The Feed

Some Creatives have been carrying a particular story for a long time. The need for the solitary genius. The artist in the studio at two in the morning, alone with the work, answerable to no one. We gripped that image so hard and for so long that many of us built entire careers around it without stopping to ask whether it was actually serving us or just making a specific kind of suffering feel like a credential.

Ernest Hemingway made the definitive case for it in his 1954 Nobel Prize acceptance speech: writing, at its best, is a lonely life. He had it delivered by proxy, by the way. He was too depressed to travel to Norway. Seven years later, he was dead, and that’s something to have behind the back of all our minds.

There is a difference between solitude and isolation that rarely gets named, and it matters more for your work than almost any other distinction.

Solitude is the quiet you choose. The uninterrupted morning, walks where the idea finally untangles. Isolation is something else entirely. It is loneliness with no visible exit.

The condition of being cut off from real connection, while the story you tell yourself about independence sounds exactly the same from both sides of the line. By the time you notice you have crossed it, you have usually been on the wrong side for a while.

Psychologists Jean Baker Miller and Irene Stiver described isolation as among the most destructive things a person can experience. Not in the way, obvious suffering is dramatic. More like moisture getting into a foundation; slow, structural. You do not notice the damage until something in the load starts to shift. For creatives, the damage tends to show up in the work first.

When you are genuinely isolated, your inputs narrow without you realizing it. You stop getting friction from people whose brains are wired differently.

The kind of accidental collision of ideas that happens when you are physically near someone thinking differently, that stops. You start circling your own references. The work gets sharper in some respects and less strange in most others. Precise without surprise, and skilled without being particularly yours. It loses something hard to name but easy to feel when it is missing.

Vivek Murthy documented this in his work with enough specificity that it is hard to wave away. Gallup polling found that workers with a genuine friend at work, not a professional acquaintance but someone they could actually be real with, showed measurably higher creative output. Not a marginal difference. Murthy argued that prolonged loneliness keeps the nervous system in a low-grade stress state, and that sustained stress quietly compresses the cognitive functions that creative work relies on most. The ability to hold two contradictory ideas long enough to find what lives between them. Pattern recognition that gets somewhere before the logic catches up. Those do not thrive under chronic isolation. You end up solving narrower problems more efficiently. Which is a real skill, but not the same as doing your best work.

The World Health Organization found that 1 in 6 people worldwide experience persistent loneliness.

Among younger creatives who entered the workforce during the pandemic, started remote, and freelanced or worked in very small teams, it is almost certainly higher. A 2023 survey found that 79% of remote workers aged 18 to 24 reported feeling lonely at work sometimes or often.

The harder problem for creatives is that the industry has developed a real affection for the behaviors that get you there. We respect the person too deeply in a project to surface. We admire the freelancer who answers to no one. We post work at midnight and call it commitment. The look of isolation and the look of serious creative work have been so thoroughly confused with each other that recognizing one from the other, in yourself, requires a degree of honesty most people do not naturally apply to their own calendar.

Who sees your work before it is finished?

The actual work, mid-process, still being figured out, with uncertainties you have not yet resolved. If the answer is no one, that is worth sitting with. Not because work needs an audience at every stage, but because the people who see unfinished things are often the ones who make them what they eventually become. The question from someone who does not know what they are looking at. The colleague who says this is not landing turns out to be right. That is not a disruption to the creative process.

A small studio has operated this way for years, practically, not as a philosophy statement. Radical transparency. Open Office Hours. Vibe Checks that start Monday, not with project status but with how people actually are. One in-person retreat, even a short one, can carry a remote team’s chemistry for six months or longer. Because when people share physical space, something happens that does not happen on a screen, and the trust that comes out of it makes honest conversation about unfinished work possible in a way it otherwise is not.

The loneliness economy is estimated at over $500 billion globally. People are paying for rent-a-friend services. Co-working spaces are selling community memberships instead of desks. Friendship apps with millions of users.

That is a lot of capital chasing a need that, for most creatives, has a less expensive answer: other people.

Not followers or clients. People who know what you are working on before it is done have seen you get something wrong and were there when you tried again.

Solitude may help sharpen you, but isolation costs you. Most people only figure out which one they are in when the bill comes due.

Design and tech industries have treated friction as a villain for the past decade. It shows up in user research as a problem to eliminate. Appears in countless product reviews as a complaint. Entire careers have been built around hunting it down.

We’ve all gotten good at killing it. Swipe to pay. Autoplay the next episode. Infinite scroll, so the feed never ends, and you never have to decide to keep going. The design philosophy of the 2010s was one long campaign against anything that made you wait, think, or try. And by most metrics, it worked. The internet got faster, smoother, and stickier than anyone in 1999 would have believed possible.

So what did we actually lose?

A completely frictionless experience produces consumption without commitment.

Scrolling without stopping, reacting without reflecting. You have felt it: an hour on a platform built for maximum pleasantness, and you arrive on the other side with nothing. No idea what stuck or which image stayed with you. Just a kind of pleasant numbness and the faint awareness that time went somewhere while you were not paying attention.

The design industry spent years building that experience, only to start wondering why people do not remember brands or feel loyal to products. The answer was in the design the whole time.

When nothing resists you, nothing matters to you.

This is not a theory because behavioral economists, including a well-documented Harvard Business School research thread, have consistently shown that people assign greater value to things they have struggled to make or obtain. The IKEA effect is not a quirk, but the mechanism. You love the bookshelf partly because of the three hours on the floor with that infuriating hex key. The struggle is not the price you pay for the reward, but it is often the reward.

The same logic has moved quietly into creative work itself. Look at how we talk about tools that make creative work easier. AI removes the gap between idea and execution. Templates eliminate the blank page. Optimization tools score your work before it reaches an audience. Each of these is useful. Together, they are building a creative practice with very little resistance, and that is worth sitting with.

The blank page was not just an obstacle. It was where your thinking happened.

The struggle with a brief you cannot crack is not only frustrating. It is the process by which you actually understand the problem. That presentation you prepared until you could feel every weak argument and every place the story does not hold: that repetition is not just practice. It is where the idea gets real. Take away the friction, and you often take the depth with it.

Cal Newport’s Slow Productivity framework, which has been resonating with many creative professionals in 2026, makes this case plain. Original work cannot be rushed. It requires sustained attention and time at a natural pace. The always-on, frictionless productivity mode is not simply exhausting. It actively eats the conditions that produce original thinking. You can have speed or depth. Getting both requires you to be honest about which one you are actually choosing.

Everyone is noticing this, too. This year, researchers and investors have begun documenting what is being called the IRL economy, a measurable swing back toward experiences that are effortful, in-person, and slow. Venture capital investment in real-world consumer experiences rose 25% between 2023 and the end of 2024.

Zine culture and Substack aesthetics, both deliberate, labor-intensive modes of expression, surged 85% year-over-year on design platforms.

Canva tracked a spike in lo-fi and analog styles across every creative category in its community of 260 million users.

People are not doing this because they hate convenience. They are doing it because easy is not the same as meaningful, and at some level, everyone can feel the difference.

There is a version of creative leadership entirely about optimization. Shortest path from brief to deliverable. Every source of slowness removed. Consistent, competent output with as little struggle as possible. The tools available right now are extraordinary for that. You can run a productive operation that delivers reliably and feels, from the inside, like it is working perfectly.

A few years in, you might look at the work and wonder why it does not have a soul.

The question worth asking is not: how do I make my creative process faster?

It is: which parts of my process are worth protecting from efficiency?

Not all of them. Some friction is just friction. But some of it is the thinking. Some of it is what makes the work specifically yours, rather than something that could have come from anyone or anything, at any time, for any client.

In a world where fast and technically good are all available on a subscription, being willing to go slowly starts to look less like a limitation and more like a position.

Peace.

‍

Everyone is asking whether AI will replace the creative director, senior strategist, or seasoned brand builder with twenty years of client relationships. The answer, for now, is no. So many creative leaders are exhaling, quietly relieved, moving on.

What they are not asking is the question that actually keeps the profession alive.

What happens to the juniors?

A 2025 working paper by Harvard economists Seyed Hosseini and Guy Lichtinger analyzed résumé and job posting data from 62 million workers across 285,000 U.S. firms. Their finding: at companies that adopted generative AI, junior employment fell roughly 8 to 10 percent relative to non-adopters within six quarters. Senior employment at those same companies continued to grow.

Do the math across an industry.

Pinterest cut 675 roles in early 2026, citing AI adoption. Block eliminated 40 percent of its workforce; CEO Jack Dorsey wrote to shareholders that "intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company." Entry-level hiring across the knowledge economy has dropped by more than 50% over the past 3 years. Challenger, Gray, and Christmas recorded 55,000 job cuts directly attributed to AI in 2025. Twelve times the number from two years prior.

The creative class has mostly seen this as a tech-sector story, but it is not.

A junior creative job is not a role on an org chart, but a much-needed transfer mechanism.

The specific, unrepeatable process by which everything a senior creative has built through fifteen years of failure, instinct, and hard-won judgment gets passed to the next person.

It happens in the correction of a layout that is almost right but not quite. In the debrief after a client presentation goes sideways. In the moment, a creative director says: "I see what you were going for; here is why it does not work; here is how I think about that." That conversation does not happen with a prompt. It happens because a junior is in the room, failing forward, with a senior paying enough attention to catch it.

Every profession that requires judgment, not just competence, reproduces itself through apprenticeship. Architecture, surgery, law:

Formal training gives you vocabulary, while the junior role gives you the actual education.

How to read a brief and know what it is not saying. How to look at a visual direction and understand why it will fall apart in front of a real audience. How to push back on a client without losing the work or the relationship. None of that accumulates through prompts. It accumulates through proximity to people who have been through it, and through enough safe failure of your own to develop a feel for when you are about to get it wrong again.

Remove the proximity, and you are surely removing the education.

Some of the future creative directors are in their formative years right now. They are either getting that education, or they are not. A growing number are not, because the companies that would have provided it have decided a leaner, more senior team with better tools is more efficient. Which it probably is, for about five years.

There is a second problem that gets less attention than the pipeline one.

The junior creative is not just a vessel for knowledge from above. They are also a source of pressure from below. In most agencies and studios, they are the people closest to the culture.

The ones who notice a campaign concept has already aged before the senior team would. Push back on the brief, not because they have the authority, but because they do not yet know they are not supposed to. The ones bringing in references from outside the industry's default canon because their visual diet has not been shaped by twenty years of the same award shows.

When that is gone, the senior team does not get smarter. It gets more efficient and more uniform. The ideas are narrowing. After a few years, the work starts to feel like it was made by people who have stopped being surprised, which is not a failure of talent. It is what happens when a room stops getting challenged.

For emerging creatives, the question is not whether the path has changed. It has, pretty significantly.

The more useful question is: where does the education still exist?

Probably not a junior role at a large agency, at least not in the volume those jobs previously existed. More likely a mix of smaller studios where senior creatives are still close enough to the work to teach, real projects with real consequences, and deliberate proximity to people further along, sought out rather than assigned by an org chart. It is a less institutionalized path that requires more initiative. It is also, honestly, not a bad way to learn.

For creative leaders, the question is less comfortable.

The efficiency gains from a leaner, AI-augmented team are real. So is the cost of what is not being built: the next generation of creative judgment, the knowledge that does not get transferred, the junior challenge that does not push the senior consensus.

That cost is real, and it just arrives years later, as a gradual softening in the quality and originality of the work. Which is a harder thing to point to in a meeting than a headcount reduction, and an easier thing to ignore until it is expensive to fix.

Nobody is going to greenlight a junior hire to protect the future of craft.

That is not how organizations make decisions. But the creative leaders who understand what is actually at stake will find ways to rebuild the transfer anyway: deliberately, structurally, on purpose.

Because the alternative is a profession that gets very good at using the tools, and slowly forgets how to teach anyone why the work matters.

Peace.

‍

You know the look, you have probably given it yourself without even realizing it. Someone shows a little too much enthusiasm for a project. Shares work-in-progress in the group chat, raises their hand first, pitches an idea with genuine excitement, and admits out loud that they spent the whole weekend on something that actually matters to them.

And somebody, somewhere, almost instantly, raises an eyebrow.

That eyebrow, a single barely-there contraction of muscle and social judgment, is cringe culture in its purest, most quietly devastating form.

We are living through a peculiar moment in human behavior. Across creative industries, digital platforms, and physical workplaces alike, a norm has calcified: the safest social position is one of detached irony.

To care too much is to expose yourself, and to try too hard is to be naive. Failing publicly is a cautionary tale people screenshot. And so, slowly and without fanfare, people begin to sand down their enthusiasm until it is smooth, unrecognizable, and harmless to no one, including themselves.

What is Cringe Exactly?

The word "cringe," in its modern social usage, is relatively recent. But the behavior it describes is ancient. Anthropologists have long studied social ridicule as a mechanism of group conformity. From an evolutionary standpoint, being mocked by your tribe was a genuine threat: exclusion could mean death. So the brain wired itself to fear embarrassment almost as intensely as physical danger.

What has changed is the scale, because social media has given the audience infinite size and infinite memory. A moment of earnest vulnerability that might once have been witnessed by twelve people in a room is now potentially visible to twelve million, forever indexed, infinitely replayable.

The internet has industrialized cringe.

Dr. Christian Jarrett, a cognitive neuroscientist and editor of the British Psychological Society's Research Digest, has written extensively on the psychology of embarrassment. His research describes how "vicarious embarrassment," also called empathic embarrassment, activates the same neural regions as personal embarrassment. In practical terms: watching someone else "try too hard" triggers the same discomfort in an observer as if they themselves had tried and failed. The brain, being the efficient and occasionally cowardly organ that it is, learns to preempt that discomfort by discouraging the behavior altogether.

The result is self-censorship in its purest form.

The Science of Shrinking

In 2016, researchers at the University of Houston published a landmark study led by Dr. Brene Brown (a personal favorite of ours at a small studio), whose work on vulnerability has since become foundational in behavioral psychology. The study found that shame, which is distinct from guilt but closely related to social fear, is the primary emotion that disengages people from creative risk-taking. Brown's research identified that individuals who score high on shame resilience are consistently more creative, more innovative, and more willing to present novel ideas in group settings. Those with low shame resilience, by contrast, default to safe, predictable outputs even when they privately possess more original thinking.

In short, cringe culture hurts feelings and kills ideas before they are born.

A 2021 paper published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology deepened this further. Researchers found that the fear of social ridicule, what they termed "mockability threat," suppressed creative output by as much as 36 percent in group environments. Participants who were told their ideas would be evaluated by peers produced significantly less original work than those who believed they were working in a judgment-free context. The mere anticipation of the eyebrow was enough to collapse the creative field.

And it is not just about individuals. A 2019 study from Harvard Business School on psychological safety in teams, building on Google's famous Project Aristotle research, confirmed that teams where members feared ridicule produced fewer breakthrough innovations. The companies that dominated their categories over a ten-year period were statistically far more likely to report cultures where "trying and failing publicly" was normalized rather than stigmatized.

You do not just lose one idea when you silence someone who cared. You lose every idea they would have had if they had felt safe enough to keep going.

A Song on Cringe Culture

Sometimes, the clearest diagnosis of a cultural moment does not come from a research paper, but from someone who was paying attention and had the courage to say the quiet part out loud artistically.

The group Infinity Stone wrote a song called "Hater's Anthem," and it is one of the most precise, deadpan, and quietly devastating pieces of cultural commentary in recent memory. The song does not argue against the hater, but becomes one. Speaks entirely in the hater's voice, from the hater's perspective, with no apology or irony withheld. And in doing so, it holds a mirror up so clearly that it is genuinely difficult to look away.

See some of the lyrics here, and then watch the video:

“I love the way it feels to be a hater

Something so sweet about thinking that I'm better

Just to wake up every morning

Lay in bed and somehow never, ever rise to the occasion

Or even hold up under pressure

But we all know that it doesn't even matter

If I waste away and no one thinks I'm clever

Just as long I've got my ego

And it tells me I'm superior...”

What it reveals is equal parts hilarious and sobering: the hater is not powerful; they are just so comfortable.  Comfort is the reward for never trying, and ego is the currency that makes that comfort feel like dignity. The sideline is the safest place in the world to stand when you have convinced yourself that you could have won if you had wanted to.

"I could've crossed the finish line." That line should be printed on the wall of every creative studio on the planet, or it might make for a great wallpaper. It is the sentence that lives rent-free in the head of every person who decided that calling something cringe was safer than making something themselves.

The genius of the song is its total absence of sentimentality and not begging the hater to change. But simply describing them, in their own comfortable, mediocre, ego-soothed terms, and letting the description do the work. By the time you reach the end, you are not angry at the hater; you are just very, very clear that you do not want to be them.

The reframe we all need

Caring is not a personality flaw, and no amount of ironic detachment or well-placed eyebrows should ever engineer it out of us. Humans are creatures built for connection, contribution, and creative expression, and the capacity to care deeply, invest real effort, and share it with others, even when that feels exposed, is the operating system. Every version of the creative process that skips the earnest trying and the unglamorous getting back up is not creativity.

You will sometimes fail in public, and someone will notice, and it will be uncomfortable in the specific way that only genuinely trying things can be. So was every meaningful thing humans have ever made. The cathedral builders of medieval Europe spent lifetimes on structures they would never see completed, and nobody called that cringe. The products that changed your life were built by people who were very publicly wrong before they were right, and who showed up again the next morning regardless. Caring, adjusting, and caring again is not the exception to how creativity works. It is the entire description of how it has always worked.

As long as humans exist, trying and falling short in public will be part of the design. Not a perfect one, but ours, and it belongs to all of us equally: the brilliant and the fumbling, the confident and the terrified. The people who have done the most extraordinary things within this imperfect and entirely human design are not the ones who mastered the art of not caring. They are the ones who kept caring anyway, without a guaranteed audience, without waiting for permission, and without ever once making it look effortless.

You know that song now.

You know exactly what the comfortable alternative looks like at ninety-nine. Rise above it.

Peace.

There is a particular kind of pressure that only reveals character. It’s not the polite pressure of a client pushing back on a concept or the awkward pressure of a deadline creeping too close. We are talking about the other sort. The kind where the most powerful institution on earth points its finger at you, calls you a national security risk, and gives you until 5:01 p.m. on a Friday to comply or face consequences.

That is the situation Anthropic found itself in last week. And what they did is worth studying carefully.

They said no.

Not a soft no or a 'let's revisit this later' no. It also wasn’t a carefully worded press release that hedges every clause. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei looked at a $200 million contract, at the full weight of the United States government leaning in, and said: "Our position is clear. We have these two red lines. We've had them from day one. We are still advocating for those red lines. We're not going to move on those red lines."

The deadline passed. President Trump ordered every federal agency to immediately cease using Anthropic's technology. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth labeled the company a supply chain risk, a designation typically reserved for foreign adversaries. Anthropic said they would see them in court.

Class is in session.

First, the Facts

Anthropic has held a contract with the Pentagon worth up to $200 million to, in their own words, 'advance responsible AI in defense operations.' They are the only AI company whose model has been cleared to run on classified defense networks. That is not a small deal, it is trust at the highest level of government.

The disagreement was deceptively simple. The Pentagon wanted the right to use Anthropic's Claude model for 'all lawful purposes.' Anthropic drew two specific lines in the sand: no use for domestic mass surveillance of Americans, and no use for fully autonomous weapons systems where humans are removed from the decision to use lethal force.

The Pentagon's position was essentially: we know the law, we are not planning to do those things, so just remove the restrictions from the contract. Anthropic's position was equally clear: the law has not kept pace with AI capabilities, today's models are not reliable enough for autonomous lethal decisions, and a written guarantee means more than a verbal one.

President Trump called them a 'radical left, woke company.' Hegseth called them 'sanctimonious.' A Pentagon official said Amodei had a 'God-complex.' And every major competitor, including OpenAI's Sam Altman, said publicly that they agreed with Anthropic's red lines.

The market called it a crisis of epic proportion. Anthropic called it a Tuesday.

What Identity Actually Costs

The creative community understands this better than most: identity is not only what you say about yourself on a website, it is more about what you do when it costs something.

Anthropic was founded in 2021 by Dario Amodei, Daniela Amodei, and a group of researchers who left OpenAI specifically because they were worried about AI safety. That was not a marketing decision. That was a worldview. They wrote a 'Constitutional AI' framework. They published research on model alignment. Built what they call a 'Claude Constitution,' a set of guiding principles baked into how their model thinks and behaves.

Every single one of those decisions was a bet. A bet that the world would eventually reward careful, intentional, thoughtful AI development. A bet that being the company that says 'we do not think AI is ready for this yet' is a more defensible position than being the company that says 'yes' to every contract.

Last week, that bet got tested at scale. And Anthropic did not flinch.

That is identity. Not the mission statement framed on the wall or the values listed in the employee handbook. The decision made at 4:58 p.m. on a Friday when the pressure is maximum and the consequences are real.

The Brand Was Never the Logo

In the creative world, we spend enormous energy on brand. Typefaces, color palettes, tone of voice guides, brand books that run to 120 pages. And all of that matters. Genuinely. But what Anthropic demonstrated last week is that the deepest brand asset any organization can hold is behavioral consistency under pressure.

Think about what it would have meant for Anthropic to cave. To quietly remove the two clauses. To take the money and hope nobody noticed. In the short term, they keep a $200 million contract. In the long term, they become indistinguishable from every other AI lab. The thing that made them Anthropic, that specific, deliberate, methodical carefulness about what AI should and should not be used for, disappears the moment it becomes inconvenient.

You cannot build a brand around being careful and then stop being careful when someone important asks you to.

The brand is the behavior, and the behavior is the brand. They are not separate things.

This is why the most powerful brands in the world are not the ones with the prettiest logos. But the ones whose logos remind you of something they actually did.

One of None

We have written before in Ding! about the difference between being one of many and being one of none. In a world where AI companies are multiplying by the week, where every tech giant is rolling out a model, where the features converge and the benchmarks blur, Anthropic has done something extraordinarily difficult: they have made themselves genuinely irreplaceable in a specific way.

You cannot replace Anthropic with a company that will say yes to everything. The two things are not equivalent products. When the Pentagon's own lawyers, Republican and Democratic senators, and even rival CEOs publicly backed Anthropic's position, they were not just being polite. They were acknowledging that the red lines Anthropic drew are legitimate, principled limits that the industry should hold.

Sam Altman, Anthropic's fiercest competitor, told CNBC: 'For all the differences I have with Anthropic, I mostly trust them as a company, and I think they really do care about safety.'

That is not a competitor talking. That is the market recognizing that Anthropic has built something real.

That recognition is the consequence of years of behavioral consistency. Of being the company that publishes its reasoning, the company that says 'we are not sure yet, so we are not going to.' Of being, in a world of move-fast-and-break-things, the company that deliberately slows down to think.

That positioning cannot be bought. It can only be built, slowly, through decision after decision after decision. Including this one.

Emerging Creatives Can Actually Learn Here

If you are early in your creative career, you are going to face a version of this moment. Probably not a trillion-dollar government contract. But the shape of it will feel familiar: someone with significantly more power than you is asking you to compromise the thing that makes you you, and they are framing the compromise as reasonable, inevitable, or patriotic.

It might be a client who wants you to design something you find dishonest. It might be a studio that wants you to replicate someone else's style and call it your own, or a creative director who wants you to be quieter, smaller, less opinionated. The pressure will feel enormous because it usually comes attached to money or opportunity or the fear of what happens if you say no.

Anthropic's answer, and the answer this Ding! wants to offer you, is this: the moment you abandon the specific thing that makes you irreplaceable, you become replaceable.

The price of that contract was Anthropic's identity. And identity, once sold, is almost impossible to buy back.

This does not mean you should be rigid for the sake of being difficult. Anthropic was not being difficult. They negotiated for months. Made clear what they would and would not agree to. Tried every good-faith path. What they would not do is remove the core principle that differentiates them from every other option on the market.

Know what your red lines are before the pressure arrives. Because when someone is standing in front of you with a Friday deadline and significant consequences attached, it is too late to figure out who you are. You have to already know.

The Bottom Line

Anthropic is going to be fine. They are valued at approximately $380 billion. They have deep enterprise relationships that the Pentagon's designation cannot touch. They have the backing of the most respected voices in the industry. And they have, as of last week, demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that their commitment to responsible AI development is not a marketing gimmick.

The lesson here is really about what they proved in the act of refusing. They proved that their brand is real. And that their values are operational, not aspirational. That when you have spent years building a reputation for thinking carefully about hard things, that reputation shows up when it matters most.

The most important creative leaders we know are people who figured out early what they would not do. Not because they were arrogant. Because they understood that saying no to the wrong things is exactly how you preserve the capacity to say yes to the right ones.

Anthropic said no to the United States government last week to protect something more valuable than a $200 million contract.

They said no to protect the thing that makes them one of none.

Take notes.

‍

There is a number floating around that many people cite at conferences without really interrogating it. You have probably heard some version of it: the average human attention span is now shorter than a goldfish's. Eight seconds. The goldfish, apparently, gets nine. The story was everywhere for a decade. Microsoft published it with their full chest, and marketers tattooed it onto their strategy decks (we know all about that). It was never true.

The goldfish statistic was traced back to a 2015 report that misread its own sourced data. Neuroscientists never endorsed it. The human attention system does not degrade like a battery losing charge. What has actually happened is far more interesting and instructive for anyone working in a creative field.

We have become ruthless editors.

Our brains have not shortened their capacity for focus, but have gotten better at rejecting inputs that do not immediately signal value. The average person now encounters somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 brand messages per day. The response has not been cognitive collapse, but triaged. And the creative industry, by and large, has responded to this triage problem by producing more, louder, faster content. More posts, campaigns, touchpoints, and channels.

This is roughly equivalent to responding to a traffic jam by adding more cars (what a genius)

We are not living through an attention crisis. We are living through a meaning crisis.

The Problem With Feeding the Machine

According to research from the Nielsen Norman Group, one of the most respected UX research organizations in the world, users read approximately 20-28% of the text on a given webpage. The rest is scanned, skipped, or ignored entirely. Attention is not absent, but now conditional. It shows up when something earns it.

And yet the dominant creative strategy of the last decade has been frequency over meaning. The logic goes: if people are distracted, reach them more often. Post every day. Email every week. Run always-on paid media. Fill the feed. The algorithm rewards consistency, so consistency becomes the strategy.

The problem is that this thinking treats attention like a resource that can be captured through volume. It cannot. Attention is a response to meaning. It is what happens in the brain when something registers as worth the cognitive energy. You can manufacture reach, but you cannot manufacture resonance.

Look at what has actually broken through in the last few years. Bottega Veneta, the Italian luxury house, deleted its social media accounts entirely in January 2021. No Instagram. No Twitter. No TikTok** (they seem to only have YouTube). The fashion industry predicted irrelevance. What happened instead was a 24 percent revenue increase that year, followed by consistent record-breaking quarters. The silence became the statement. The absence became the brand.

Nendo, the Tokyo-based design studio led by Oki Sato, releases work infrequently and has almost no social media presence given its cultural footprint. When Nendo says something, it lands. Not because their work is louder than everyone else's, but because it feels quieter. The studio has built a reputation that makes each release feel like an event rather than content.

These are not flukes, but early signals of a larger shift for now

Economics of Scarcity in a World of Abundance

Scott Galloway, the NYU professor and writer, has a useful framing for moments like this. When a commodity becomes abundant, the adjacent scarce resource becomes exponentially more valuable. When streaming made music infinitely available, the live concert experience became more valuable, not less. When digital photography made images effectively free to produce, the handmade print became more coveted. When social media made communication constant, the handwritten letter became remarkable.

What is scarce right now is restraint. The willingness to say less, mean more, and trust your audience to close the distance.

For creative leaders, this has direct implications. The portfolio, crammed with 40 pieces, communicates insecurity. The portfolio with 10 extraordinary pieces communicates confidence. The brand that communicates daily about everything it does blurs into background noise. The brand that communicates occasionally but with precision earns attention every single time.

Harvard Business Review research on persuasion and cognition consistently shows that people assign higher credibility and authority to sources that communicate selectively. The brain interprets restraint as confidence. Silence, used intentionally, signals that whoever is speaking has the self-assurance to wait until they have something worth saying.

This is not a new idea. It is one of the oldest ideas in communication. What is new is how badly the creative industry has abandoned it, and how wide open the opportunity now is for those willing to pick it back up.

Three Things Worth Trying This Week

1. First, audit your last ten pieces of output, whether that is social posts, decks, emails, or projects, and ask honestly: which of these would you choose to include if you could only share three? Now ask why you shared the others.
   ‍
2. Second, the next time you feel the urge to add to a piece of work, try removing something instead. One sentence, element, or slide. See if it gets stronger or weaker. Then notice what the result tells you about your instincts.
   ‍
3. Third, identify one area of your creative practice where you are communicating out of anxiety rather than readiness. It might be posting too frequently because you fear being forgotten. It might be taking on too many projects because you are not sure which ones represent your actual point of view. Name it. That recognition is the beginning of the shift.

The Attention Recession is not a crisis for creatives who make things that matter and have the discipline to wait until they do. It is a filter. And filters, ultimately, are gifts to the people who have something real to say.

The question is not whether you are producing enough. The question is whether what you are producing is worth the attention you are asking for.

Most of the time, the answer is yes, if you would just give it the time and space it deserves.

Peace.

I came across The War of Art by Steven Pressfield recently, and it felt less like discovering something new and more like someone finally naming the thing that's been following most creatives around for years. You know the feeling. That moment when you pause mid-page and think, "Oh. So there's a word for this particular flavor of self-sabotage."

Pressfield identifies the quiet adversary most creatives wrestle with daily: Resistance.

Not the convenient kind or the external obstacles we can elegantly blame at dinner parties. He's not talking about difficult clients, impossible deadlines, or the fact that your budget wouldn't cover a decent lunch. He's describing the internal friction that materializes when you attempt work that matters to you.

Resistance doesn't show up when you're reorganizing your desk for the third time this week or adjusting that kerning by half a pixel. It appears when you begin something vulnerable. When you attempt an idea that feels slightly beyond your current identity. When you sense that finishing this piece, launching this concept, or sharing this perspective might actually change how you're seen.

The truth is, the strength of Resistance is directly proportional to the importance of the work.

Inconsequential task? Resistance takes the day off. Work with potential to move you forward? Resistance becomes remarkably articulate.

It doesn't shout, but reasons with impeccable logic (If I might add).

It suggests you need more preparation. (You probably do, but that's not the point.) It reminds you that timing could be better. (When has timing ever been perfect?) It encourages you to improve your skills before exposing yourself. (Translation: indefinitely.)

It sounds responsible, mature and strategic. Like the voice of wisdom itself.

The Myth of Arrival

Emerging creatives often assume this tension signals a lack of readiness. They interpret doubt as disqualification. They imagine seasoned creatives have outgrown this internal negotiation, that somewhere around project fifty or follower milestone X, confidence finally replaces hesitation. It doesn't.

What changes over time isn't the presence of Resistance, but your familiarity with it. You begin to recognize its greatest hits. You notice how it surfaces right before you commit to something meaningful. You learn that the anxiety preceding important work isn't a red light, but often a neon sign pointing toward exactly what you should be doing.

Pressfield offers a distinction that's both simple and slightly uncomfortable: the difference between the amateur and the professional. The amateur waits for the right mood, the right stretch of uninterrupted time, the right surge of confidence. Basically, they're waiting for conditions that exist roughly as often as a meeting that ends early.

The professional works under imperfect conditions, understanding that inspiration is often a by product of motion rather than a prerequisite for it.

‍

Inspiration, it turns out, is terrible at keeping appointments but excellent at showing up uninvited once you've already started.

The Modern Disguises

The more I reflected on this, the more I realized how easily Resistance disguises itself in modern creative life. It hides in endless research tabs. (Surely you need to read just one more article.) It thrives in comparison. (They're younger, better funded, and their grid is immaculate.) It flourishes in overthinking. (This needs to be reconceptualized from first principles.)

We tell ourselves we're refining, curating, optimizing. Sometimes we are, but often we're just avoiding with extra steps.

And yet, the presence of Resistance carries a strange comfort. It means you care, means the work has stakes. Indifference rarely generates internal conflict; only meaningful pursuits come with this particular brand of psychological warfare.

For emerging creatives, this may be the most important reminder: the discomfort doesn't disappear with experience. It evolves. Early in your career, you fear not being good enough. Later, you fear not sustaining momentum. Eventually, you fear becoming irrelevant.

The battle isn't against the industry, the algorithm, or the competition. It's against the part of yourself that prefers safety over growth.

The Unremarkable Truth

The takeaway isn't dramatic, just that there's no secret formula, no hidden shortcut, or productivity hack that will finally make this easy.

You sit down. You begin. You continue.

Over time, that ordinary ritual compounds. It builds confidence not from affirmation, but from evidence. You start to trust yourself, not because fear vanished, but because you have repeatedly acted in its presence.

You won't permanently silence Resistance. The moment the work grows, so will it. That's not a flaw in your character. It's a reflection of the value of what you're attempting.

So if you find yourself circling an idea, hesitating before publishing, or questioning whether you belong in the room, consider the possibility that you're standing at the edge of something significant. The friction you feel may not be a warning to stop, but an invitation to proceed.

Creativity is a daily decision to confront yourself and choose growth over comfort.

Seat in chair. Again tomorrow.

Peace.

Recently, I got to chat with Ella, a small studio team member, about our creative journey - our goals, obstacles faced, and her path to becoming a Creative Director. Through our conversation, a resounding theme emerged - leadership in the industry as young creatives.

From having the willingness to care for your team no matter what, to setting an atmosphere that creates trust, growth, and authenticity – we found that qualities were a key indicator of successful leadership, beyond our skills or even a title.

Many of us, I'm sure, aspire to be leaders in our respective creative industries and agencies - Art Directors, Creative Directors, VP’s, SGD’s, or even CEO of our own agencies one day. However, the fact remains: if (when) the pressure’s on – deadlines are tight, budget issues arise, internal conflict occurs amongst the team – how will you handle these situations? What kind of leader do you aspire to be?

What does it mean, or even look like, to be a leader as a young creative?

There are many facets to it; however, I’ve found that there are four things that directly impact my capability to lead as a creative.

Always Ask the Question

One of my personal strengths (or nuisances) over the years is curiosity – always asking questions. Whether for insight or clarity from peers and supervisors, or asking questions that challenge the status quo on the basis of seeking genuine understanding; I’m almost always asking a question. Whether it be for assistance, feedback, or a referral for work opportunities – always ask the question.

In a freelance or consulting context, asking your client the right questions almost always leads to clarity, stronger concept development, and a sense of confidence in the client to trust you with their brand or business. The same can apply to working in an ad agency or a design studio (like a small studio) – especially as an early-career creative in your field.

After all, asking (intentional) questions is a fundamental skill for active listening, prevents you from making poor assumptions, and is essential to effective problem-solving. It removes barriers to communication, and allows you to share your thought process with relative stakeholders.

Overall, curiosity is a healthy sign of a growth-oriented creative – a trait in which many leaders look for in hiring.

Character Over Talent

Yes, what we do –  and how well we execute absolutely matters. But who we are matters so much more. Skill gets us through the door; character keeps you in the room (and ideally, leading the room). Talent (with strong networking skills) can certainly open up opportunities. However, having the right mindset and character, with talent, is what allows you to thrive personally and professionally.

In other words, being talented in your field is the baseline – strong character exceeds it. Besides, no one likes working with a person with a poor character, no matter how talented they are (the egotistical, rude, flaky, apathetic type).

Which is why you should always:

Lead With Humility

While this goes hand in hand with character, I also want to be clear: being humble is not the same as being invisible, a people pleaser, or a doormat for others to walk over (that’s just poor boundaries). Leading with humility – a principle I aim to live by – is genuinely caring about the interests and goals of others, rather than just my own. It’s the willingness to support others for the sake of being supportive – celebrating growth and accomplishments of peers, even as you continue to navigate your own creative career journey.

Leading with humility can look like:

• Owning up to mistakes and correcting/learning from them just as quickly as owning the “wins”.
• Making time out of your day to help out the new intern (and if you’re the intern, supporting fellow peers).
• Embracing constructive feedback and implementing it (keyword here is constructive, not condemning – again, we’re not doormats).

Leading with humility fosters a culture of trust and actual community, not competition – and it’s something you can do, even as an intern, freelance creative, or new creative leader at your company. It creates space for empathy, understanding, and the freedom to actually grow as a team.

And finally…

Taking Ownership of your Creative Journey

If you’re in the catch-22 of “I need experience to get experience” – then I’m sure you’ve heard by now that the best way to do so in this industry is to create experience.

Rather than just freelancing or creating passion projects, document them. Your thought process, how you developed the case study, and the “why” behind the project. Document all of it thoroughly. In doing so, you can demonstrate how you think as a leader and your ability to communicate ideas.

From there, ask for feedback from trusted peers, supervisors or industry leaders (that you have a connection with) - or even attend a portfolio review hosted by creative leaders in your industry (remember, always ask questions).

Practical example: For early-career creatives, try simulating your own agency. I’m not saying to register your own business – but rather work with peers and put together campaigns, test shoots, product rollouts – whatever you aim to achieve (and get paid for later on).

The path to career growth and success (while different for everyone) is difficult to do alone. Build community wherever you are, learn from one another, and continue forward from there.

It’s tough out here in all the creative industries – but it doesn’t mean it’s impossible to lead with what you have from where you are in your journey. Be it as an intern, junior creative, freelancer, or someone pivoting into the industry.  

Start today.

‍

In the spring of 1983, I somehow set the record at my elementary school in the Presidential Physical Fitness test for most pull-ups. Strangely, I don’t think that record was ever broken before the school closed and the buildings were demolished decades later. And look, there’s no proof anymore anyway, right? Trust me.

That unbroken record—and the vanished building that held it—got me thinking about legacy:

what survives, what disappears, and what still shapes the work.

So how does legacy influence our work as designers? Let me illustrate an example. In my work designing custom homes, precedent (our fancy word for architectural legacy) plays a huge role in our design process. For instance, if a client asks for a mid-century modern home, my design solution will not be coming with drippings of Victorian wainscot and 3-piece crown mold.

Why does legacy have so much to say? Because legacy trails after us like an impossible to ignore tail on a crocodile. If you’re designing inside a brand, studio, product line, aesthetic, or even a genre, you already have a tail—whether you asked for it or not.

Legacy is a Tail

Tails are great at their best—providing guidance and stability – even power and thrust in the right setting. At their worst they become a hindrance, slowing movement and stifling progress. Think of the example of our friendly crocodile…in the water, that tail is power. But on land? All it does is drag through the mud.

So here’s the crux of this whole conversation…how do we as designers do our work when we have a tail of legacy attached? I’ve seen terrible examples where ‘the legacy’ is the be-all, end all. There is a resistance to growth and change in favor of the safety of what has worked. Psychologists call it rosy retrospection: we remember the past better than it was. Unfortunately, this posture begets a slow slide to irrelevance.

→ Enter stage left: The Tail Wagging the Dog.

I’ll protect the guilty here and not call them out. We went to a ‘beloved holiday show’ recently that felt frozen in time—legacy on full display, evolution nowhere in sight. That’s the danger: the tail doesn’t guide the work anymore. It governs it.

But what might legacy as a positive force look like? Where legacy is fully acknowledged, fully known and accepted with respect…and held more with curiosity at what it can teach us than with clenched fists as something that cannot be lost.

Enter stage right: The Dog Wagging the Tail ←

There are incredible examples where legacy inspires innovation. One such example I saw is the recent rebrand of Apple TV where the work nods to its history while updating the expression.

Even a recent Ding! gave a shout out to Dr. Pepper being intentional about how they are moving forward in the context of their legacy brand, protecting their story while letting new voices tell it.

A quick insight into a legacy design problem I’m working through right now. We are renaming our company – and legacy is at the heart of the work – all 40+ years of it. And we’re not viewing our legacy as a constraint, but as an expert guide. It is steering us to what is most important: respecting our history while charting a course toward great design and better listening.

So all this thinking about legacy has helped me clarify some ideas about practical steps to share to keep the tail on its best behavior…because, look, nobody wants our tail knocking over drinks at the party.

Firstly, learn everything you can about the legacy at play. Where did it come from? When did it start? How did it grow? What kept it from fading? What are the cultural, political and social norms that have influenced it? Like a scientist in a lab, put the legacy under a microscope and give it a thorough and complete examination. Make hypotheses. Test them. Never assume you know the whole story.

Even as I’ve lived the last 25 years of our firm’s 43-year legacy, I still needed to do this work. In fact I recently sat down with our Founder, now retired, to talk about our legacy. He reminded me a huge part of our legacy has been listening intently to our clients. Indeed, I needed to hear that. So firstly, get a full understanding.

Secondly, seek to understand the influence the legacy has RIGHT NOW. Does legacy have a strangle hold? Is it in its proper place as guide? Think of the legacy in your design problem and ask what position it is in. I would suggest legacy as sage is the healthiest proposition.

Sages care about the health of the tribe and they hold the cultural story of the people. A healthy brand legacy is much like that. Yet it is the chief who decides. So secondly, seek the wisdom of the sage, but design with the authority of the chief.

Thirdly, refuse to let the tail wag the dog. No matter how strong a legacy is, it can still grow and develop, and in fact, it must. Biology teaches us that living things must do this to survive.

There’s an architectural hardware company that we often work with, Chown Hardware that is a family held business now in their 5th generation of ownership. What they are today is not what they were 30 years ago. What they were 30 years ago was not what they were 60 years ago. Rinse repeat all the way back to the beginning of their 140 year history. They have thrived through the legacy of their family because they have allowed it to grow and change. So thirdly, be the dog and wag your tail. Everyone loves a happy dog!

Well…except when a wagging tail is knocking over drinks at a party… Sit, legacy. Sit! I’ll leave you with this.

The future deserves our best work. Designing with a tail means accepting its weight, understanding its purpose, and then—deliberately—choosing to beguided forward.

‍

For more from Eric, Click here!

There's a Bambara word from Mali that's been running through my mind lately: sabali. It means patience, but not the gritted-teeth, white-knuckling kind. It's something deeper; a trust in timing, a belief that things ripen when they're meant to. Damian Marley and Nas knew what they were talking about when they crafted a whole jam around it. "Sabali" wasn't just about waiting; it was more focused on resistance, refusing to let impatience corrode your purpose when the world feels like it's asking you to move faster than your soul can sustain.

Right now, in this particular moment of constant pivots, algorithm changes, economic uncertainty, and endless discourse about what's next for creative work, our collective patience is being tested in ways that feel almost mythical.

Your Brain on Uncertainty (Spoiler: It's Not Pretty)

Our brains are brilliant, creative, pattern-seeking machines that also happen to be deeply, existentially uncomfortable with not knowing what comes next. Neuroscience tells us that uncertainty triggers the same neural pathways as physical pain. Your amygdala, that ancient alarm system designed to keep you alive on the savanna, treats the ambiguity of "Will this pitch get approved?" roughly the same way it treats "Is that rustling sound a leopard?"

This neurological quirk explains why we refresh our email seventeen times before lunch, pivot our creative strategy before giving it time to breathe, and abandon half-finished projects when they don't immediately reveal their destination. Our brains are essentially toddlers screaming "I NEED TO KNOW NOW" while we're trying to make art, build careers, and navigate a creative landscape that has never been less predictable.

The result? Hasty decisions and loads of abandoned ideas. Work that feels reactive rather than intentional. We jump when we should sit, and speak when we should listen. Burning energy we'll desperately need later.
‍

‍

The Three Faces of Patience (And Why You Need All of Them)

Researchers have identified three distinct types of patience, and understanding them feels like getting handed a map when you've been wandering in circles.

Interpersonal patience is about other people, the collaborator who doesn't share your urgency, the client who needs the seventh revision, the creative partner whose process looks nothing like yours. This is the patience that keeps teams together and prevents you from sending emails you'll regret.

Life hardship patience is your ability to weather the long, grinding challenges: the creative slump that lasts months, the career transition that takes longer than you planned, and that project that keeps hitting obstacles. This is endurance patience, marathon patience, the kind that whispers "not yet" when you want to quit.

Daily hassles, patience handles the small frictions, traffic, tech failures, and the minor irritations that compound throughout a day. This might seem trivial, but it's often these tiny moments that erode our capacity for the bigger waits. Death by a thousand impatiences.

Most of us are strong in one or two types and wobbly in the third. The creative who can weather years of uncertainty might snap at a slow-loading website. The person with infinite compassion for collaborators might crumble when their own breakthrough doesn't come on schedule. Knowing your weak spot is half the battle.

Building Your Patience Muscles (They're Real, Actually)

The good news is that patience isn't a fixed trait you either have or don't; it's more like a muscle that atrophies with disuse and strengthens with practice. And like any training program, it requires strategy, not only willpower.

Reframe waiting as working: When you're waiting for feedback, opportunities, or clarity, you're not static. You're percolating, connecting dots subconsciously, allowing ideas to mature. Your brain is doing the work you can't see. Give it credit.

Create buffer zones: Build margins into your creative life; extra time before deadlines, financial cushions, emotional reserves. Impatience thrives in scarcity. Patience needs space to breathe.

Practice meta-awareness: Notice when impatience arrives. Not to judge it, but to observe: "Ah, there's my brain panicking about uncertainty again." This tiny gap between feeling and reaction is where patience lives.

Ritualize the pause: Whether it's meditation, a daily walk, or simply closing your laptop for ten actual minutes, build in moments where nothing is supposed to happen. Train yourself to be comfortable with non-productivity. In a world designed to make you feel perpetually behind, patience will give your mind a radical awakening. Your work is allowed to take as long as it needs(sometimes). Your career can unfold at its own pace, and you are allowed to not have it all figured out yet.
‍

Sabali. Patience. Trust in timing. Not because waiting is easy, but because rushing almost always makes things worse.

The uncertain landscape of creative work right now isn't going away. The algorithmic chaos, the economic turbulence, the questions about what comes next; these are our working conditions. We can either let them fracture us into constant reactivity, or we can plant ourselves firmly in purpose and let patience become our competitive advantage.

Some seeds germinate in days. Others take seasons. Your job isn't to speed up time; it's to keep tending the soil.

The harvest will come. But first, Sabali.

In 1482, Leonardo da Vinci sat down to write what many historians now recognize as one of the first CVs on record. He didn’t go with a list of his previous employers. Neither was it a templated summary of his "core competencies." It was a letter to the Duke of Milan, meticulously structured around ten specific things Leonardo could do that nobody else could. He could design portable bridges for armies. He could construct bombards and mortars, redirect rivers during sieges. The letter was bold, specific, and unapologetically about what made him singular.

Five centuries later, we've taken that foundational idea and turned it into a game of who can sound the most pleasant while saying the least about themselves.

And nowhere is this more visible than in our inbox.

What happens when we post a role

We open a position at a small studio (the next generation creative studio running Ding!), and the inbox detonates. We're not talking about 50 applications or even 200. We regularly see close to 1,000 applicants for a single role we're trying to fill.

One thousand people. All incredibly smart, talented, and clearly trying.

And somehow, despite the variance in their backgrounds, cities, educations, and ambitions, many blur into beige.

It’s the familiar "passionate about problem-solving" energy that could belong to anyone and therefore belongs to no one. That carefully optimized tone that reads less like a person and more like what a machine thinks enthusiasm should sound like.

I don't blame anyone for this. The market is genuinely brutal right now. When the floor feels like it's tilting beneath you, you grab onto whatever seems stable. Templates. Proven formats. Tools that promise to make you presentable, professional, and hireable.

The quiet tragedy is that presentable has become invisible.

What once signaled professionalism now just confirms you showed up. You followed the rules. You used spellcheck. Congratulations! You've qualified for the qualifier. You've made it into the stack of 999 other people who also qualified.

When everyone sounds like everyone

AI didn't break the CV. It just made the patterns we were already living with uncomfortably obvious.

When everyone uses the same optimization tools, the outputs look similar, and collapse into each other. The CV becomes a game of fill-in-the-blanks, where the blanks were already filled in by someone else's algorithm.

There's a particular kind of loss that happens here. The work is often legitimately strong, but the problem is that the presentation actively hides the person behind it. No opinion or specificity. No sense of what this person gravitates toward when there's no rubric telling them what to care about.

And that matters. Because in creative work, judgment is the deliverable. Your taste is the output. Knowing when to push and when to shut up is half the brief. If none of that shows up in how you present yourself, we're left wondering: where did you go?

Studies now indicate that up to 65% of candidates use AI tools to write their CVs and cover letters. When two-thirds of applicants are outsourcing their voice to the same handful of language models, the result isn't just bland. It's indistinguishable.

One platform people seem to be ignoring

Vizzy is one tool that keeps changing the texture of any application the moment it lands in our inbox.

Not because it's flashy or because it's trying to gamify your professional identity. But because it treats the CV like what it actually should be:

a space you designed, not a document you filled out because LinkedIn told you to.

When such a profile comes through, it feels considered. You can tell someone made choices about what to foreground, what to leave breathing, and how they want to be seen.

The platform lets you add video, images, PDFs, and web links. Profiles include multimedia content, psychometric assessments, and modules that highlight interests, values, and ambitions, not just a chronological list of jobs and degrees. It's a 360-degree view of a person, which sounds like marketing speak until you actually click through one and realize how much more information you're getting.

Two things register almost immediately:

1. This person made a choice about how to present themselves.
2. This person knows how they want to be seen.

That combination shouldn't be rare. But in a stack of 1,000 applications, it absolutely is.

What it does particularly well is create space for the qualities that traditional CVs are structurally incapable of capturing. The platform is designed to surface qualities that traditional CVs miss, especially for early-career talent or those from non-traditional backgrounds. You can demonstrate soft skills, cultural fit, and motivation in ways that feel genuine rather than performed.

A quiet challenge before you hit send

If you're applying for creative roles and your CV looks exactly like everyone else's, sit with one slightly uncomfortable question.

If this landed in a stack of 1,000 applications, would I recognize it as mine?

Not because your name is at the top, but because of the choices baked into it. The things you decided to show, and the voice you decided to use.

You don't need to rebuild your entire personal brand, and you don't need motion graphics or clever gimmicks. You just need one clear decision that says: this is me, on purpose.

Leonardo da Vinci didn't get hired by the Duke of Milan because his letter looked like everyone else's. He got hired because his letter made it impossible to mistake him for anyone else.

Make sure they see you.

‍

Spoiler: None of them bought a fancy planner

You know that feeling on January 1st when you’re convinced this will be the year you finish your novel, launch your side project, and somehow also learn Italian? By February, you’re just hoping to remember to water your plants. (We both know they’re kinda, sorta in trouble.)

History’s most productive creatives weren’t superhuman; they were just sneakier about how they structured their time. Let’s see how much we can steal from them.

The Maya Method: Rent a Room You Never Sleep In

Maya Angelou kept a hotel room she never stayed in. Every morning at 6:30 AM, she’d head to her rented room (stripped of everything except a bed, a Bible, a deck of cards, and a bottle of sherry) and write until 2 PM. Then she’d go home and edit.

Yes, she paid rent on a room purely to avoid the siren call of her own refrigerator. Legend behavior.

The hack: Separate your creation space from your living space. Your brain needs environmental triggers. Working from your couch is like trying to meditate at a Metallica concert. Find your “elsewhere.” A library corner, a specific coffee shop, that weird booth at the back of Panera, where the Wi-Fi is terrible but your brain unaccountably works.

Anywhere your neurons know: here, we make things. Here, we don’t watch TikTok for “research.”

Hemingway’s Trick: Stop Mid-Sentence

Hemingway had a rule that sounds psychotic until you try it: always stop writing when you know what happens next. Mid-sentence, even. Especially mid-sentence. Just walk away like a movie cliffhanger.

The hack: Never drain the tank. When you quit at the peak of your momentum, you’re giving tomorrow-you a running start instead of staring at a blank page, wondering if you’ve forgotten how to have ideas. This works for any creative work. Designers, stop mid-mockup. Musicians, leave one bridge unwritten. Strategists, save one insight for the morning. Future-you will thank present-you, and present-you gets to feel smugly prepared. Everybody wins except your anxiety about leaving things unfinished, but that guy’s a jerk anyway.

Beethoven’s Ritual: Count Your Coffee Beans

Beethoven was obsessive about his morning coffee. Exactly 60 beans, hand-counted every single morning, ground fresh. Was this necessary? Absolutely not. Did it work? Absolutely yes. Did his friends think he was unhinged? Almost certainly.

The hack: Weird rituals aren’t superstition; they’re switches. Your brain craves patterns like a golden retriever craves tennis balls. Beethoven’s bean-counting was a 10-minute meditation that signaled “we’re starting now.” Find your beans. Three stretches, two pages of journaling, one terrible dance move, sacrificing a small vegetable to the muse (mostly kidding). Whatever tells your brain to shift modes from “scroll Instagram” to “create something that might outlive you.”

Twyla Tharp’s Wake-Up: Automate the First Decision

Choreographer Twyla Tharp gets up at 5:30 AM and immediately gets in a cab to the gym. She says the most creative part of her routine is calling the cab. Everything else is automatic.

The hack: Willpower is finite, and breakfast depletes it. Automate your morning so you’re not wasting creative juice deciding whether to work out, what to eat, or if today is finally the day you become a smoothie person. (It’s not.) Wear the same clothes, eat the same breakfast, take the same first action. Save your decision-making energy for the work that actually matters. Steve Jobs wore the same outfit for a reason, and it wasn’t because he loved turtlenecks that much.

The Kafka Tragedy: Don’t Work a Soul-Crushing Day Job

Franz Kafka worked full-time at an insurance company and could only write late at night. He produced brilliant work and also died at 40, burned out and convinced he’d wasted his life. So, you know. Mixed results.

The hack (inverse): Protect your hours like your life depends on it, because it does. If you’re spending 40 to 60 hours a week on work that drains you, you’re not being responsible. You’re playing Russian roulette with your one weird, precious existence. This might mean living smaller, earning less, or disappointing people who want you to be “realistic.” (Translation: safely miserable like them.) Do it anyway. Nobody on their deathbed wishes they’d spent more time in meetings about meetings.

Morrison’s 5 AM Club (But Make It Honest)

Before Morrison became Toni Morrison, she was a single mom working as an editor. She woke at 4 or 5 AM to write before her kids woke up. Not because she was naturally a morning person (nobody is, or are they?), but because it was the only time that was actually hers.

The hack: Stop waiting for perfect conditions. They’re not coming. The muse doesn’t care about your sleep schedule or your convenience or that you read an article about circadian rhythms once. Find the margins. Early morning, lunch breaks, the weird hour after kids sleep when you’re too wired to rest but too tired to do anything “productive.” String together the stolen moments. Empires have been built in the cracks. So have novels, albums, and movements.

Picasso’s Principle: Work on Multiple Things

Picasso typically had several canvases going simultaneously. When he got stuck on one, he’d rotate to another. His Blue Period? He was also painting something completely different on the side. The man had a better project pipeline than most agencies.

The hack: Creative block on project A often dissolves when you’re focused on project B. Your brain is a sneaky little background processor. Keep multiple projects alive. Not to multitask (that’s a lie Silicon Valley told you), but to give your subconscious permission to work while you’re consciously doing something else. When you’re stuck on your screenplay, work on your zine. When the zine feels stale, return to the screenplay. Watch your brain suddenly have opinions about the thing you weren’t touching.

The Joan Didion Discipline: Track Everything

Didion kept meticulous notes about when she wrote, how long, and how it felt. Not for publication. For data. She treated her creative process like a scientist treats experiments, which is probably why her sentences can perform surgery on your emotions.

The hack: You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Track your patterns. When are you sharpest? (Not when you think.) How long can you actually sustain deep work before your brain turns to oatmeal? What conditions make you produce garbage? Most creatives have strong opinions about their process and zero data to back it up. You’re smarter than that. Build a dataset on yourself. Become your own case study. Let the patterns reveal themselves, then exploit them ruthlessly.

The Real Productivity Hack Nobody Wants to Hear

What all these people have in common: they showed up. Regularly. Boringly. Repeatedly. They didn’t wait for inspiration to strike like some kind of creative lightning bolt. They built structures that made creation inevitable.

You don’t need a hotel room or a cab ritual or exactly 60 coffee beans. (Though if counting beans brings you joy, count away, you magnificent weirdo.) You need to stop romanticizing the work and start protecting the time.

You need to build a year where your creative practice isn’t something you squeeze in around your “real life.” It is your real life, and everything else is just funding and logistics.

The most productive year of your life won’t come from a new app, a better system, or that $47 course promising to unlock your potential. It’ll come from deciding that your creative work matters enough to architect your entire existence around it, and then doing the deeply unsexy work of showing up for it. Day after day after day. Even when it’s boring. Especially when it’s boring.

Productivity is a practice. It’s choosing your work over scrolling, over Netflix, over the very reasonable voice in your head that says you’ve earned a break. (You haven’t. Not yet. You literally just started.)

Now close this tab and go make something. The clock’s already running.

‍

I am facilitating a workshop with the leadership team of a Fortune 500 company.

The room is focused and quiet. We are mid-exercise, and my job is simple. Listen and write what they say on the whiteboard.

This is the part where I usually start to sweat.

Not because I am nervous. I have done this countless times. I know how to lead a room. I know how to guide conversations toward clarity.

I sweat because I am dyslexic.

Eventually, someone says a word I know I am not going to spell correctly. No chance. I pause, then do what I always do. Marker to board. Letters in roughly the right order. Close enough.

I am 37 years old, standing in front of some of the most powerful decision makers in the country, and I still cannot spell some of the simplest words.

That is okay.

We invented erasers for a reason.

Growing up, I was always the last one to finish reading out loud. On standardized tests, time was never on my side. The first and only F I ever received was in spelling.

Reading and spelling were constant friction. Math and science felt intuitive. That contrast is what landed me in architecture school. If it had not, I probably would not have taken the hardest possible path to getting an education.

I earned two master’s degrees barely. Endless all-nighters. Flash cards. Friends who took notes for me because I could not listen and write at the same time.

On paper, I was a mess. Everywhere else, I thrived.

I could read rooms instantly. Feel when something was off. Connect ideas others could not see together. I just could not prove it in traditional systems.

It makes sense that I started my own company instead.

For most of my life, I thought dyslexia was something I had to manage. A weakness to work around. That changed when I was finally medicated properly.

The medication did not make me better at details. It removed friction. I stopped dropping balls. And more importantly, I realized something that changed everything.

I do not belong in the weeds.

When you start something from nothing, you have to be in the weeds. But leadership lives above them. Once I had clarity, I could finally do what I do best. Strategy. Direction. Seeing what was coming before it arrived.

What I was told was a weakness turned out to be something else entirely.

Pattern recognition.

At a small studio, we call this identity architecture. Pattern recognition for lived experience. We listen. We reflect. Then we project. Feel before you fill.

Creativity is not output. It is an expression of self.

Recently, I stumbled across a Forbes article on dyslexic thinking. It stopped me in my tracks. Dyslexic thinkers already contribute nearly 200 billion dollars annually to the US economy. With proper support, that number could exceed 650 billion. Globally, trillions in value remain untapped.

Not because dyslexic people lack ability.

Because the systems we built reward sameness.

The research confirms what many of us already know. Dyslexic thinkers excel at big picture thinking, creativity, problem solving, and pattern recognition. These are not soft skills. They are the skills most critical to the future of work.

And that future is already here.

Everyone has access to the same tools, the same technology, the same content. Same inputs. Same outputs.

Difference is no longer optional. It is the advantage.

In 2025, while hiring designers, this became impossible to ignore. Portfolios looked the same. Language was recycled. Trends moved faster than depth. I wrote about this in ding! when reflecting on hiring the next generation of designers.

If you cannot recognize the patterns that set you apart, you will be grouped with the rest.

And once that happens, you become a commodity.

This is where neurodiversity stops being a talking point and becomes a competitive advantage.

Dyslexic thinking is not about doing things the hard way. It is about seeing what others miss. Making leaps instead of steps. Trusting intuition when linear logic fails.

AI can optimize and repeat. It can scale what already exists. What it cannot do is intuit what should exist next.

That work still belongs to humans.

Especially those trained by necessity to think differently.

If you are creating based only on what exists today, you are already behind.

Creativity is intuitive. It guides us toward futures that bring more peace than fear. To do that, you have to trust your intuition, your spirit, your faith.

For me, faith has always been the compass.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not yet seen. Hebrews 11:1

Trusting patterns before the picture is complete. That is the dyslexic superpower.

If you operate creatively for a living, I hope this makes you feel dangerous in the best way. Your different way of thinking is not something to hide.

It is likely the thing that opens the next door.

The future does not need more sameness.

It needs people who can see the pattern before the picture is finished.

2025 isn't even technically over yet, and we've already witnessed some truly spectacular brand identity decisions. Some companies nailed it. Others should have saved the consulting fees and bought everyone bagels instead (not being mean).

Rebrands are odd things, and are never just about the logo. But more about whether a company understands what it actually is, who it's talking to, and whether anyone asked for this in the first place. Get it right, and you clarify decades of visual clutter into something people actually recognize. Get it wrong, and you've just set a pile of money on fire while your customers stage an intervention on Twitter (we still call it that, okay...okay, your purist, we meant X).

Let's look at some of what the year dragged in.

Homework well done

Amazon finally touched its logo after roughly 20 years of letting it ride. They softened the smile, cleaned up the typography, and built a color system that actually makes sense across their increasingly sprawling empire. This is the rare rebrand where the main achievement is that you barely noticed it happened. Everything feels more unified without Amazon suddenly looking like a different company. That's the goal. You want people squinting at the website going, "Did something change?" not "What fresh hell is this?"

Adobe pulled off something similar in 2025 with what people are calling a "quiet but powerful" refresh. They unified their ecosystem with a tighter grid and a cleaner red system that works across Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, and the dozen other apps in their portfolio. It's the kind of move that respects decades of brand equity instead of torching it for the sake of looking new. When you're already a powerhouse with that much legacy and breadth, subtle evolution is smarter than a radical makeover. Adobe understood this. They didn't try to reinvent themselves; they just cleaned up the house they'd been living in for years. The rebrand looks good, but we still ride for Figma.

Walmart evolved its wordmark and that little spark symbol, tuned everything for a world where people shop in stores, online, at clinics, and see the logo on delivery vans. It's a series of small, precise adjustments that add up to something noticeably sharper and more confident. Nobody's writing think pieces about it, which means it worked.

Monzo, the UK banking app, went hard into Gen Z territory with bold typography, pastel gradients, and a mobile-first UI that actually understands how people under 30 interact with money on their phones. They refreshed their entire experience to match who their emerging audience actually is. It works because they committed to the bit: if you're going after younger users who've never walked into a physical bank branch, you can't just slap a new font on the old system and call it done. You have to rethink everything from notifications to how someone splits a bill. Monzo did that.

Eventbrite completely reimagine what event discovery looks like. They built a new logo icon called "The Path" that's actually customizable for different communities (foodies, artists, plant people, whatever). The whole system is bright, animated, and social-first, which makes sense because that's how people actually find and share events now. The icon itself is satisfyingly squishy and dynamic, representing the journey from:

"I saw this thing" to "I have memories about this thing."

It's one of those rebrands where making the icon the hero actually works because it's flexible enough to mean something across wildly different contexts. The bold color palette and lifestyle photography capture that raw energy of being at a live event, which is exactly what you want people feeling when they're deciding whether to buy tickets.

Domino's rolled out a new creative refresh that shows they're confident enough to evolve beyond their old, hard-hitting product identity. Instead of staying locked in the ‘we fixed the pizza’ narrative forever, they're experimenting with broader brand visual storytelling. In other words, they stretched their wings a bit, exploring emotional territory that most legacy brands tiptoe around. It’s a shift from pure product punchlines to a wider cultural identity. Think of it less as ‘generic brand purpose’ and more as Domino’s saying, ‘we know who we are now, so let’s play on a bigger stage with our logo.

The dog ate their Homework

And then we had the ones where some people started losing it on the internet.

Cracker Barrel decided to modernize by stripping out its entire "Old Country Store" illustration and heritage language in favor of a generic text-only logo. Which is a bit like Dolly Parton showing up in a beige pantsuit and announcing she's rebranding as "D. Parton, Leadership Consultant." The backlash was immediate, fierce, and extremely online. Stock dropped about 10%, wiping out roughly $100 million in value. They reversed course so fast you could hear the tires screeching from space (a little over the top, we know).

The Cracker Barrel situation is a perfect case study in misunderstanding your own audience. The people eating biscuits and gravy at your restaurant are not asking for minimalism. They're there specifically because you look like a grandmother's living room exploded into a roadside gift shop. That's the whole appeal. Stripping it away doesn't make you modern; it makes you unrecognizable.

X Games sanded off all the subcultural, action-sports edge that made it distinctive and replaced it with something that looks like a generic corporate sporting event. The whole point of the X Games was attitude. It was supposed to feel dangerous and cool, not like something your HR department would sponsor. Removing that edge doesn't broaden your appeal; it just makes you forgettable.

OpenAI keeps making visual and narrative adjustments that aren't resonating with the disruptive impact of its product, mainly because they're happening amid trust debates and leadership chaos. The design might be fine, but the brand feels unstable. People are reading inconsistency as a signal that something's wrong internally, which it might be. You can't rebrand your way out of perception (on second thought, maybe you can for a while).

‍

HBO Max is a special kind of yo-yo, because it's actually a ball in motion. Back in 2023, they rebranded from HBO Max to just "Max," which everyone hated. Now in 2025, they've reversed course and gone back to HBO Max, complete with that classic camera lens sitting in the O. The logo itself is actually good. It's timeless, cinematic, captures the nostalgic feeling of settling in to watch Friends for the nine hundredth time. The problem isn't the design; it's the flip-flopping.

When a brand can't commit to an identity for more than a couple years, it signals indecision at the executive level. You dilute recognition. You confuse people. You look like you don't know what you're doing (Yikes!). The HBO Max logo is perfect for what they are, but they need to stick with it for longer than it takes most people to finish a season of Succession. Especially now with the Netflix acquisition looming (or certain), pick a lane and stay in it.

What separates the Good from the others

The successful rebrands share a pattern: they're solving real problems. Amazon needed to unify a sprawling ecosystem. Adobe needed to align a complex portfolio without losing recognition. Walmart needed to work across channels. Monzo needed to speak the language of a generation that's never touched a checkbook (thank goodness!). Eventbrite needed to reflect the actual journey of discovering and experiencing events in a social-first world. These are strategic fixes with visual solutions that extend into actual experience.

The others that didn’t go down so well also share a different pattern: they're solving problems nobody had. Cracker Barrel wasn't struggling because its logo looked old. The X Games weren't losing viewers because they had too much personality. HBO Max wasn't struggling because people loved the name too much (though to be fair, they're now learning that lesson the hard way). These companies looked at their challenges and decided the brand identity was the issue, which is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic if the Titanic were also on fire and the chairs were made of dynamite (too far, we know).

The brands that succeeded were careful to evolve their identity on purpose rather than erase it (Amazon, Walmart). The ones that had people mad tried to delete their history in pursuit of something "modern," which is usually code for "we hired a consultant who showed us what everyone else is doing."

So, what’s the lesson 🤔

If you're thinking about a rebrand, ask yourself what problem you're actually solving. Is it a real problem or just boredom? Are you making something clearer or just different? Do your customers want this, or are you doing it because a consultant showed you a mood board?

Sometimes the answer is yes, you need a refresh. Your visual system is a mess. Your logo doesn't work at small sizes. You've outgrown what you started with. Fine. Do it thoughtfully, do it strategically, and for the love of God, do not erase the things that make people remember you.

And sometimes the answer is no, you're fine, the problem is somewhere else entirely, and maybe you should spend that rebrand budget on fixing your actual product or giving your team a raise.

Because at the end of the day, the visuals are a part of your identity. It can surely clarify what you already are. But it cannot turn you into something you're not. And if you're Cracker Barrel, it definitely cannot make you cool.

‍

✌🏽.

‍

…Sometimes, I wonder if it was an accident that Spotify wrapped went viral in the first place...

It’s not unheard of for companies to put out a Yearly Lookback in the form of newsletters or in-app news breakdowns, but it’s also no secret that Spotify Wrapped is literally a cultural phenomenon now. People look forward to Wrapped for weeks and some even manipulate their listening habits to have a specific, “cool,” or sometimes comedic wrapped lineup. But was this Spotify’s intention? How did Spotify Wrapped get to be so big in an age where data, streaming, and campaigns seem to be everywhere? As a Creative Director at a small design agency that lives for fun design, Spotify Wrapped 2025 flooding my feed has naturally prompted me to collect my thoughts.

A “just because” idea that blew up

💬 Personal Tip: Trust Emerging Creatives

Last week, Spotify Wrapped reached 250 Million engagements in less than three days. But, this feature wasn’t always a playful, annual identity check-in that people anticipate, screenshot, and share. Back in 2015, Spotify came out with “Year in Music”, which was a web-based experience that highlighted global listening trends, top artists, songs, and cultural moments from the year. And, of the the 75 Million Spotify users (at the time), only 5 Million of them interacted. It was a cute idea, but struggled to grasp an identity

Things changed in 2019 when an intern at Spotify, Jewel Ham, came up with the concept of a personalized, click-through experience for the user within the app itself. A fresh, unique take on the booming story-fication of social media at the time.

‍

‍
When we say an idea was done “Just Because,” we’re referencing delight. Motivation. Giving a creative the space to play without restriction or stakeholder expectation. Far too often we find professional creatives lose the child-like wonder of an emerging creative due to the routines of production they find themselves in. It’s hard to break out of it. But when we see moments like an intern who spins a very simple concept into something that encourages social interaction- sometimes vulnerable looks into ourselves- how can you not feel inspired again?

Obviously, Jewel Ham’s Spotify #Wrapped-in concept got the ball rolling. When a design is rooted so richly in personality, it’s hard to let it pass by. I want to re-emphasize my tip: Trust Emerging Creatives. Their perspective is often-times completely fresh and non-distorted. It can be hard, but the creative leaders who provide a voice for the technically “inexperienced” talent can cultivate rare potential. a small studio swears by this!

Let’s dive deeper.

Why Wrapped feels so good (identity + UX)

💬 Tip: Identity and Experience are worth the investment

Wrapped works because it feels like you. Not in the “targeted ads” way, but in the “oh wow, this is actually a pretty accurate representation of my entire personality” way. The UX isn’t complicated. It’s not trying to teach you something. It’s literally walking you through your own behavior with the same tone as a friend roasting your music taste. And this is the part that I think a lot of brands forget: identity is emotional. Good UX amplifies emotion. Wrapped’s identity system is loud, colorful, and a little theatrical, but it never gets in the way. It lets the data be the main character. The design and motion are just delightful support.

Every year, Spotify reinvests in this system. New visual language. New layouts. New type moments. New animations. And because they keep it familiar-but-evolved, Wrapped feels like a tradition. The UX is simple, but the experience feels big.

When brands question whether identity or UX improvements are worth the money… Yes. Yes they are. You may not see the return on day one, but you’ll feel it over time. Wrapped is proof that if you make something people emotionally attach to, they’ll build the hype.

Delight that quietly drives the business

💬 Tip: When something works, run with it

Every time Wrapped shows up, Spotify’s download charts spike. People log back in. People upgrade. People share, then their friends join. It’s not framed as a “business initiative,” but it is one of the most effective ones they have. And it’s powered by delight. Not a hard sell. Not a discount code. Just a thing that makes people smile, screenshot, compare, laugh, argue, brag. And all of that organic energy trickles back into the business.

Delight makes you memorable → Memorability makes you stick → When you stick, the audience does your marketing for you.

Sadly, a lot of companies treat delight as something optional. But Spotify treats it like the main course, and they’ve committed to it for a decade now. If you’re lucky enough to build a moment people love, don’t “optimize” it until the soul is gone. Run with it, expand it, and let it breathe.

Spotify’s other “just because” moments

💬 Tip: Do not just stop there

Wrapped isn’t a one-hit wonder. Spotify experiments constantly with these little “because it’s fun” features: Daylist, AI DJ, Eat Your Playlist, weirdly-specific playlist names (“Cozy Blend for Two Geminis Who Like Hyperpop”), mood-matchers… the list goes on. Not all of these become cultural moments, but that isn’t the point. The point is that the team is willing to play. To make small bets. To try funky experiments that simply make the experience better for zero strategic reason other than “why not?”

Those tiny sparks keep the product feeling alive. They build a world. They show that Spotify isn’t scared to be weird. And honestly, that’s what keeps them winning. Not every idea needs a KPI deck. Some are just there to delight, and that’s enough!

These projects do just happen

💬 Tip: Small wonders start as “low-stakes experiments”

Here’s the funny thing about ideas like #Wrapped-in: they’re rarely born out of a massive roadmap or a multi-million-dollar initiative. They start as tiny, almost throwaway curiosities. Someone riffs in a meeting. Someone prototypes something on a Friday. Someone tries a visual direction that doesn’t necessarily “fit the brand guidelines” yet. My tip here is to Protect your low-stakes experiments. The ones that aren’t tied to deliverables, the ones that feel too silly, and the ones you build just to see if it sparks joy. These are often the things that end up surprising you (and your clients!) the most.

Close: An invitation to play

💬 Tip: Life is already serious enough, 2026 gives us the opportunity to try something new

What we’re learning is that play creates magic. In a world that’s constantly sprinting toward optimization, efficiency, predictability, and NUMBERS… choosing to play is almost rebellious.

Let’s let 2026 be the year we let ourselves mess around a little. Make something small. Make something silly. Make something that no one asked for. Because you never know! Your “just because” idea might be the thing people look forward to every year.

That’s a wrap!

✌️

You survived Thanksgiving. Barely!

Smiled through Uncle Jerry's monologue about border policy while passing the gravy. Nodded at Aunt Susan's veiled critique of your career choices. Watched your cousin explain Bitcoin for the forty-seventh time to your grandparents, who still love to write their checks.

This is just what families do. We love each other fiercely and occasionally want to weaponize the cranberry sauce (ouch!).

Let's share something weird we stumbled into: there might be a way to take the edge off next time. We're not suggesting therapy, though God knows we could all use it, but music. Specifically, music tuned to 528 Hz. They call it the "love frequency," which sounds like something a guy selling crystals in Sedona would tell you, except there's actual research to back it up.

Wait, Frequency Does What Now?

528 Hz is part of this ancient scale called Solfeggio frequencies. The same tones Gregorian monks chanted back when Netflix was several centuries and a technological revolution away. The note sits at "Mi" in the scale, from the Latin mi-ra gestorum, meaning miracle. Which feels like overselling it until you look at what scientists have actually found.

A team in Japan ran a study in 2018 in which participants listened to 528 Hz music for just five minutes. Their stress levels dropped. Not "I feel slightly better, but a measurable cortisol reduction in their bloodstreams. Another study found it increased oxytocin, the hormone that makes you feel calm and connected, instead of like you want to flip the dinner table.

They tested this on rats, too. Science is weird. Rats exposed to 528 Hz showed way less anxiety and even had higher testosterone in their brains. One study found that the frequency increased cell lifespan by about 20% and helped cells recover from alcohol toxicity, which (given how much wine it takes to survive certain family members) feels appropriate.

There's also this claim that Gregorian chants at 528 Hz increased UV light absorption in DNA by 5 to 9 percent. We don't fully understand what that means, but it sounds impressive in a vaguely biological way.

Songs You Already Know

It gets even more interesting from here. John Lennon's "Imagine"? Recorded in 528 Hz. According to Lunartunar, who tracks this stuff anyway. So one of the most emotionally affecting peace anthems ever made (the song that makes stadium crowds sway with their lighters up) vibrates at the love frequency.

That's not the only one. "Let It Be" and "Yesterday" by The Beatles. Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You." Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On." John Legend's "All of Me." You know these songs. You've cried to them, probably. They're the ones that hit different, making you feel something or look at someone differently.

Some musicians tune deliberately to this frequency. Paul McCartney reportedly did so in his later years. When you tune A to 444 Hz instead of the standard 440 Hz, C lands right on 528 Hz. Dr. Leonard Horowitz (who wrote: The Book of 528: Prosperity Key of Love) has been championing this for years.

It could be a coincidence, or maybe there's something to the idea that certain frequencies resonate with us in ways we don't yet fully understand. The heart chakra stuff we'll leave to people more spiritually inclined than us, but the physiology is harder to dismiss. Your nervous system responds to sound. That's not woo; that's biology.

The Experiment You Should Run

Here's what we're suggesting: next time your family gathers (Christmas, maybe), make a playlist. Don't announce it or explain it. Just queue up songs in 528 Hz and let them fill the spaces between conversations.

Will it prevent your brother-in-law from derailing dinner with his thoughts on vaccine mandates? No. Will it stop your mom from asking why you're still single? Absolutely not. But it might soften things just enough. It might make people a fraction more patient and keep someone from saying the thing that ruins dessert.

Think of it like lighting. You dim the lights at dinner because harsh fluorescents kill the mood. Why not do the same thing with sound?

Worst case scenario: you've made a playlist of genuinely beautiful music, and nothing changes. Best case: you've accidentally hacked everyone's nervous system into behaving like reasonable humans for three consecutive hours.

The turkey, having already sacrificed enough, would appreciate the effort.

Does This Actually Work?

We’re biased, so we’ll say we don't know, definitively! The research is early and small-scale. Five minutes of stress reduction in a lab doesn't necessarily translate to surviving your family's greatest hits of dysfunction. And frequency science is one of those areas where legitimate research coexists uncomfortably with people selling $400 tuning forks that "align your energy field."

We constantly manipulate our environments, choosing paint colors based on how they make us feel. We burn candles. Rearrange furniture, play certain music when we need to focus, relax, or feel something. Why not extend that to frequencies?

Maybe 528 Hz works because of some deep biological resonance we're only beginning to understand, or it works because you've curated a playlist of emotionally resonant songs that people associate with love and connection, and that's enough. Maybe placebo effects are real effects, and we should stop being so precious about the mechanism.

We just know that navigating family holidays requires every advantage you can scrape together. And if science says a certain frequency might calm people down (even a little, even temporarily), We're willing to try it.

One Last Thing

Families are complicated. That's not a bug; it's the whole deal. The same people who drive you insane are the ones who showed up when things got dark. That dinner table where someone always says something unforgivable is also where you laughed until you couldn't breathe.

528 Hz won't fix the fundamental weirdness of loving people you sometimes can't stand. But it might give everyone's nervous system a fighting chance. It might create just enough space for grace.

And if nothing else, you'll have discovered something interesting about music and frequency and the strange ways sound moves through us. You'll have "Imagine" and "Let It Be" queued up for the moment when someone needs to remember why we keep doing this.

Because we keep showing up. We keep passing the potatoes. We keep trying.

Maybe 528 Hz can help us do it with a little more love.

‍

We’ve built a world that worships complexity. Not the kind that leads to breakthroughs or beauty, but the kind that hides responsibility. The kind that turns simple problems into endless committees, policy reviews, and “ongoing assessments.” It’s a trick disguised as sophistication; a way for leaders and organizations to look busy while standing still.

Take age-gating. For years, platforms have insisted that keeping underage users off certain spaces is an impossible task. Yet the same society can instantly verify your age when you buy alcohol, rent a car, or enter a casino. Somehow, when there’s profit on the line, the complexity evaporates.

The message that seems clear is: it’s not that the systems can’t change, it’s that the incentives won’t let them.

This pattern runs deeper than tech. Governments, institutions, even creative organizations fall for the same self-inflicted maze. They turn straightforward reforms into Herculean undertakings so that no one has to risk their comfort or ego. “We’re working on it” becomes the universal stall. But simplicity isn’t the absence of sophistication; it’s the result of mastery.

Complexity, in contrast, is often the art of evasion.

Ignorance has become an asset. When companies plead confusion about content moderation, about data ethics, about the harm their platforms amplify, they’re not admitting weakness. They’re protecting margins. Complexity becomes camouflage.

"It’s complicated” is corporate code for “we don’t want to fix it."

You can feel this tension in design too. Projects balloon into jargon-heavy roadmaps, bloated with meetings and endless “alignment.” Yet the boldest solutions often emerge when someone cuts through the noise and asks, “Why are we doing it this way?” Simplicity exposes what’s real; it leaves no room to hide behind PowerPoint decks or unnecessary verbiage. And that’s why it scares people. It demands honesty.

A quiet rebellion is forming: the new generation isn’t buying the illusion. They see that making things simple takes courage, not code. It means stripping away excuses, facing tradeoffs, and designing for humans instead of shareholders. They’re tired of being told; “it can’t be done” by people who simply don’t want to do it.

Maybe complexity isn’t the enemy; it’s the mask. And if we care about progress, we need to start pulling it off.

The future won’t belong to those who perfect the illusion, but to those who build with clarity, integrity, and purpose.

The ones willing to make simple things work because they actually want them to.

You are what you eat.

And if you're a designer or creative leader, that's not just a note for your fridge; it's a manifesto for your mind.

Every idea we produce is shaped by what we consume. The books we read. The films we watch. The music that hums in the background while we work. The memes, the museum visits, the rabbit holes we tumble into at 2 a.m. on YouTube.

Together, they make up your creative diet, and too many of us are living off reheated leftovers (sorry if it sounds harsh).

When you scroll the same feeds, follow the same studios, and obsess over the same aesthetics, you're basically eating creative junk. It fills you up for a moment, but your work ends up tasting like everyone else's. The freshest ideas rarely come from within your comfort zone; they're imported from the edges, from the strange and specific corners of life that most people overlook.

A good creative diet is messy, layered, and unpredictable. It's watching a documentary on coral reefs one day and sitting in on a local poetry studio the next. It's arguing with a friend about architecture, paying attention to how a bus driver greets each passenger.

Curiosity is a muscle, and feeding it variety is the only way to keep it strong.

The danger of a narrow diet is quiet sameness. You start designing what's expected. You think you're refining your taste, but really, you're trimming it down to something bland and algorithm-friendly. The internet rewards familiarity; art demands friction. Seek friction. That's where new flavors live.

So treat your inputs like ingredients. If your mind's menu hasn't changed in months, it's time to shop somewhere new. Swap the design blogs for cookbooks, the startup podcasts for philosophy lectures, the glossy brand case studies for a walk through a hardware store. Ideas need nutrients, and you won't find them all in the same aisle.

It may be time for a reset. Audit what you consume, not with guilt, but with curiosity. Ask yourself: Is this feeding me or numbing me? Then rebuild, slowly, intentionally.

Creativity doesn't thrive on starvation or excess, but on balance.

Eat widely, think deeply, and remember: your ideas will only ever be as fresh as what you've been feeding them.

‍

AI is rapidly transforming white-collar work, from writing code to crafting a brand identity. But what does that mean for design?

It's hard not to feel uneasy. Platforms like Sora, Midjourney, Lovable, and V0 are producing results that used to take designers hours or days to create. The speed, precision, and accessibility of these tools can make even the most seasoned designer wonder:

Is my expertise still valuable?

Here's the truth: we're not losing our jobs. Our jobs are evolving.

Think back just a decade ago. Product design as we know it didn't even exist before the iPhone reshaped the way we interact with technology. New disciplines are born whenever new tools and technologies appear. Today, we're seeing the rise of "prompt engineers." Tomorrow, it might be "prompt designers." The medium is changing, but the creative problem-solving that defines design remains the same.

Designers are organizers of form and function. Whether we're working with pixels, prompts, or prototypes, our core role is to bring clarity, beauty, and usability to complex systems.

There will always be new challenges to solve, just with new materials and methods.

AI can generate a logo in seconds, but it can't understand why a brand needs to feel approachable versus authoritative. It can produce a thousand color palette variations, but it doesn't know which one will resonate with a startup's target audience or align with their three-year vision. The strategic thinking that separates good design from great design (understanding context, anticipating user behavior, balancing business constraints with creative ambition) remains firmly in human hands.

The most exciting shift isn't about AI replacing tasks. It's about how it amplifies our creative range. Imagine prototyping twenty interface concepts before lunch, testing dozens of typographic systems in an afternoon, or exploring visual directions you'd normally dismiss as too time-consuming.

AI removes the friction between idea and execution, letting us experiment more freely and fail faster.

A new skill set is emerging at the intersection of design and AI: the ability to direct, curate, and refine machine-generated output with intention. This isn't about typing the perfect prompt and walking away. It's about developing a conversation with the tool, knowing when to be specific, when to be abstract, when to constrain, and when to let it surprise you. It's about recognizing the patterns AI falls into and deliberately breaking them. Just as designers once mastered Photoshop's layers or Figma's components, we're now learning to master parameters, iterations, and intelligent workflows.

The real competitive advantage isn't just technical skill with AI tools. It's the uniqueness of your perspective. AI is trained on what already exists; it recombines, interpolates, and optimizes based on past data. It cannot invent from lived experience, cultural nuance, or the messy humanity that fuels truly original thinking. Your background, your taste, your point of view: these are what make you irreplaceable.

Double down on what makes you different.

So rather than resist AI, let's master it. Become AI power users. Learn its strengths and weaknesses. Understand it deeply so we can push past its limits, break its patterns, and design what it can't imagine on its own.

The tools may change, but our curiosity, critical thinking, and creativity are what keep us relevant. The future of design isn't about competing with AI. It's about designing with it.

‍

Building Since Day One

For as long as I can remember, I’ve built things. Legos, guitars, computers—you name it. I’ve always loved taking something from idea to reality, from the ground up. Over the years, I’ve gone from backyard projects to Fortune 500 products. But somewhere along the way, I realized something surprising: The things that change the world aren’t big. They’re mid.

Now, I don’t mean “mid” like a medium T-shirt or your go-to Chick-fil-A drink size. I’m talking about products that fit perfectly into people’s lives—those that bridge a gap so naturally you forget what life was like before they existed.

The Power of the Medium

Think about it: Uber, DoorDash, Airbnb, Instacart, Zapier, Webflow. None of these are earth-shattering on the surface. They didn’t invent teleportation or a new universe—they just solved specific, human problems beautifully.

They sit perfectly in the middle: not too ambitious that they overpromise, and not too small that they fade away. They just fit. They make your life smoother in a way that feels obvious now, but wasn’t back then. And that’s the magic of medium-sized thinking.

Why Airbnb Changed Everything for Me

Let’s take Airbnb—one of my personal favorites. First off, they’re design-driven (so yes, they already had me hooked). But what they really did back in 2008, as “Air Bed & Breakfast,” was shift the way we see travel forever. They connected travelers and hosts to create experiences that felt personal, comfortable, and authentic. Suddenly, “home away from home” wasn’t just a saying—it was real.

As someone who uses Airbnb often, I can’t go back. Hotels now feel… stale. Airbnb gave me freedom, choice, and peace—and that’s the point. They didn’t just sell rooms. They sold a feeling. That’s what medium products do. They fit perfectly into your life while quietly redefining how you live it.

So What Makes a Product “Successful”?

Let’s get real. How do you know if your idea’s worth building? Or if it’s just noise? The truth lies in you. Who are you? What do you care about? Do others feel the same way? Start there.

If your passion connects with others, you’re onto something. Then, validate it—talk to people, ask questions, and not the shallow kind. Ask the deep, uncomfortable, introspective ones that reveal what people truly need (not just what they say they want). This is how you build something real. Not through fancy code, or a beautiful UI (though those help), but through empathy, curiosity, and persistence.

The Feels Matter More Than the Features

Products that win make people feel something. They feel easier, lighter, freer, better understood.

Ask yourself:

•     Does my idea resonate with people?

•     Does it truly solve a problem?

•     Can it scale naturally into people’s routines?

Great builders are relentless about asking questions—and not just to get validation, but to find truth. The world will always tell you what’s wrong with your idea. That’s not failure. That’s direction. Find the root cause, and you’ve found your golden ticket.

You Don’t Need a Fancy Setup

You don’t need millions in funding, a 36GB RAM setup, or a shiny office with espresso on tap. What you do need is curiosity, resilience, and the ability to keep asking questions until you get to the truth. Because once you do that—the team will come, the money will follow, and the network will find you.

It all starts with you. Not the big, loud version of you that wants to conquer the world, but the mid version—steady, observant, thoughtful.

That’s the one that builds the next world-changing product.

✌🏾Written by a fellow product builder ~ Ryan Harricharan

‍

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.

‍

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.

‍

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.

‍

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.

‍

Peace. ✌🏾

‍

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.

‍

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.

‍

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.

‍

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.
‍

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.

‍

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.
‍

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.

‍

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.

‍

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.
‍

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.

‍

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.
‍

The work that builds trust and community, often isn’t the final product; it’s the process.

‍

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.
‍

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.

‍

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!

‍

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.

‍

The conversation shifts from shouting into the void to having real dialogue.
‍

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?

‍

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.

‍

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

‍

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.

‍

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.

‍

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.

‍

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

‍

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.

‍

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

‍

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.

‍

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

‍

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.

‍

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.

‍

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.
‍
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.
‍
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.
‍
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!
‍
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.

‍

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.

We know how hard reading can be for some creative minds, so we've got this version for you, made with NotebookLM. Just hit play!

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.

‍

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

‍

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.

‍

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

‍

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.

‍

“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?

‍

📸 by: PhotocredNed

We know how hard reading can be for some creative minds, so we've got this version for you, made with NotebookLM. Just hit play!

“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.

‍

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.

‍

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.

‍

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

‍

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.

‍

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.

‍

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.

‍

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.

‍

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.

‍

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

‍

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.

‍

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.

‍

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

‍

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.

‍

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

‍

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?
‍

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.

‍

Peace!

‍