year, we’re leaning into the philosophy of small wins. Not just as individuals, but as a studio. Each tiny effort contributes to a bigger picture, shaping the stories we tell, the identities we design, and the peace we strive to create.

So, take a small step today. Your future self is already grateful. And here’s the best part—you don’t have to do it alone. We’re right here with you, cheering you on.

Here’s to a year of intentional actions and compounded outcomes!

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If you’ve ever used a computer, you probably know what Ctrl_Z does (chill, Mac users, we know). For those who don’t, Ctrl_Z is a shortcut to undo your last action on most programs. It might just be as satisfying as using an eraser.

Sadly, in today’s marketplace, the creative industry is hitting Ctrl_Z on the next generation of talent.

With layoffs continuing regularly, we’re running out of that eraser. Soon, the paper is going to rip, and we’ll be left with a talent shortage.

After moving back to Cleveland in 2021, I realized the stark contrast between West Coast design talent and that of my hometown. Honestly, I wasn’t impressed with much coming out of the major corporations or agencies. It was hard for me to come to terms with this. However, as I slowly integrated into the design ecosystem, I found that older professionals had opportunities to showcase themselves, but emerging creatives were left to fend for themselves.

Panel after panel after panel… after panel (stop doing panels, people, I beg you), it was always the same thing: older professionals telling a crowd of younger ones what they should do. Honestly, most of the panelists had no idea what they were talking about and zero experience outside Cleveland. I digress.

Maybe I’m biased, but I don’t want to hear from the current regime. I want to hear from the next regime.

I want to know about the technology they love, the trends they find interesting, and how they see the world. In my last article, Is Gen Z Lazy, or Are You Just Basic?, I wrote about how impressed I am with this emerging generation.

For these reasons, we started Ctrl_Z to simply showcase the next generation of designers in Cleveland. Nothing more, nothing less. Why? Because it makes sense.

We partnered with AIGA Cleveland, which is led by Gen Z and has student chapters at the Cleveland Institute of Art, Kent State University, and Cleveland State University. It was a no-brainer to make it an open showcase for anyone in that generation. No competition, no judges, no red tape. Hopefully, this becomes more common.

This has been a beautiful way to wrap up an incredible year. Without the next generation Jake Lawall, Ella Choi, Sarah Cantor, Kyra Wells, Lauren Zawie, Audrey Pierson, Alex Miller, and all the creatives who submitted to the showcase this year none of this would be possible.

Thank you for being new.

Cleveland. To many, its name carries an air of misunderstood charm, if you know, you know. Since I met John, the Principal of a small studio, he has extolled his home city and its virtues. According to him, the world has overlooked this city's boundless potential and has been sleeping on all the incredible opportunities it offers.

Intrigued and perhaps skeptical (of his love and unending admiration for the 216), I packed my bags last week, left London behind, and crossed the Atlantic to experience and explore Cleveland, once more.

I found a city brimming with inspiration, resilience, and a surprising knack for embedding itself into your soul.

For me, the Cleveland experience started at the Gratitude Breakfast hosted by Stella Maris. I wasn't entirely prepared for how profoundly moving it would be. In that room, surrounded by people who had turned their lives around through connection and support, I felt a wave of humility. Their stories were raw, unfiltered, and deeply human. It was a vivid reminder of why an organization like Stella Maris is a lifeline and demonstrates how collaboration can rebirth a person, and in turn the community.

Then, we switched to work mode, presenting to the leadership team of one of the United States' most esteemed behavioral healthcare organizations. For over seven decades, they've been trailblazers in their field, yet when we revealed their Identity Narrative, it was as if they were seeing their reflection for the first time. Watching their faces light up as their story took on new clarity was deeply gratifying. It was a testament to the power of a small studio's creative operating system, Identity Architecture. That moment was a great reminder that the right visual and verbal identity can bring renewed purpose to even the most storied institutions.

The right visual and verbal identity can bring renewed purpose to even the most storied institutions.

I then met with Michael, a visionary partner spearheading a real estate revolution across the Great Lakes region. If you've seen Patina, you'll know what I mean when I say his ambition is nothing short of extraordinary. As we delved into his vision for the region, it was clear that Cleveland isn't just rebuilding; it's rethinking how cities, and individuals can thrive. Asides meeting Michael, I got to connect with Gavin, someone who has known John, all of his life, we toured the grounds of The iconic Westinghouse together, and I also enjoyed how Gavin teased John with warmth, admiration, and memories they made decades ago. It honestly made me regain an appreciation for anyone, and everyone who knew us growing up- the dynamics of the relationship is always so refreshing, because they are the ones who know how proud your younger-self would be of your current-self.

And not to forget the fact that I had a wonderful conversation with Adam, the founder Lounges, got a fresh-fade from him on the house, had an unbelievably fun photoshoot session, got exposed to artwork from emerging creatives across Cleveland, and got to record content with John too. All happened within the same space, it was like a Willy Wonka factory of intentional experiences. Now, I totally understand, why John favors the Lounges experience on certain days of the week. The spot is such a Vibe!

I also connected (in person) with the brilliant minds behind New Valley Labs, Dakota, and Rena. Over drinks, we traded dreams and ideas with the ease that comes from being among kindred spirits. They're not just fostering a startup ecosystem; they're really creating that "Greenhouse of a Founder revolution," which came out of our collaboration with them in rebuilding the identity of their company. Both founders are really reimagining how founders can be nurtured to grow on purpose. Their energy was contagious, their charm undeniable, and our conversations will likely echo in my mind for years to come.

Of course, no visit to Cleveland would be complete without exploring its cultural treasures. The Cleveland Museum of Art was breathtaking. Walking through the galleries, John and I wondered what artifacts our generation might leave behind. Will future museums showcase social media "tombstones," early iPhones, or even augmented reality relics? That playful speculation carried us through the exhibits, fueling conversations that seemed to stretch beyond time itself. We were lost in all the right moments of time.

Between meetings and musings, John made it his mission to show me the city's best coffee spots, too. According to him, Cleveland might just have the best coffee experience in the world (just kidding, he didn't say that), but I thoroughly enjoyed the endless caffeine-fueled conversations and experiences. Each café felt like a hidden gem, adding warmth and charm to what Cleveland represents.

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Throughout the trip, Kendrick Lamar's newly released album, GNX, was my soundtrack. Its layered beats and reflective lyrics seemed to align perfectly with Cleveland's rhythm. It turned every moment into something cinematic, whether I was presenting to a room full of executives, walking through an art gallery, or simply soaking in the city's energy.

As I write this back in London, it's clear this wasn't just a work trip. It was a far more profound mental and emotional nourishment that will shape a small studio's work in the coming months.
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In all its overlooked glory, Cleveland left a mark on me that I didn't expect.
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So, to John, thank you for being the most authentic host and ambassador Cleveland could ask for. You showed me a city full of promise, resilience, and an undeniable soul. And to Cleveland, thank you for being exactly what John said you'd be: a city with potential that feels like a secret you're lucky enough to uncover.

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✌🏽.

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Last week, I packed my bags, said goodbye to the East Coast, and flew solo to San Francisco to spend some face-to-face time with the Marketing UX Design Team at Niantic Labs! After years of collaborating remotely, finally working in person with the team was such a breath of fresh air—and let me tell you, their energy (and office) did not disappoint.

We believe that great design starts from a profound understanding of identity. That’s why we crafted our Identity Architecture framework and workshops that don’t tell you who you are (because no one really can) but introduce you to yourself with a refreshed perspective.

These workshops done in collaboration with large design teams, university students, founders etc. guide creative leaders to reflect on their deepest emotional-motivations to build what we fondly call a "creative operating system" for navigating life and work. After all, knowing what drives you is as essential as the work itself.

This philosophy and approach isn’t just a studio secret; it’s echoed in centuries of philosophical musings. David Hume, an 18th-century philosopher, famously claimed: “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.” To Hume, we are not purely rational beings moved by clear beliefs. Instead, emotions pull the strings, determining when we act, and when we don’t.

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Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.

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Rodrigo Díaz, in his recent work “Do Moral Beliefs Motivate Action?”, dives deep into this debate. He asks: do we follow our moral compass because we believe it’s the right path, or do we follow it because our feelings push us? For instance, think of the subtle, everyday choice to check on a neighbor’s well-being. Is it because you rationally know community matters, or is it the warmth of empathy that drives you?

Díaz’s studies provide evidence with two powerful experiments. During COVID-19, he explored whether people adhered to health guidelines out of belief or emotion. Spoiler: emotions led the way. When moral beliefs and emotional responses were compared, only emotions held the significant motivational power.

A second study used the “Dictator Game,” where participants had to decide how to split raffle tickets in low-stakes (a chance to win £10) versus high-stakes (£300) scenarios. In low-stakes situations, reason played a larger role. But when the stakes climbed, emotions took the wheel, leaving moral reasoning as little more than an adviser.

Díaz’s findings hint at a truth many of us feel but rarely admit:

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While we like to imagine ourselves as rational architects of our actions, our feelings often steer the ship, especially when the waves get rough.

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This doesn’t mean beliefs are empty words. They are the framework, but it’s our emotional energy that fills them with life.

During Identity Architecture workshops, participants often experience a range of emotions, from exhilaration to deep introspection, gaining unprecedented clarity about themselves. This journey unveils the raw truth: most designers pour an immense amount of emotion into their work—it’s often deeply personal.

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Understanding these emotional roots helps them harness their passion in a way that aligns with their values and serves their partners(clients) with greater authenticity.

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In the end, this process confirms why having a creative operating system grounded in clear values is crucial. It ensures that when emotions inevitably take the wheel, they’re driving toward a purpose aligned with who we want to be. It’s a testament to our humanity: we aren’t just machines of reason.

We’re beings moved by both the gentle nudge of belief and the powerful push of feelings(passions). And that’s what makes us not only relatable but resilient, serving with heart and intention.
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If you made it this far, you should sign up for our next Identity Architecture Workshop→ to unlock what makes you tick.

Inspired by Big Think→
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NB: The image featured in this Ding Article was created with AI.

I remember my first days as a creative professional. Freshman year of college, sitting in architecture studio with about a hundred other students, our professor told us bluntly that half of us wouldn’t make it through the year. And by graduation, that number had shrunk even more. Those intense college years have a way of staying with you. I still wake up some nights with my heart racing, thinking I’m minutes from a critique with an unfinished project. Waking up in cold sweats, out of breath, heart racing. The dread, fear, and anxiety—that stuff sticks.

Am I alone in this consistent dream?

But here’s the thing: it shouldn’t have to be this way. It’s frustrating to think that so many of us come out of school already conditioned to feel anxious. And now, fifteen years later, as I work with more and more young creatives, I see it all the time. The pressure is real—constant deadlines, client feedback that’s hard to pin down, competition with peers, worrying about job security.

Anxiety is baked into our industry!

Some people will say, “That’s just how it is.” But is that good enough? I don’t think so. When I look at how this industry works, I see anxiety driving much of it. It’s become part of the creative world’s culture, shaping how we work, how we view ourselves, and ultimately, how we handle our mental health.

It took me years of conversations with other creatives and countless replays of Inside Out 2 with my two-year-old to really see this. Whether it’s young designers starting out, seasoned pros, or clients managing huge budgets, there’s a common thread: anxiety.

Think about it. Anxiety, by definition, is “intense, excessive, and persistent worry about everyday situations.” Sound familiar? In architecture school, we had critiques 3 times a week. Now, in the industry, we’re evaluated by managers, clients, and colleagues daily. The pressure never really eases up, and this isn’t just “paying your dues.” We’re facing real, measurable fallout from this stress:

• 70% of media, marketing, and creative professionals experienced burnout in the last year, according to the 2024 Mentally Healthy Survey. In that same survey, young professionals under 30 report some of the highest levels of anxiety and depression, driving even higher burnout rates.

• 71% of agency workers felt burned out, with 65% saying their mental health declined because of work stress, according to a 2021 survey by The Drum.

I keep asking myself: why do we just accept this as “normal”? Yes, we could chalk it up to capitalism, but that’s the easy way out. Here’s the hard truth: if I burn out, that’s on me. Why? Because we all have some level of control over where we work, who we work with, and how we engage in this industry. But college didn’t teach me that.
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Instead, we were trained to follow orders or risk failure. We paid for the privilege of doing whatever the professor—i.e. the client—said. That might work in school, but it’s no way to build a sustainable career.

It’s time to make it plain for everyone to hear…anxiety and burnout are related. Surprise surprise! Below are five perspectives to showcase how anxiety feeds into burnout, and why it’s so common in creative fields:

• Anxiety fuels burnout. It drives us to meet deadlines, strive for perfection, and avoid mistakes at all costs. This “fight-or-flight” mode drains us over time, leading to burnout.

• Anxiety keeps us working too much. To avoid criticism, we work longer hours, avoid delegating, and pile on projects. This creates a vicious cycle that pushes us faster toward burnout.

• Anxiety and burnout create exhaustion. Anxiety drains us through constant worry, while burnout saps us through prolonged overwork. Together, they leave us mentally and emotionally exhausted.

• Anxiety makes recovery harder. Even when we see burnout coming, anxiety stops us from taking a break. We worry about letting people down or missing out on opportunities, which keeps us in the burnout loop.

• Anxiety drains creativity. It feeds self-doubt and perfectionism, while burnout saps our motivation. Together, they make it hard to create, innovate, or even feel inspired.

Understanding the link between anxiety and burnout reveals how they perpetuate a cycle that’s hard to break in creative industries. Recognizing this, we can understand why some see design as becoming a commodity, or why Gen-Z, often labeled “lazy,” might actually be on to something. Stephanie Harrison’s New Happy may indeed be what we need right now.

So, what can you do? This might sound tough, but here it is:
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‍Take control of your creative health. The industry doesn’t define your well-being—you do.

No deadline or project is worth your mental health. If a role or environment feels off, it probably is. You have a responsibility to protect your creativity and well-being, even when it means pushing back against what’s “normal.”

You deserve a career that respects your mind and nurtures your creativity. Start demanding that respect now—from professors, bosses, and clients. If you don’t, anxiety will take the wheel, and burnout will be right around the corner. But if you take steps to protect your mental health, set boundaries, and work with people who value you, you’ll build a career that’s sustainable, fulfilling, and creatively rich.
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Your creativity is one of a kind. Only you can bring it to life. Protect it, nourish it, and don’t let this industry’s culture of anxiety erode what makes you, you. ‍
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The cycle can end with us. Let’s make sure this industry empowers creativity instead of burning it to ashes.

If you are an advocate for creative health, we want to work with you. Let’s talk.

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I remember my early days as a creative professional, sitting in an architecture studio surrounded by the nervous energy of peers, all tense and wide-eyed as we heard that not all of us would make it through the year. Those moments carved a groove of anxiety that stayed with me, surfacing sometimes in late-night jolts, heartbeat quickening at the memory of unfinished work and relentless critiques.

But today, this anxiety isn't just personal or professional; it’s collective.

The United States has just navigated another seismic election cycle, and the results have left many waking in the same cold sweats I know so well.

For countless individuals—immigrants, LGBTQ+ communities, women seeking bodily autonomy, and those who live with the reality of systemic bias—uncertainty can grip like a vice. The fear of what’s next hangs heavy in the air.

Yet, this shouldn't be the way we exist. It shouldn’t be normal that national moments leave us on the edge of breathlessness, as if waiting for a critique that could define our futures. Just as I saw the creative industry conditioned to accept anxiety as a given, we as a nation have internalized this worry as the price of living through tumultuous times.

Anxiety, by definition, is “intense, excessive, and persistent worry about everyday situations.” And right now, that rings familiar, doesn't it? It reflects not just in the professional world or college memories, but in our living rooms, on our news feeds, and in whispered conversations.

Here’s where we stand, with some eye-opening data that might resonate:

• 70% of media and creative professionals reported burnout last year, echoing broader public sentiment, as per the 2024 Mentally Healthy Survey.
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• In surveys of younger adults, many indicate that societal anxiety contributes to both their professional and personal stress.
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• 71% of agency workers felt their mental health decline due to workplace stress in past years—a mirror to national trends exacerbated by political and social turbulence.

This perpetual cycle isn't just “paying our dues”; it’s a clear sign we need change. As individuals, we have the power to reclaim some control. This isn’t a naive declaration that everything can be changed overnight or solely by our will. But in the face of an anxious society, we have choices: to breathe deeply, to pause, to reclaim how we approach the future with curiosity, grace, and intention.

Five Perspectives on Navigating a Nation of Anxiety:

• Anxiety feeds fatigue. When driven by worry, we may find ourselves in a constant state of vigilance that drains us over time.
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• It fosters overreaction. To quiet our fears, we might make quick decisions without the space for thoughtful reflection.
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• It stifles collective progress. Persistent worry discourages innovation and breeds mistrust.
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• Recovery feels daunting. Even when seeking solace, anxiety whispers that rest is a luxury we can’t afford.
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• It erodes resilience. Anxiety chips away at the creativity needed for collective solutions.

We don’t have to surrender to this narrative. What does this mean in practical terms?

Take that deep breath. Assess your reality not just through the lens of fear but curiosity. Embrace grace as you encounter differing perspectives and seek out allies committed to a kinder future.

We have the responsibility, as creatives, citizens, and humans, to demand better—for ourselves and each other. Anxiety may be baked into the present, but our response can shape the future. Let’s insist on that deep exhale. The world, and our individual creativity, need it.

If you are struggling with anxiety as a creative, feel free to reach out for how we can support here.

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Breathe in…and then breathe out. That moment of pause is akin to the Japanese design philosophy of Ma- a design concept rooted in Zen Buddhism and Japanese culture, that transcends minimalism to create beauty and meaning through deliberate use of empty space.  

The Ma aesthetic is an ancient one, which represents the spaces between, enhancing rather than diminishing what’s there. Like the interlude in a song or silence in a conversation, Ma creates room to breathe, reflect, and appreciate.

The kanji character for Ma (間) combines the symbols for "gate" (門) and "sun" (日), visually representing sunlight streaming through a gate: a momentary glimpse that captures the essence of transient beauty. This imagery encapsulates the idea that Ma is about the intervals that allow for moments of reflection and appreciation.

Ma emphasizes the idea of “in-betweenness,” the value of what’s not explicitly present. It’s seen in the spaces within temples, the rhythm in Japanese poetry, and the structure of Japanese rooms that use sliding panels to create versatile, open layouts.

Ma invites mindfulness and intentionality, reminding us that design is as much about the spaces we leave untouched as the ones we fill.

Whether it’s fashion, interiors, or digital interfaces, Ma is about the art of subtraction, making the remaining elements resonate powerfully.

In today’s visually overloaded world, Ma brings a refreshing counterpoint. It's the touch that turns simplicity into sophistication. Brands and creatives leverage Ma to evoke calm, clarity, and elegance, fostering a sense of completeness with less. Here’s how it unfolds across different design landscapes:

• Fashion: Japanese designers like Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto are masters of Ma. Their work often incorporates voluminous shapes and negative space, letting fabric and form breathe. It’s no accident that their designs feel both minimal and deeply expressive; each piece communicates a quiet luxury where less truly becomes more.
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• Digital Design: Apple’s interface design is a shining example of Ma in the digital realm. With generous white space around icons and a clean, uncluttered UI, the brand invites users to navigate with ease and intention. This strategic simplicity fosters focus, making each interaction feel meaningful and elegant.
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• Illustration and Graphic Design: Ma is not just about empty space but deliberate placement, too. Look to Muji’s packaging design: simple, unadorned yet full of quiet sophistication. By giving each element space, the design allows consumers to focus on the essentials, evoking a sense of calm and order.
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• Furniture Design: Furniture Design:Ma shines in the aesthetic of Scandinavian brand Muuto. Through embracing space, silence, subtle color palettes, and clean lines. Each piece by Muuto is crafted to honor both its functional purpose and the empty space. It's about creating furniture that feels spacious, grounded, and intuitively welcoming.

Embracing Ma requires a shift in perspective: it’s about creating space, not filling it. Whether you're designing a brand or organizing your workspace, think of Ma as the air that breathes life into form. Imagine your work as a conversation where silence plays as much a role as the words spoken.

Ma invites us to approach our creative processes with intention, leaving room for interpretation and experience. It’s more than just a design principle; it’s a reminder to pause, reflect, and embrace the beauty of what lies between.

Identity Architecture is a small studio’s manifestation of Ma, as a deliberate pause to gain clarity of identity for individuals and organizations. We have just concluded a new identity work that epitomizes the thought-process of Ma, and we will be sharing it with you soon.

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A powerful distinction often goes unnoticed in our creative world: the difference between a "vitamin" and a "painkiller." This little mental shift can redefine your value to partners and turn your work from transactional to transformational. Think of it this way: Are you offering something that's a nice-to-have, or something they simply can't live without? Let's explore this idea a little more.

Let's be honest; vitamins are great; they keep you healthy and add that little spring to your step, but they are also notoriously easy to forget. How often have you stared at a bottle of multivitamins, shrugged, and said, "Eh, I'll remember tomorrow"? That's precisely how your work is perceived if it's seen as just adding some flair. It's beneficial, sure, but easily deferrable. If your partner doesn't feel the urgency, your dazzling design or strategic touch might be left in the proverbial medicine cabinet; nice, but not critical.

Imagine a partner who wants to "freshen up" their website. They think, "Let's make it look nice, add some shiny graphics. "That's vitamin thinking; good for long-term health, but they could live without it. But if you point out that their outdated site is losing customers daily because people can't navigate it (ouch, the pain!), suddenly, your redesign is no longer just a nice add-on. It's a pain killer. The kind they needed yesterday.

Painkillers are absolute necessities. If you've got a splitting headache, you won't say, "I'll deal with this next week." No, you need that painkiller now. It's the same with creative work. The secret is showing your partners how you can solve their urgent, can't-sleep-at-night kind of problems. Whether it's cutting through a cluttered market, nailing brand resonance, or getting them out of a sticky identity crisis, you're not just a nice embellishment; you're the answer to their current agony.

For example, your partner thinks they need a new logo. They need a redefined brand that helps their customers connect with them on a deeper level. A shiny logo might look great (yay, vitamins!), but without a deeper strategy, it's just that; a logo. However, a visual and verbal identity that authentically resonates? That's the kind of stuff that makes headaches go away. You're not just putting a band-aid on the symptom but eliminating the cause.

Your partners may walk in saying, "We need a fresh campaign." But it's your job to dig deeper and ask, "Why?" Maybe they need to gain traction, their competitors are pulling ahead, or their messaging is about as clear as a foggy windshield. You need to diagnose the real problem, not just treat the symptom. When you do this, you're no longer seen as just another service provider; you're the one who truly understands their needs; the one administering the cure they didn't even know they needed.

To be a painkiller, empathy is critical. You must understand what keeps your partners tossing and turning at night.

When you actively listen and demonstrate how your work directly solves those sleepless nights, things shift from transactional to transformational.

If your partners ask for a flashy video, and you realize they need a consistent brand story that emotionally connects with their audience, deliver that more profound solution. They'll see you as indispensable, not just someone who followed orders.

Take, for instance, a partner who says, "We want more engagement on social media." Instead of serving up a graphic (vitamin), dig deeper; maybe their brand voice is inconsistent, or the content doesn't meet their target audience's needs. By offering a strategy that resonates and connects, you're giving them the painkiller, a solution that cuts right to the root of their struggle.

Here's a good rule of thumb: after a project wraps, if your partner can clearly articulate what's different, tangible growth, clearer messaging, and increased engagement, you've successfully delivered a painkiller. But if they shrug and say,"Well, it looks better,I guess" you've handed them a vitamin. The difference is in how you solve problems and how visible that impact is.

Don't let your work be forgettable. Make it vital, make it transformative. You're not just adding a garnish to their business; you're helping them move forward, solve real problems, and find clarity and purpose.

Be the painkiller, not the vitamin.

Because when you're the painkiller, your partners will never forget to come back for their dose. Next time you're working on a brief, ask yourself: am I just making this pretty, or am I genuinely solving their deepest pains? Make it the latter, and your partners will keep coming back, not because they should, but because they absolutely need to.

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Painkiller, anyone?

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Ps: The podcast version was created using Google's NotebookLM