The veteran creative leader, who specialises in branding for beauty and fashion, explains why it took her a few decades to figure things out.

The most surprising thing to me when I opened my branding agency, Letter A, was just how ready I was, which is not to say it was easy to get to that place. It absolutely wasn't.

I'd spent the past 20 years working in-house as a creative director and graphic designer for some of the biggest beauty and fashion brands while living in New York City. Vogue. Kate Spade New York. Bumble and bumble. Ann Taylor. I was even part of the team that launched the cult brand Kate Spade Saturday from the ground up. For plenty of designers, this is the dream. All signs pointed to an upward trajectory: fulfilling, creative work, sexy brands, big budget campaigns, and titles with VP in them.

Little did I know that massive changes were lying in wait. In the span of three months in the winter of 2015, I not only became a mother at 41, but also moved across the country to Portland, Oregon, for my husband's job.

I took a few years off after having my son and naively assumed that, when I was ready, I would easily find a job after my West Coast relocation. However, the opportunities weren't as plentiful in my new home, and the part of the industry I loved—in-house brand building, fashion, beauty—wasn't the scene in Portland.

That was when I started to worry. Like, really worry. I was creeping past 43, and I feared that the older I got and the longer I went without a job, the more unemployable—and irrelevant—I would become.

Fear of ageing

Until then, I had never really agonised about my age. I'd worried about my own talents and abilities, but imposter syndrome in your 20s and 30s is par for the course. Now, though, my age, being a mother, my appearance—those became new threads to pull on. It's funny: we all want our doctors and lawyers to look seasoned or older, but we expect our creative talent to appear perpetually under 40.

I felt very isolated during this period. Most creatives feel the unrelenting pressure to be cool and relevant, and we work in an industry that prioritises youth culture and staying on top of every trend and influencer. So would I be judged on my 25+ years of experience, sidelined, deemed too expensive, stuck in my ways, or not looking the part?

I thought that if I didn't do something quickly, I might never work again.

Saved by ambition

Ultimately, it was my own ambition that saved me. I love the work I do. For a few years, I cobbled together work at other agencies and took on projects here and there. I managed to find places and projects where I could work in my zone of genius—building rich worlds and helping founders bring their brands to life.

It was also around this time that I got some invaluable advice from a friend: I needed to rebrand myself.

I was already doing the work of a small indie studio, but because everything was under my name, it very much made me look small and like a hired gun. Instead, I needed to present myself as a thoughtful, strategic, creative partner with the ability to build a team.

It was a shaky time, but all that job-hopping gave me back my confidence and voice. I found I could lead the work and ground it in the kind of brand strategy I had built my career on. I noticed I took a more comprehensive approach to branding, mostly because I'd previously worked on very successful brands that were fleshed out and fully realised. I brought my knowledge from years in-house, along with my ability to fully immerse myself in a brand's universe and ethos, and applied both to my own agency. I heard myself giving opinions to people, and they listened.

And that's because I knew what I was talking about. There was no second-guessing, and it was a feeling I had never felt before. For years, everything was clouded in indecision and crossing my fingers. I never attributed my success to talent, a good sense of business, or having a good eye; in truth, I had been building that all along.

What's more, all my insecurities about age became a kind of superpower.

Early on, I found myself working with founders and brand leaders who shared my experiences and interests. Whether they're working mothers or Gen Xers, they want to feel like they're collaborating with a peer or an expert who takes them seriously. Someone who gets them.

Key takeaways

In the end, we need creatives who have lived a genuine life and have some years under their belt. All of those experiences are ultimately what will make you a better designer, writer, strategist, or leader (which is its own kind of relevance and social currency). You haven't "aged out." Working as a creative has always been a constant battle to remain relevant, and that's been the job from day one.

You can say that with age comes wisdom, but I also did the work, and I always showed up. It's why I never call opening my agency a pivot. It was just the natural progression of things. But I did it, and it felt totally right.

And it only took 30 years to figure that all out. I'm happy I finally did.

The New Jersey illustrator on hitting the burnout wall, drawing with a black ink pen so she can't turn back, and finding the magic in everyday things like beans and thrifted trinkets.

Kaitlin Brito makes, in her own words, images with a "sparkle": careful linework, bright flat colour and a playful sense of nostalgia that keeps finding the whimsy in the mundane. A Peruvian-American illustrator based in New Jersey and a School of Visual Arts graduate, she has been named a Society of Illustrators winner and drawn for the likes of Google, Disney, Pinterest, The New York Times, The Washington Post and NPR.

Beneath the warmth, though, is a working life she has had to learn to protect. It started the day she got a bit stuck. "Hitting that wall looked like me sitting at my desk, two days gone by without going outside, a blank canvas open on my screen, and just staring for long minutes," she tells Creative Boom. "It was an absolute emptiness in my brain, and honestly a pretty scary feeling, the feeling of having nothing more to give."

It was a tough stretch. She had to push on and clear deadlines before she could take any time to reflect and work through it. What came out the other side was a rule she now guards closely: prioritise "pure making", even when it eats into the time set aside for paid work.

"If I have an idea for something, or just want to draw my breakfast one morning, I do it," she says. "I don't ignore the call to create, because I find it helps me do my paid work later, by sort of rewiring my mind to not have a separation between what's a job and what is me just drawing."

Said plainly now, she admits, it sounds obvious. "It feels like a 'well, duh!' moment. But when you're completely consumed by paid work, the unopened emails and the red deadlines filling your calendar, it's easy to forget that you also do this thing for fun." Sometimes the deadline genuinely is at noon, and the making has to wait. More often than not, she says, you need to give yourself a bit of time anyway. These days, she sets timers to intentionally carve out space.

The pen that won't let her turn back

Ask Kaitlin about her favourite tool, and she'll point to a black ink pen, precisely because it forces her to go for it with no turning back. For a self-described overthinker and perfectionist, you might expect that to feel limiting. She sees it the other way round.

"I've never really considered limiting myself to that one medium as a constraint," she says. "It's more like a key to unlocking a freer part of my brain. I'm often overwhelmed by choice, and on top of being an over-thinker, I'm a perfectionist at heart. If I give myself a pencil, I'll redraw and erase something a million times to make it look 'good', until I finish and I hate it, because it came from a place of trying too hard to be something I'm not."

That instinct for line goes right back. The combination of line art and flat, bright colour clicked into place in her final year at university, and she never looked back, but the seeds were there much earlier.

"Drawing was always my absolute favourite thing to do. Even when I was very young, my paintings were outlines of things, rarely filling in the shapes," she says. "Many people don't believe me when I say I never had confidence in using colour early on. So, at university, I tried lots of mediums, but I always kept coming back to outlines. I was most confident in my line work, and simple colours were added as needed. Then, over time, they became just as important to me as the line."

It felt, she says, like "a slow burn towards this choice I made with such certainty, like it was always going to find me all along."

Finding the magic in beans

So much of Kaitlin's work is about locating the wonder in ordinary things. Pushed to name the most boring subject she's made magical, she laughs that she's the wrong person to ask, being someone fascinated by every niche topic going. Then she mentions a recent favourite: a piece about beans for NPR.

"The article was about how people are eating more beans in this strained economy. The topic could objectively be very boring to some, but I immediately saw an opportunity to spotlight beans as a superhero, a food that can save us," she says. The result was a celebratory, bean-filled scene, cans bursting open and a giant bean flexing its muscles as the star of the show.

That eye is fed by a serious vintage habit. A collector who cites 1950s, '60s, and '70s illustrations, she pulls references straight from things she's found in the wild. For a sticker sheet for Martina's Tiny Store, the brief was to illustrate photographs of the owner's favourite trinkets, plus whatever else fit the theme.

"I immediately went through my collection," she says. "A porcelain pig, a vintage apple bell, and things that already existed in my camera roll from various antique stores. Things from past decades were just so much more fun than a lot of the minimalist styles today, so I love to draw from those references."

Keeping the analogue feeling, even on screen

When commissions push her toward digital tools, Kaitlin works hard to maintain the handmade quality of traditional work. She has two firm rules for it.

"First, I choose a brush that has no smoothing effect and isn't uniform," she says. "And second, I try my best not to redraw a line more than once if I can help it. If a line goes wonky, I draw over it and fill in the uneven section, as I would on paper. It mimics the charm of analogue, can't-undo-your-mistakes work."

Those are her hard lines, quite literally, against work that looks too rendered and too obviously made on a screen.

Reading the brief before it goes wrong

Kaitlin is drawn to clients who want a real back-and-forth and come to her for her specific voice. Learning to spot the briefs that won't deliver that is, she says, still a work in progress.

"I've been lucky not to have briefs go totally wrong. I've had a few headaches with clients who weren't expecting much back-and-forth," she says. The warning sign is the brief that opens with "do whatever you want and send it when you're done", when in reality the client had a specific vision all along. Her fix is to get the conversation going early: "If a brief is wide open at first, I try to open up the floor to discuss some written concepts or themes, so I can gauge what the client is actually interested in."

The grim, abstract, fast-turnaround editorial jobs that some illustrators dread are, she confesses, secretly among her favourites. "It's a nice exercise to rely more on concept than on the look," she says. When the subject is tough, she reads the draft over and over, pulling out any words or phrases with visual quality, then starts doodling in parts.

"It's a bit like grouping puzzle pieces together before I can see how they'll fit," she says. "I find it faster than sitting with a blank canvas, trying to wrap my head around one stellar concept. Eventually, things fall into place, in the nick of time, from the quick visual library I've made."

As for jobs she's turned down, so far, it has only ever been about time. Early in her career and chasing financial goals, she still feels the pull to say yes to almost everything, even the miscellaneous editorial topics that aren't quite in her lane. "Those often end up being a fun challenge to make exciting anyway," she says.

Nostalgia, AI and the long game

Nostalgia is having a real moment in illustration, which could leave a sentimental artist worrying about being lumped in with a trend. Kaitlin isn't fazed because the feeling predates the fashion for it. "I've always been a sentimental person, even as a kid, attributing deep feelings to inanimate objects and being hyper-aware of passing time," she says. "I've always wanted to make work that felt warm and exciting, like images in a picture book that made your eyes linger as a kid. I think that makes my work feel timely, with themes that will always speak to the wonder we all once had and still want."

And then there's the question every working illustrator gets asked. Where does she sit on AI image tools? "Next question, please," she jokes, before answering it properly.

"When things were first bubbling up, I was only just getting my footing with gigs, and I saw it as an immediate threat. That came from a place of uncertainty and insecurity," she says. "But as public opinion has evolved, and my confidence in my own voice has too, I'm no longer as worried."

What reassures her is watching brands commission bespoke, human-made art, and watching audiences respond to it. "Open any comment section under a brand's commissioned-artist post, and you'll see happiness and inspiration. On the other end, when brands share work with no one to credit, people find it cheap and unreliable." If anything, she says, the moment has only sharpened her appetite to bring more physical mediums into her practice and to keep developing something "unique to me, and not some code".

What she'd tell her younger self

For all the talk of doing more, faster, and learning every new skill going, the version of success Kaitlin values now is much quieter. Her advice to a younger self who equated success with output? Stop and smell the roses.

"We're always thinking of the next step, or even the next five steps, so that when the time has passed, we've barely got to enjoy the process of making and evolving," she says. "Real success that feels satisfying has lately looked quite simple, in that I get to wake up every day and draw, a dream come true."

Blood Stocks, a Danish proposal to turn menstruation into a medical asset, was the only project at tonight's ceremony in London to take both a Black Pencil and a White Pencil. Here's why it struck such a chord.

Here's a lovely thing. The work that defined this year's D&AD New Blood Awards wasn't a glossy product film or a clever brand stunt, but a thoughtful, brave proposal about menstruation – and it earned its makers both of the night's top honours.

Announced yesterday evening at The Steel Yard in London, Blood Stocks proposes treating menstruation as a medical asset rather than something to be quietly managed and never spoken about. It was the only project in the entire programme to take both a Black Pencil, D&AD's highest honour, and a White Pencil, the award kept back for creativity that does some good in the world.

Created in response to the Canesten New Blood brief, in collaboration with Design Bridge & Partners, Blood Stocks is the work of Jens Kühnel and Kirstine Vilsen, two students from DMJX, the Danish School of Media and Journalism. The idea is a first-of-its-kind donation model tied to the menstrual cycle, one that turns monthly donors into active stakeholders in women's health research. It takes a subject long buried under stigma and reframes it as something genuinely valuable. The judges clearly agreed.

As many of us know, Black Pencils are rare things. Only two were handed out this year, and the second went to Kuwait. Young Explorer: Independence with a Snap, created for Wise by Mohammed Al Sane, tackles the tender moment when a child starts to need a little financial independence while parents still want a safety net. At its heart is 'The Snap', a physical card that snaps in two to mark a handover of trust, paired with digital touches like an activity map and tap-to-transfer.

Creativity that does good

The three remaining White Pencils all went to work with real heart. Play Aid, by Daniela Santucci and Santiago Cáceres at Miami Ad School Madrid in Spain (for the Affinity and Canva brief), redesigns the inside of humanitarian food-aid packaging as printed play boards, giving children living through conflict something to play with at no extra shipping weight or cost. 2Integrate, by Guus Vercoutere and Mats Mondy at LUCA School of Arts in Belgium (the Duolingo brief), works with UNHCR to turn language learning into a survival tool, helping asylum seekers communicate in urgent, real-world moments as they rebuild their lives. And Launch Pads, by a four-strong team at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore (Affinity and Canva again), designs period products for girls who start their periods young, made to help a first period feel ordinary rather than taboo.

In all, 175 Pencils were handed out across the 2026 programme: two Black, four White, 24 Yellow, 42 Graphite and 103 Wood. Winners came from 29 countries, drawn from more than 7,000 entrants across 78 countries, with 165 judges marking the work against the same standards as the main D&AD Awards. They were responding to 19 briefs from global brands including Twix, HSBC, Duolingo, L'Oréal, Tuborg, Wise, Carrefour and Canesten, which D&AD says makes it the most global group of partners in its history.

Denmark was the real standout among the smaller nations, taking a Pencil in all five tiers: Wood, Graphite, Yellow, White and Black. The UK led the table overall with 51 Pencils, followed by Spain with 19, France with 16, Denmark with 15, and the United States with 11.

It all adds up to something, too. For 46 years, New Blood has set live briefs from real brands, and this year's were downloaded 227,000 times in over 90 countries. With 65% of last year's winners already in creative employment, a New Blood Pencil has become one of the clearest early signals of who the industry should be watching. This year also marked another milestone for Design Bridge & Partners, whose practice of bringing the brief-sponsorship opportunity to its clients has now helped generate 111 Pencils.

"What strikes me most this year is how global New Blood has become," says David Patton, D&AD CEO. "We had our highest ever number of international briefs this year, and the only two Black Pencils awarded went to work made in Denmark and Kuwait. New Blood is the world's largest programme for students and emerging talent, but scale and reach are only part of the story. By setting students real briefs from leading brands, we give them the skills to progress and help bridge the gap between education and industry, wherever in the world they're starting out. None of it would be possible without our partners, university tutors and the wider creative community, 1,000 of whom came to support the students at our private view to kick off the New Blood Festival last night."

If you want to see the work for yourself, the D&AD New Blood Festival, the free annual showcase of the UK's best graduating talent, is running this week at Protein Studios in London. It features work from more than 40 university courses alongside exhibitions of the Award winners, plus talks from the likes of Anthony Burrill, Josh Akapo, Seen Studios and Mother.

You can see all the winning entries over at dandad.org. Not a bad year, then, for the work that dares to talk about the things we usually keep under wraps.

Accept & Proceed's founder spent 20 years mastering the mechanics of desire. Now his new framework, Signalism, asks what that mastery actually costs.

At the start of a project, all good creatives ask the same questions. Can we build it? Will people want it? Can it scale? David Johnston, founder of Accept & Proceed, has spent two decades answering all three, first at Nike, then across nearly 20 years running his own studio. What he's increasingly preoccupied with now is the question nobody trains you to ask: should we do it at all?

That question sits at the centre of Signalism, the framework and forthcoming book David has been developing and testing on stages from Athens to Birmingham.

It argues that signals shape behaviour, that behaviour shapes belief, and that belief shapes the futures we end up living in. And it describes a chain that runs from bioluminescent bacteria 3.8 billion years ago, right through to modern brand campaigns and AI feeds.

It's a big, strange, ambitious idea. But talk to David for any length of time, and it becomes clear the project isn't really about branding theory. It's about a feeling he's noticed in himself, in his studio, and in students at design schools across the country.

I asked him where he thinks that feeling comes from and what creatives should actually do about it.

The dark inheritance of "brand"

David begins by explaining that there was no single lightbulb moment for all of this. "It was more a gradual realisation," he says. "In my work, in conversations I was having, and in what I was seeing in the wider world."

He loved learning how to create desire in people and spread stories. Yet discomfort crept in once he noticed those same mechanics operating everywhere else: "underneath politics, conspiracy theories, financial markets, culture wars and algorithmic feeds".

It's not that persuasion itself is new or wrong, though. "Persuasion has always existed," he reasons. "It's simply recognising that if persuasion is infrastructure, then responsibility enters the room."

That thought sent him digging into etymology—the study of the origin of words—with unsettling results. He realised the word "brand" has its roots in fire: in marking ownership on cattle and, at times, on people. "That's a surprisingly dark inheritance for a discipline so often associated with creativity, culture and possibility, isn't it?" he observes. "Nobody teaches you that at design school."

He's not arguing for abandoning brand as a tool. But he does suspect the language itself has simply become too small for what the work needs to do next, and that expanding the vocabulary might expand the imagination too.

It's a concern he hears from students constantly. "They love creativity," he reflects. "They love making things. But many are genuinely concerned that they might spend their careers contributing to systems that are harmful, extractive or simply making the world worse." Signalism, he says, "emerged, in part, as an attempt to give language to that feeling".

A 3.8-billion year topic

Signalism's timeline begins long before humans, with bioluminescent bacteria and cyanobacteria. David is deliberate about that scale. "3.8 billion years changes the conversation, doesn't it? We stop talking about media and start talking about life." Long before logos or language, he points out, life was already organising itself through signals: "bioluminescence, birdsong, pheromones, breastfeeding."

He's especially drawn to the story of cyanobacteria because of what it changed without warning. These organisms transformed Earth's atmosphere through photosynthesis, triggering a mass extinction while making complex life, eventually us, possible.

"What I find oddly reassuring," he says, "is that cyanobacteria remind us that signals which eventually change the world often begin as tiny disruptions." Most organisations, he notes, "struggle to think 12 months ahead, let alone five or ten years," while many of today's challenges "demand a 50-year perspective at minimum".

In this light, starting the story 3.8 billion years back "reminds us that communication didn't begin with brands, advertising or the internet. We've just become astonishingly good at amplifying signals, often without asking what they're amplifying us towards."

Redefining design

But if you're not a prehistoric lifeform but a modern, creative human, what does all this mean? Fundamentally, he says, it's about recognising that "designers don't just make artefacts; they participate in reality construction. Signalism is the practice of asking what realities our signals are creating."

Which returns us to that core question: "Should we do it at all?" When I asked David to sharpen this into a single piece of practical advice, he offered two versions. The loftier one: "Choose the future you want to contribute to before you choose the design or message." And a more grounded one: "Decide what behaviour you want to see more of in the world before you decide what to design or say."

It's a small reordering with big implications, flipping the usual creative process so the desired outcome comes first and the execution follows, rather than the other way round.

Dealing with pushback

This might all sound provocative, and that's no accident. David says he's actively courting disagreement rather than applause. So what kind of pushback has he received so far?

The strongest challenge to date, he responds, has been definitional: what exactly counts as a signal? David's answer is deliberately broad. "A signal is anything that influences what happens next: a gesture, a symbol, a colour, a flag, an incentive, an algorithm, an interface, a law," he says.

He's upfront that Signalism borrows heavily from existing fields, including semiotics, behavioural science and systems thinking. But he argues nothing currently joins them up "through the specific lens of communication, design and the futures those systems ultimately produce." And this brings him to make a fascinating historical point.

"Freud was trying to understand how the mind worked at almost exactly the same moment that his nephew Edward Bernays was figuring out how to shape public opinion at scale," he reflects. "Had we developed something like Signalism alongside advertising and branding, I wonder whether some of our industries might look rather different today."

From the classroom to the boardroom

David is keen to stress that Signalism isn't confined to agency life. He moves between teaching at places like Ravensbourne and Central Saint Martins and sitting with organisational leaders thinking decades ahead, and finds the conversations converge. "In a classroom, Signalism helps people ask what kind of career they want to have," he says. "In a boardroom, it helps organisations ask what kind of future they want to help create. The questions, it turns out, are remarkably similar."

He separates the philosophy from the commercial work. "Signalism itself isn't a commercial proposition," he clarifies. "It's a lens. A philosophy. And a call to action." The studio work, he says, on long-range projects for clients including Arc'teryx, Nike and Lego, has long been reaching for the same ideas intuitively; Signalism just gives them shared language.

Ultimately, David believes the most interesting version of design isn't "helping organisations succeed within the world as it is, but helping them participate in building worlds people might actually want to inhabit." It's a big ambition. But David's advice for getting there starts small: decide what behaviour you want to see more of in the world before you decide what to design or say.

Whether you're sketching a logo or writing a single line of copy, that's the kind of question Signalism asks you to answer first. For as David says, "I increasingly wonder whether the best designers of the future won't be the best designers at all. They'll be the people who ask the best questions."

The much-loved developer site has had a tough couple of years. So Koto's job was a tricky one: not just a fresh look, but a fresh argument for why Stack Overflow still matters in the AI era. Here's how the global studio pulled it off.

There are really only a handful of reasons a brand decides to reinvent itself. Sometimes it's a growth spurt, and the old look simply doesn't work any more. Sometimes it's a new market or audience. And sometimes it's because the world has shifted under your feet, and you need to remind everyone why you still matter.

Stack Overflow's new identity, by global studio Koto, has a little of all three. And that, for me, is what makes it such a good project to pick apart.

If you've spent any time near a developer these past couple of years as I have, you'll know it's been difficult times for Stack Overflow. It's an 18-year-old site where programmers have always gone to get unstuck. But as Gergely Orosz pointed out in The Pragmatic Engineer, the number of questions being asked has slipped back towards where it started, with the sharpest drop coming once ChatGPT turned up in late 2022. And you can see why. When a chatbot trained on Stack Overflow's own answers will reply in seconds, the old ritual of posting a question and waiting for an answer starts to feel, well, clunky. Even so, I have a soft spot for the place. My husband is a software engineer, so I'm rooting for it.

You might expect a rebrand at this point to be a lick of fresh paint and not much else. But Koto and Stack Overflow have done something far cleverer. Rather than tiptoe around the AI wave, they've gone and planted the new brand right in the middle of it.

The whole thing hangs on one rather sharp truth: AI is only as good as the information it learns from. "In the AI era, everyone wants faster answers. But speed is only useful if the knowledge underneath is trusted," says Cat Hill, senior strategist at Koto. "Stack Overflow's advantage has always been its community: people asking, testing, correcting, and improving technical knowledge in public. The strategy was about reframing that value, from a Q&A platform to the world's most vital source for technologists."

It's a clever pivot, and a fair one. With more than 83 million community-contributed questions and answers, Stack Overflow holds one of the largest stores of human-checked technical knowledge anywhere online. That's pretty valuable when the machines occasionally get it wrong.

Always in build

The identity itself is built, appropriately enough, around the idea of "always in build". The brand behaves like the community it serves: modular, iterative, responsive, put together layer by layer, answer by answer. The evolved logo keeps the equity everyone already knows but sharpens its meaning, with stacked, offset lines that hint at accumulation, overflow, and steady progress. From there, "stacking" becomes the organising idea for everything – structuring layouts and hierarchies in their simplest form, and creating real depth and momentum in their more expressive moments.

"The new Stack Overflow identity embraces the spirit of its community, visually referencing the fact that its users are always building," says Joe Ling, creative director at Koto. "The multi-state building blocks ('the stack') became the central brand asset as they symbolise the infinite possibilities of what can be achieved on the platform."

Here's the smart bit. To keep the system as lively as the community itself, Koto translated all that behaviour into a custom generative tool, built with Claude, that lets teams nudge composition, motion and colour to spin up fresh assets without the brand ever wandering off-piste. The palette layers up from Stack Overflow's signature orange, and the typography is led by Stack Sans, a custom typeface by Koto that you can find on Google Fonts. There's a new tone of voice, too. One that's clear, direct and a little bit cheeky... written to sound like the technologists who've relied on the site for nearly two decades, rather than at them.

And here's the part I love most: the process mirrored the community behind the platform. Koto and Stack Overflow shared their design routes out in the open and put them to a vote at WeAreDevelopers World Congress 2025, before launching the brand at Microsoft Ignite in November 2025 and rolling it out across the website. "Our partnership with the Koto team clarified both our business and brand imperatives – who we serve and why," says David Longworth, senior director of design at Stack Overflow, "and ultimately helped translate this direction into a strategy and tangible decisions on what we build and how we market it."

Founded in 2015 by James Greenfield, Caroline Matthews and Jowey Roden, Koto now operates five studios across Berlin, London, Los Angeles, New York and Sydney, serving clients including Google, Netflix, Meta and Microsoft.

So, which kind of rebrand is this in the end? A bit of everything, really – a brand making the well-argued case that human knowledge is the very thing the machines can't do without. And if that holds, Stack Overflow has just given itself a rather lovely reason to stick around.

Reach is out, and resonance is in. Here's what a week on the Croisette revealed about where the creative industries are heading next.

The Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, held over five days on the Côte d'Azur, brings together some of the biggest voices in the industry on stage, in panels, and at fringe events throughout the famous Croisette.

After a week of walking between the Palais, the beach activations and the little pop-ups, a handful of shifts kept surfacing – and most of them point the same way.

Resonance will beat reach

If the last decade belonged to audiences, the next belongs to communities. This year, creators were everywhere. Podcast studios popped up across the Croisette. Newsletter writers were interviewing CEOs. Brands weren't just inviting creators to amplify campaigns; they were inviting them to shape the editorial agenda.

But alongside all of that scale, another conversation kept surfacing. Corey Martin, professor and MD of Media + Influence at Future Gazers, described it as the shift from the creator economy to the community economy. The next measure of ROI, he argued, won't simply be impressions or engagement but "return on influence" – the value exchange creators build with the communities that trust them.

It's a subtle distinction, but an important one. As AI produces content in ever greater abundance, trust becomes scarce.

Rachel Lowenstein arrived at a similar conclusion from a different direction. She believes it's never been a better time to be an independent. Creators have cultural capital. Independent strategist-creators can move at the speed of culture, often faster than the bureaucracy of large agencies or brands.

Richard Hammond saw the same pattern emerging. Creators are no longer simply content producers. They're becoming media brands in their own right.

For years, we've obsessed over reach, but I predict we will see smaller niche creators with resonance instead.

Communities become the new media plan

'Community' was the new 'authenticity' as the word cropped up repeatedly throughout the week Corey Martin made the point that creators don't really monetise content. They monetise relationships.

That doesn't mean audiences become products. It means the relationship itself becomes valuable because people choose to come back, participate and trust what someone has to say. Brands are beginning to realise that influence isn't something you rent for a campaign. It's something built over years.

That feels like a very different model from the creator economy we have known over the past decade.

The analogue rebellion

One of the funniest moments of the week came when I realised I'd been invited to send a postcard for what must have been the fourth time.

At a festival dominated by conversations about AI and technological acceleration, more brands seemed determined to get us back to making things with our hands.

Pinterest encouraged people to build personalised journals rather than another piece of social content. Polaroid described simply existing as "an act of rebellion". Pantone spoke about restoring the balance between technological progress and human presence.

Patricia Varella, Creative Director at Polaroid, argued that analogue experiences sharpen critical thinking and help protect what makes us human.

Sebastian Curi made a similar point from an artist's perspective during It's Nice That's Nicer Tuesdays. He wasn't simply interested in the finished work. He was interested in how things are made.

I think we are going to see an increase in offline events and connection experience from big brands, perhaps even further afield from the Croisette itself.

Bigger festival with smaller worlds

Cannes Lions keeps getting bigger. What began inside the Palais has stretched across beaches, hotels, villas and neighbourhoods far beyond the Croisette.

Ironically, many people seemed to be looking for smaller ways to connect than the huge rooms.

This year introduced the Lions Sport programme and fitness activities, including walking groups, breakfast clubs, and niche communities gathering around shared interests rather than job titles.

The Female Quotient expanded its family offering with a children's camp, recognising that creative careers no longer fit neatly around traditional conference formats. Parents no longer have to choose between attending industry events and spending time with their children.

With the Sport track arriving this year, I wonder if we will continue to see niche verticals and other specialist communities become the next cultural neighbourhoods within the festival?

Taste becomes the competitive advantage

If AI dominated Cannes Lions in 2025, this year the conversation felt noticeably more mature. The question was no longer whether AI would replace creativity; it was about where human value sits once everyone has access to the same tools.

Laurie Pressman from Pantone spoke about a growing desire to restore equilibrium between technological progress and human presence, predicting a return to emotion, empathy, tactility and even imperfection.

In good news for those of us with niche creative methods, she predicted a rise in artisanal methods.

Looking ahead

Undoubtedly, the buzzwords of the last year were sport, creator, and AI. I predict niche, community, geek, analogue, and offline will feature more as a counter to this in the next few years.

The smaller creators are building trusted communities, and artists are talking about process rather than output. And broader conversations about taste, judgement and cultural intelligence.

No doubt the conversation around technology evolving will continue, but the antidote to being ever more mistakenly human will be even more important, which is great news for us indie creators.

In a brilliant piece of self-promo for a creative agency, prayer beads prove the best campaigns don't sell products; they understand rituals fans already perform.

Every England fan has a tell. Some can't watch penalties. Some leave the room. Some grip a cushion so hard that it loses its shape by full time. And a huge number of us, whether we'd admit it in daylight or not, end up with our hands pressed together, eyes shut, silently bargaining with whoever might be listening.

It's this unconscious gesture, repeated by millions, that London and South West studio Happy Ending has decided to design for. Their project, It Cometh Home, takes the prayer pose England fans pull during extra time and penalties and turns it into a physical object. The result is a limited run of 60 sets of England prayer beads, built like multi-faith devotional tools but dressed in Three Lions iconography.

It's a clever piece of work, and one that makes a case that's bigger than football: that a well-designed object can create more meaning and more loyalty than any ad ever could.

Faith as design brief

"It's coming home" has been a joke, a chant and a curse for three decades. Rather than adding another slogan to the pile, Happy Ending has gone looking for the physical ritual hiding underneath the cliché and built something you can actually hold.

The main loop runs to 60 alternating red and pale wood beads, one for every year since 1966, while a golden football marks the point where six "decade" beads drop from the loop, a small, satisfying way of making time itself part of the object. The pendant at the end is die-struck with a bespoke calligraphic take on the Three Lions.

With this level of forethought and detail, none of it feels decorative for decoration's sake. Instead, it's a subtle, slightly painful joke about how long this wait has gone on, rendered in gold and wood.

Belief isn't something you buy

Importantly, the beads aren't actually for sale. Instead, clues drop on Instagram and TikTok throughout the tournament, sending fans hunting for hidden locations in what the studio is calling a modern-day football pilgrimage.

"Belief isn't something you purchase," explains Ross Popejoy of Happy Ending. "So the idea only worked if the beads couldn't be bought. We wanted to get hold of a set to feel like its own ritual. Part treasure hunt, part pilgrimage."

For creatives used to scarcity drops as a hype tactic, it's worth noting how well the mechanic fits the concept here. Pilgrimage—whether traditional or football-related—has always involved travel, patience and a bit of suffering before the reward.

Asking fans to chase clues and turn up in person isn't just about generating social content, though it'll certainly do that too; it's about making the audience show the same dedication the object represents. Each hand-numbered set even arrives with its own embossed Certificate of Faith, the sort of touch that turns a prize into a relic.

The value of restraint

There's a lesson here for anyone working on culturally-rooted briefs: resist the urge to over-explain. Happy Ending hasn't built an elaborate backstory or piled on irony. The work assumes that fans already understand prayer beads, the gesture, and the joke about 1966. They just need to connect the dots.

That restraint extends to the supporting brand world. The typography and imagery—gothic lettering and Old Master-style portraits of anguished faces—borrow directly from religious iconography rather than from football branding. It places the work closer to devotional art than to a kit launch. And this reinforces the studio's own philosophy, shared in its release, that brands build stronger connections through objects, experiences and participation than through advertising alone.

For an industry that often reaches for spectacle first and meaning second, It Cometh Home is a useful reminder that the most resonant ideas tend to come from noticing something everyone already does, then asking what it would look like as a designed object.

Happy Ending didn't invent the England fan's prayer pose. They just had the good sense to take it seriously enough to make something out of it. Whether any of the 60 sets bring it home is, mercifully, not the studio's problem to solve.

Feeling stuck between junior and senior is a common experience, so why is it never discussed? We chat to brand designer Gavin Brophy about this much-misunderstood phase of a creative career.

Everyone's career has a "messy middle", where you're long past being a junior, but being respected as a senior still seems light years away, and the way forward seems murky. You'd be forgiven, though, for thinking that it's only happening to you, particularly if you're looking at Instagram.

Here, you'll see the graduation photo. Then, years later, the studio launch announcement. Then, years after that, the creative director title and the framed awards. But the bit in between, where most of us actually are, rarely makes it onto anyone's social feed. And that's a darn shame.

Because actually, the messy middle isn't an aberration or an embarrassment. It's where the real work of becoming a designer actually happens. And ignoring this fact only makes it unnaturally stressful and lonely for everyone going through it.

When the staircase hits the ceiling

Gavin Brophy knows this dynamic well. Eleven years into a career that's taken him from a self-taught logo designer in South Africa to senior brand roles at Trek Bicycle and EF Pro Cycling, he's now freelancing again after the toughest stretch of his working life. And he's keen to talk about how the messy middle feels, day to day. To kick us off, he reaches for a comparison you might not expect: bad hair.

"You hit this phase where it's just long enough to look like crap and just too short to actually be considered long," he reflects. "That's the messy middle. It's awkward, and there's no shortcut through it."

He's got a point, right? Growing out a haircut is uncomfortable precisely because there's no clean before-and-after. You certainly don't want to photograph it and put it on Instagram. And those career years that don't fit neatly into a portfolio basically work in the same way.

Nobody tells you this, of course. And so Gavin assumed, as many of us do, that a career was a staircase. Junior, midweight, senior, creative director, CEO: each step following in an orderly sequence. Then he ran his own freelance business in South Africa, watched the money run dry, moved his family to the UK, and took a designer role at Trek; a step sideways on title, even as the brand got bigger.

"I went in knowing the UK design industry operated at a different level, so I was happy to start low and work my way up," he recalls. "But there was a ceiling, and the bike industry took a massive hit after COVID. That path closed off."

What follows is the part of the story most About Me pages leave out. A move to EF Pro Cycling as sole designer for the team, then a return to freelancing, which, in his words, "knocked me harder than I expected".

The lesson here is not about cycling brands specifically. It's those sideways moves—demotions in title if not in substance—that are often just the industry rearranging itself around you. And treating them as personal failure is totally the wrong way to think about it.

When men stay schtum

The conversation about mid-career doubt tends to centre on women, and rightly so, given the structural reasons why. But Gavin is candid about what gets buried when men, specifically, stay quiet.

"I can't speak for all men, but from my own experience, I find it genuinely difficult to speak my mind, especially in the design industry," he says. "Feeling stuck or unsure is a big deal to admit. Over the last two years, I've dealt with a lot on my own. Antidepressants that leave you feeling numb. A diagnosis of inattentive ADHD. And underneath all of that, I was trying to convince myself that imposter syndrome was just in my head. That one has been eating away at me for years."

It's a striking admission precisely because it's stated so plainly. No flourish, just the facts of a hard few years laid out one after another. So why don't men, you know, talk about this stuff?

"Men are scared of looking weak or like we don't have our shit together," says Gavin. "We're expected to just push on, so we do. We've got people depending on us. We care more about them than about our own wellbeing, and that takes priority every time." Whatever you think of that trade-off, it's worth identifying and naming, because creative industries are full of people making it.

Part of the reason they make it is because they love the work so much. But Gavin has learned that that doesn't always protect you. "When you invest your passion into a project you actually care about, the highs can be extraordinary, but so can the lows," he observes. T "he difference is that when you're personally invested, you tend to find creative ways to push through the lows, purely because you care enough to keep going. That doesn't always work, though, and sometimes the hardest part is knowing when to walk away."

What is success?

Perhaps the most useful shift in Gavin's thinking has been around the concept of success itself. Early on, it meant entering 99designs contests for the dopamine hit of being paid for a logo. Later, it meant solving business problems creatively.

Nowadays, he says, "success today means working in a team that pushes boundaries, explores, defines, and adapts. It means investing time in new talent and learning from them in return." Titles, he insists, were never really the point. "I feel like your work should be your title. Show the work you are proud of, and it will create its own title."

For anyone currently stuck somewhere between the haircut that's too short and the one that's nearly there, this is great advice. And as Gavin puts it to those just entering their own messy middle: "It does get better. Stay true to what you love and try not to let the outside world mould you. You are exceptional, and you have a special place in this crazy world."

Based not far from the museum itself, APFEL was the perfect choice when V&A East commissioned the graphics and signage for its new five-floor gallery in Olympic Park, Stratford.

Situated in the Stratford area of London, V&A East Museum is an excellent destination if you’re looking for creative inspiration – not just because of the exhibitions but also the graphics and signage that will guide you through the space. Developed by A Practice for Everyday Life – AKA APFEL – in conjunction with the architects JA Projects and the artist Larry Achiampong, the visuals include bespoke typography, and the graphics have been shaped in perfect harmony with the interior’s characteristics, fostering a natural flow that encourages appreciation for the pieces throughout the gallery.

Opened in April 2026, the gallery’s permanent collection, called Why We Make, is introduced by a striking illuminated sign composed of lettering sublime in its simplicity. The design thinking behind the project is very much informed by the concept of making things, which in turn stems from East London’s industrial heritage.

“The typeface is formed of individual, stencil-like strokes, formed of modular light fittings that ‘make’ up the letters,” explains APFEL co-founder Emma Thomas. “The galleries and exhibits are deeply rooted in the concept of making, and the typeface needed to reflect that. We broke the concept of the typeface down to its basic geometry – the component parts of what letterforms are made from.”

While the visuals reflect the area’s heritage, APFEL also wanted to put a strong emphasis on East London’s current-day community. The studio itself is part of that, located not far from the museum. Early in the project, APFEL engaged with the V&A Youth Collective, inviting young people to become co-designers from the outset and to participate in briefings and presentations, ultimately contributing ideas to the iterative design process.

“We felt it was crucial to involve the people who would be using and experiencing the galleries – we wanted to make sure that they had truly impacted the design, and that we made something together,” continues Emma. “We hosted a collaborative workshop at our studio, inviting the V&A Youth Collective to help us design the display typeface to accompany the overall scheme.”

The interior architecture of V&A East Museum takes inspiration from East London’s urban landscape. It’s a little like the streets and neighbourhoods that form the cityscape, reinterpreted as a series of gallery spaces. This continues into the visual aspects APFEL has created, with each element carefully considered and intuitively linked to the area’s past and present character.

“Showcases with illuminated fascias and exhibition graphics draw on the language of shopfronts at the heart of local communities; timber cabinetry is crafted from London Plane trees; and displays of fashion, textiles, and ceramics echo how these materials are encountered in markets and stores across the four Olympic boroughs,” says Emma.

Following the principles of circular design was also an important part of APFEL’s approach. Working in consultation with Urge Collective, the designers focused on reusing available resources and local procurement, minimising any reliance on virgin materials. The illuminated lettering was made from LED lighting strips readily available in local markets.

After the display typeface was developed, a second font was designed with more solid letterforms for longer form curatorial messaging. “We created a custom version of the typeface that worked in this context, and was able to be cut out of metal to work for the hanging signs, or even as a rubber stamp used for an interactive activity station within the galleries,” says Emma.

The V&A also commissioned APFEL to design a book documenting the creative work carried out for the V&A East Museum, the wider V&A East development and the V&A East Storehouse.

Feedback on the projects has been fantastic – particularly regarding the illuminated signage. “It’s interesting to see it come into life now it’s installed. At night, it is reflected and refracted on various views as you look out of the windows across London. It brings the circulation spaces to life with a playful and dynamic aspect, and reiterates the themes of the exhibition in its building up of the word M-A-K-I-N-G quite literally,” says Emma.

From the inversion of creator authority to a craving for tangible, screen-free experiences, this year's festival was less a celebration of technology than a reminder of what it can't replace.

You'd expect AI to dominate Cannes Lions, and it did – on every stage, in every panel, from inside the Palais to the fringe events lining the Croisette. But beneath the headline topics, the conversation had shifted since last year.

If there was one overarching theme, it was how we could work with technology moving forward, including the power of indie creators. Here's what stood out from one of the industry's biggest events of the year.

The inversion of authority

We reported on the rise of the creator CEO in our 2025 round-up, in which creators were increasingly driving the programming, partnerships, and conversations around the festival. This year, their presence was impossible to ignore.

Alongside some genuinely thoughtful reporting, there was also a noticeable rise in social content that prioritised access over analysis, often offering little beyond celebrity sightings, activation tours and proof of attendance. A similar pattern emerged in some fringe programming, where personality occasionally outweighed originality.

Ironically, this created even more space for creators, strategists, and journalists with genuinely fresh perspectives.

Rachel Lowenstein captured the shift perfectly: "One of my key takeaways is that Lions is now a tale of two festivals: the advertiser festival and the creator festival. As someone who straddles both worlds as a tenured strategist and a content creator, I felt like I was living two lives all week. The industry is at a fulcrum point where it doesn't quite know what to do with the inversion of authority creators are having on agencies and brands."

That divide was perhaps most noticeable between the conversations happening inside the Palais around the work being judged (the reason Cannes Lions exists in the first place) and those happening across the fringe around activations, personalities and social content. It was also an observation picked up by the creator of the Social Juice newsletter, Jaskaran Saini.

Culture beats scale

Beyond the creator conversation, culture was another theme emerging throughout the week. Whether it was discussions around fandom, women creators, cultural intelligence or the role of independent agencies, the message was remarkably consistent. Scale alone is no longer enough.

Speaking across five sessions, including talks for UN Women and the Unstereotype Alliance, Rachel Lowenstein argued that brands need to take women creators seriously as entrepreneurs and recognise influencing as an industry that financially empowers women, rather than dismissing it as superficial.

Elsewhere, her sessions with Reddit, Yahoo and Collins explored why fangirls sit at the centre of today's cultural conversations and why understanding fandom is increasingly becoming a competitive advantage for marketers. At the Palais, in partnership with the Effie LIONS Foundation, she encouraged young creatives to unlock their unfair advantage through cultural intelligence.

Rory Sutherland echoed the sentiment at Collins House, who observed: "Agencies nowadays are obsessed by scale. Nothing scales better than mediocrity."

Collette Philip built on that argument, suggesting that consolidation and one-size-fits-all thinking are eroding creativity. As larger holding companies continue to merge, independent agencies have an opportunity to compete through distinctive thinking, deeper cultural understanding and closer relationships with the communities they serve.

AI made us crave human experiences

If AI dominated the conversations on stage, many of the standout activations encouraged people to step away from their screens.

In contrast to last year's AI-led activations and endless branded merchandise, the pendulum swung back towards tangible, sensory experiences.

Pinterest invited visitors to create personalised journals in partnership with Adobe Express, alongside a series of tactile experiences including tattoos, French pâtisserie and hair bleaching.

French sonic branding agency Sixième Son took attendees away from the Croisette on its Sound of the Sea cruise, demonstrating how sound influences memory, emotion, stress and decision-making. Rather than competing for attention, it offered something much rarer during festival week: a moment of calm.

Sound also featured prominently at Stagwell Sports Beach, where Epidemic Sound created an AI-powered radio activation.

Interestingly, there were four different postcard activations alongside brands that repeatedly encourage visitors to create something physical rather than more digital content.

Networking got moving

Alongside the first dedicated Lions Sport programme, morning fitness sessions and sports clinics have become fixtures of the festival, while fringe events are increasingly centred around walks, runs and movement rather than traditional networking receptions.

Girl Hike CIC brought women together through walking, while Alaina Crystal partnered with Chief to create a leadership experience where women could visualise their future selves, share personal leadership journeys and build meaningful connections in a lower-pressure environment.

Against the backdrop of AI-heavy discussions, many attendees seemed to be searching for slower, more human ways to connect.

AI grows up

AI dominated the conversation once again this year, but the discussion itself had matured.

Last year, many debates centred on how creative businesses should use AI and whether it threatens creativity. This year, the conversation shifted towards how AI can eliminate repetitive work while preserving the distinctly human skills technology can't replicate.

Collette Philip's takeaway from the talks was that AI should reduce the administrative and mind-numbing production work that often gets in the way of creativity, freeing people to focus on ideas rather than process. Several speakers also stressed the importance of continuing to nurture junior talent rather than assuming technology will replace the need for creative development.

Jon Williams, founder and CEO of The Liberty Guild, summed it up: "It seems to me the biggest misconception coming out of Cannes is that AI is changing creativity. It isn't. What it's really changing is where value sits. And this is a huge advantage for creatives. And this is why creative judgment is becoming the most valuable commodity. Some call it taste. It's pretty damn hard to prompt. What remains difficult to replicate are the things that have always driven preference: cultural relevance, emotional connection, distinctiveness and trust – and these are the powers of the creative mind."

The key takeaway?

Taken together, this year's festival felt less like a celebration of technology than a reminder of what technology can't replace.

Whether that was fandom, trusted creators, physical experiences or creative judgment, the strongest conversations kept returning to distinctly human qualities.

AI may have dominated the agenda, but taste, culture and connection quietly became the themes that lingered long after the rosé had been packed away.

The current shift in design roles from creating to finishing is eroding a fundamental part of being a designer. Here's how to hold onto your skills and protect your practice.

Welcome to another edition of Dear Boom, our advice series where we take the questions keeping creatives awake at night, and put them to the Creative Boom community. This week's dilemma speaks to something many of us are currently experiencing but struggling to name.

"I don't know when it happened, but my job changed shape," writes an anonymous creative. "More and more, the work that lands on my desk isn't a blank page anymore. It's something already half-made (generated, roughed out, 'nearly there') and I'm asked to fix it. Tidy the type. Sort the spacing. Make it look like a human cared.

"The money's fine, mostly. But I keep catching this little ache. I used to feel like a maker. Now, I feel like a finisher. A correction service. I worry I'm getting slower at the part that mattered most—the thinking, the having of ideas—because I rarely start anything from scratch now. How do you keep hold of the creative part of you, when so much of the work has become tidying someone else's machine?"

If this resonates with you, you're not alone. After we raised the issue on LinkedIn and Instagram, it became clear this is happening to a lot of people. The good news is, they didn't just outline what's being lost, but offered practical strategies for protecting it.

Fundamental shift

There's something fundamental at stake here. As Claire McDivitt, marketing director at Lazerian, says: "The danger isn't using new tools. The danger is forgetting to make time to create something from a blank page.

"Tools will change, workflows will change," Claire reflects. "But curiosity, taste, judgement and the ability to turn an idea into something meaningful are still at the heart of creative practice. So it's important not to stop exercising those muscles."

And this, essentially, is the crux of the problem. If you don't practise starting from scratch, you lose the ability to be creative at all. Skills atrophy. Confidence erodes. After months of finishing other people's half-baked ideas, returning to the blank page feels terrifying.

Many creatives, however, are facing this exact situation. And graphic designer and art director Eilidh McDonald articulates what's being lost. "The worry for me is that if we're all AI creative directors now, we'll miss out on those wonderful serendipitous moments when you discover something new, in the process of trying to make something else."

That serendipity—the unexpected discoveries that happen when you're deep in the thinking and making—is where innovation lives. When your job becomes execution rather than exploration, you lose access to those moments.

The psychological toll

Some creatives, though, aren't just sitting back and taking it.

Firstly, they're quitting, as brand and web designer Ilai Briones has just done. "This shift is taking what I love away from my job: the creative thinking," she explains. "So having spent months tolerating it, I've now just sent my end-of-engagement notice."

Secondly, many are pushing back on client demands. Vicky Tomlinson, co-founder at Kind & Wild Branding Studio, notes that: "It's okay to push back on crappy AI-generated ideas: sometimes people just don't know what is good or not. Let them have a crack, and then show them something better!"

Art director Hayley Gilmore, meanwhile, has created structured boundaries. "If a client wants to use AI in the process, I try to redirect them toward one specific role: exploring visual directions when they don't have the language to describe what they want," she says. "As creatives, we can use this to discuss the process more transparently and explain why something created by AI may not always visually translate for viewers in a realistic or client-approved way."

This reframes the conversation. Instead of being defensive about AI, you're educating clients about the limitations of what they're asking for.

The importance of personal projects

The most important advice we received from our community was this: maintain personal projects. "Make sure there is always something in your life where you're still responsible for the first mark," says Claire. "Whether that's a personal project, an exhibition, a sketchbook, a sculpture or an idea that exists purely because you wanted to explore it. At Lazerian, some of our most important projects have come from self-initiated ideas rather than client briefs. Those projects remind you why you became a creative in the first place."

For similar reasons, designer and illustrator Emily Efford is leaning into drawing and illustrating by hand. "Even if I don't get paid for many of these projects, they keep me sane and connected to my own creativity," she reasons.

In the AI era, such projects are how you stay sharp. They're how you remember what it feels like to make something from a blank page. They're how you protect the part of yourself that makes you a creative, not just a technician.

Collective action

We've covered what creatives can do individually, but what about collectively? Designer Andrew Montgomery is blunt about what needs to happen. "Our industry needs to grow a spine," he argues. "People generally don't walk into a restaurant with a half-baked, burnt, ill-conceived tray of crap and ask the professional chef to fix it for them; they'd be chased off the property. Why do professional designers tolerate this from clients?"

Andrew is pointing to an uncomfortable truth here. We've allowed ourselves to be positioned as service providers who fix broken outputs rather than strategists who create ideas. Part of reclaiming your creative practice is reclaiming your role.

But how will all this play out in the longer term? Digital and brand designer Andy Strong offers his perspective. "I think the true cost of AI is starting to become known to businesses," he says. "The shift from heavily subsidised subscriptions to token-based, pay-per-generation models is coming in. The true cost is going to change the value proposition for lots of people, and at that point, I really think things will start to swing back more favourably."

In other words, once clients realise how expensive it actually gets to run these tools at scale, they'll start valuing human thinking again. But that's no excuse to stop thinking now.

It starts with protecting your creative practice. It continues with setting boundaries with clients. And it requires remembering that the blank page, and your ability to make something meaningful from it, is what makes you valuable in the first place.

Tldr: Don't let the tools write your job description. Do it yourself.

Our wide-ranging survey lays bare a profession that's exhausted, anxious about its future, and using AI tools it doesn't trust.

Feeling tired, less secure and resentful of AI?. Then it's official: you're by no means alone. Creative Boom's flagship survey for 2026, gathering responses from 882 creative professionals worldwide (UK and US weighted, with 43% bringing more than a decade of experience), confirms what you've probably already suspected. This has been a tough year for creatives, wherever you are in your career.

This isn't a survey about one bad quarter. It's a story about a workforce under serious pressure, trying to work out what AI, the economy, and a changing client landscape mean for their livelihoods, and finding few reassuring answers.

A boom in burnout

To be perfectly honest, these numbers don't need much analysis: they tell a pretty clear story. For example, a massive 69 per cent of respondents say they've experienced burnout in the past 12 months.

Mid-career creatives report the highest burnout rate at 77%, with early-career professionals close behind at 74%. Founders and studio leaders fare a little better, at 59%, though that's still a majority struggling.

Why the distinction? My best guess is that founders, for all their stresses, generally have more control over the shape of their workload and the clients they take on. Consequently, it's the mid-career cohort—the people running projects, managing junior staff and fielding client demands without the authority to say no—who are absorbing the brunt of a difficult year.

AI adoption vs approval

Perhaps the most telling finding is the gulf between AI adoption and AI approval. Eighty-six per cent of respondents now use AI tools in their work: a figure that would have seemed remarkable even a couple of years ago. Yet only 10% of creatives think AI's overall effect on the industry is positive. Fifty-eight per cent describe its impact as mixed, and 28% are straightforwardly negative about it.

That gap, between near-universal use and near-universal unease, is perhaps the defining story of this survey. Creatives aren't refusing to use AI; they're adopting it because they feel they have to. But at the same time, they remain deeply sceptical about what it's doing to their industry, their pricing power and their sense of authorship.

This is not a community that's been won over, but one that's adapting under duress. And that distinction matters. Tool-makers and commentators often use adoption figures as proof of enthusiasm, but enthusiasm and necessity look very different up close. A profession that feels compelled to use a technology while doubting its long-term value isn't embracing change so much as bracing for it; hedging its bets while it waits to see how client expectations, pricing and competition shift around it.

What's happening to freelance pay?

None of this unease, by the way, has been alleviated by extra pay. In fact, half of the respondents feel less financially secure than they did a year ago, compared with just 18% who feel more secure. Almost 48% are worried about where the industry is heading, compared with under 38% who feel confident. And more than a third (38%) are considering a job change, with 7.5% planning to leave the creative industry altogether.

For the self-employed, particularly, the picture is stark. Nearly 47% of self-employed creatives in our survey earn less than £30,000 a year. That's not a poverty wage, of course, but bear in mind this is a workforce stocked with experienced professionals, 43% of whom have more than a decade behind them. So, for a substantial chunk to be earning well below the UK's median full-time salary of £39,039 (ONS: April 2025)—with none of the security that salary typically comes with—is worth reflecting on.

Are creatives quitting?

Most creatives aren't planning to leave the industry altogether: the figure is a modest 7.5%. But the bigger problem isn't people quitting creative work outright; it's people quietly looking for a way out of their current role, agency or set-up, while staying within the profession itself.

That's arguably a harder problem for employers and clients to spot and fix than outright attrition. A wave of resignations is visible; a slow drift of disengaged, undervalued talent looking sideways for something better often isn't, until it's too late.

As a whole, our survey paints a picture of a profession where rates haven't kept pace with costs, competition, or, increasingly, AI-enabled undercutting. Clients now have a cheaper, faster option for certain tasks, which inevitably puts downward pressure on what freelancers can charge for work AI can approximate, even imperfectly.

Indeed, when we asked which design trend creatives are most sick of, one answer dominated by a wide margin: AI itself, with more than 70 mentions. Gradients (19 mentions) and minimalism (10) trailed well behind. Remember when those kinds of stylistic niggles were the biggest bugbear for visual creatives? Happy days…

Awards are being ignored

With creatives so stressed out over burnout and pay, I'm not surprised awards have slipped down the priority list for many. Consequently, a full 80% of respondents haven't entered an award in the past year. Perhaps more significantly, only 12% still believe awards meaningfully help careers, and 35% believe they're too expensive and inaccessible to bother with.

For a profession that's long used awards as a shorthand for credibility and as a marketing tool for agencies and studios, this looks like a vote of no confidence. Is award entry becoming something larger agencies do for visibility, rather than something the wider creative community sees much value in?

What would actually help

While complaining about the current state of affairs might be cathartic, it ultimately won't get you anywhere. So we also wanted our survey to include potential solutions.

Asked what would genuinely improve their working lives, our respondents didn't point to new software. Instead, networking and community came top, cited by 57.5%, with mentorship close behind at 53%. New tools and technology trailed well behind, at just 31%.

That's an interesting result for an industry that could once have been accused of an obsession with tooling. What creatives say they need most isn't a new AI feature; it's people. Peers, mentors and a genuine sense of professional community matter to them more than the next piece of software, and they're harder to find than ever in a fragmented, increasingly remote working world.

The instinct in difficult years is often to retreat: to get your head down, cut costs, skip the conference, let memberships lapse. But if this survey tells us anything, it's that retreating from community is precisely the wrong move at precisely the wrong time.

The creatives who are struggling most don't want another dashboard or plug-in. They want a room full of people who understand what they're going through, and someone a few years ahead of them willing to offer some guidance. That's a far harder thing to build than a new feature, but on this evidence, it's the thing that actually moves the needle.

Almudena Romero has spent three years growing a human eye into a French field using nothing but wheat and winter grasses. Now she's about to eat the evidence. Read on to discover why.

Ever had that weird feeling when you look at your creative work and feel like it's looking back at you? For most of us, that's a metaphor. For British-Spanish artist Almudena Romero, it's literal. Because what she's done is grow an 11,000-square-metre human eye into farmland near Toulouse, France. And this August, she's going to harvest it, mill it into flour and hand it round the neighbourhood.

This is what "thinking outside the box" actually looks like. Except that Almudena's box is a field, her camera is photosynthesis, and her final deliverable is lunch for the village.

Developed in partnership with INRAE, France's national agricultural research institute, her series Farming Photographs is being described as the largest photographic artwork ever made. More broadly, it's a working demonstration of how creatives are responding to AI, not by embracing new technology, but by stepping back from it and rediscovering the old ways.

A plot of land becomes a pixel

Almudena is a specialist in 19th-century photographic processes, and her project is inspired by the idea of anthotype: an early colour photography technique developed by John Herschel, in which sunlight altered plant pigments to fix an image. In this case, though, she's not reviving the technique: she's growing the image within crops themselves.

Her production process reads like a brief few creative directors would dare write. The eye design, composed of features from a range of races and genders, was divided into 1,350 "pixels", each one an actual plot of land measuring 1.83 by 4.5 metres. These dimensions were dictated not by aesthetics but by the turning radius of a sowing tractor.

INRAE's genetic databases, in turn, provided data on the chromatic behaviour of dozens of wheat and grass varieties. An algorithm matched each plot's required tone to the closest available seed, much like a colour-matching tool would hunt down the nearest swatch. Seed density effectively became the DPI. And the whole thing was effectively colour-graded before a single seed went into the ground.

For art directors and photographers used to working in pixels you can undo with Ctrl+Z, there's something bracing about a production pipeline where the file format is soil, and the render time is a full growing season.

The brief that almost got rained off

Despite the absence of a camera, I think it's entirely reasonable for Almudena to call this a photograph. The word comes from the Greek for "writing with light", and that's exactly what's happening here. Light hits the crop, the crop responds by producing pigment, and an image gradually appears. By that original definition, a field reacting to sunlight has as much claim to the word as a DSLR sensor does.

That doesn't mean, of course, that it was easy to pull off in practice. The project's first attempt failed before it even reached the ground, when persistent rain from 2024 to 2025 closed the sowing window entirely. The second attempt, sown successfully at the end of October 2025, then nearly drowned. January 2026 was around 73% wetter than the 1991 to 2020 average, and February was the wettest on record in the area since 1947, at roughly 206% above average rainfall. The field flooded. For weeks, nobody knew whether the eye would appear at all.

Rather than feeling depressed, however, Almudena draws on these setbacks to make a broader point. "This is agriculture today," she points out. "Crops fail year after year because of climate change. In Farming Photographs, the vulnerability of the image is also the vulnerability of the field."

It's a rare case of a creative concept being strengthened, not undermined, by the thing that nearly killed it. The work was meant to be about ecological precarity; it then became materially precarious itself, which is either a stroke of unplanned genius or proof that the universe has excellent editorial instincts.

The collaboration bit creatives will recognise

Almudena's account of working with INRAE's scientists is worth mentioning too, because it punctures a stereotype that creatives are just as prone to as anyone else: the idea that researchers and artists occupy fundamentally different headspaces.

"I came to realise that at the heart of many scientists' lives is an artist," she says. She'd expected a research environment to be rigid, but found it instead to be curious, generous and entirely willing to deal with uncertainty.

The agricultural scientists weren't just executing Almudena's vision with tractors; they were co-thinking the image itself, bringing the genetic and chromatic knowledge that made the entire colour-matching system possible.

Key takeaways

It would be easy to file Farming Photographs under the category of novelty art and move on. But there's a deeper point to explore in all of this. Almudena argues that photography was never really about the camera. It's about light, full stop, and the apparatus was always incidental.

This argument goes back to the birth of photography. For example, Sir John Herschel, who invented the cyanotype and advised Fox Talbot on stabilising his own images, was just as happy working with flower pigments as with silver salts. In this light, Almudena's provocation isn't nostalgia; it's a rebuke to a photographic profession obsessed with the latest rendering engine.

The project, by the way, is still ongoing: next comes the harvest. In August, the crop comes down. In September, it becomes flour, distributed locally to the people who live around the field where it was grown. The image disappears not into an archive, but into bread.

For a creative profession dominated by digital—where we often wonder how long anything we make will actually last— an artwork that plans its own ending as carefully as its beginning, and then eats the evidence, is certainly one worth thinking about.

The studio has given the baby skincare newcomer a soft, fluid identity – rounded lowercase type, a floating 'o' and an ochre-yellow palette, built to feel credible and aspirational all at once.

The baby care aisle isn't somewhere I've ever needed to walk down, but if I do stumble onto it, I tend to find one of two things: heritage clinical brands that look like medicine, or cartoon-led products drowning in bright colours and nauseating characters. Mercifully, Smoosh, a new premium baby skincare brand, does neither, thanks to female-led studio LULACREATES.

Founded by Sophie and Victoria, both former Boots and babycare specialists, Smoosh launches with naturally derived, sensitive-skin formulations and a digital-first approach to branding and community. LULACREATES handled the full identity: logo, packaging system, brand guidelines and the visual language to set Smoosh up as a serious challenger.

Founder Louise O'Kane says it came down to spotting a genuine gap. "Modern parents are more ingredient-conscious than ever," she says. "They'll spend hours researching formulations, reading reviews and investing in products that genuinely work, but visually, the category hasn't evolved at the same pace."

Design as a trust signal

When Louise looked properly at the category, she found the same divide I had: clinical heritage brands that look like medicine, and bright, child-led ranges built around characters and colour. Both earn a parent's trust, just from opposite ends. What almost nobody was doing was treating baby skincare as something you'd actively want on display.

Smoosh's answer is a soft, fluid identity that still feels at home in the aisle. The custom-drawn logo pairs rounded lowercase type with a floating 'o', a nod to bubbles, movement and the softness of baby skin, while organic curves and gentle distortions keep things light and leave room for motion and digital work down the line.

Working within tight production limits – a controlled palette and few print colours – Louise built the system around an ochre-yellow accent and softer complementary tones, changing the packaging colour from product to product so parents can grab the right bottle in the middle of bath time.

Look at it as a whole, and the references are clearly premium skincare and beauty: products that have to feel both trustworthy and desirable. "Consumers are becoming hyper-aware of ingredients and formulations, so aesthetic value needs to also signal trust," Louise explains. "We wanted to create something worthy of a beautifully curated bathroom shelf while still feeling authentic to the realities of parenthood."

Built for the feeds

Social mattered from the start. As a digital-first business, Smoosh needed an identity that could work on shelves and in the feeds of creators, parents, and online communities.

"There are very few baby skincare brands that feel native to today's digital culture," says Louise. "This had to be tactile, shareable and instantly recognisable online as well as in retail."

And it seems to be working. Since launch, Smoosh has pulled in real influencer attention and retailer interest, with conversations already underway with major stockists. A nice reminder that as more female-founded challengers move into these settled categories, the right branding can carve out room for something that actually feels different.

London agency Red Stone has rebranded Explorers, the Scouts programme for 14–18-year-olds, around a blunt new line – "Grow up" – with a compass-led marque, bold supergraphics, and 40 fresh badges.

When Explorer Scouts launched in 2002, most families shared a single home computer (if they had one at all), and social media didn't exist yet. More than two decades on, the world's moved on, and a brand built for teenagers was starting to show its age.

So Scouts brought in London agency Red Stone to give Explorers a new identity: one that feels more relevant, inclusive, and authentic to a generation of brand-savvy digital natives who can spot a sales pitch a mile off.

It lands at a moment when research suggests many teenagers feel less prepared for adult life, with teachers flagging concerns about confidence, communication, and readiness for work. So alongside the rebrand, Scouts has refreshed the Explorers programme itself – co-designed with young people – to mix practical skills with creativity, leadership, and adventure.

This isn't school

At the heart of it is a deliberately un-slick line: "Grow up". The thinking? Teenagers are worn out by the constant pressure to perform at school and everywhere else, leaving little room for curiosity or growth.

Rather than overpromising, the positioning frames Explorers as somewhere the journey matters as much as the destination – a place anyone can belong, but nobody has to fit the mould. A straight-talking personality, "Real curious", carries it through. It's a smart, slightly cheeky bit of reframing, and it works.

The identity puts young people front and centre. The new marque takes its cue from the compass, giving Explorers a strong visual shorthand for the whole idea of the journey, and a set of bold supergraphics spins out from it, with a subtle nod to the Explorer necker. The photography keeps things real rather than staged: the friendship, the energy, the general randomness of being part of a club.

Room for the individual

Consistency mattered, but Red Stone also built the brand so every unit and Explorer can make it their own. A simple logo system and templated comms let each club create its own materials that still feel on-brand, while a run of "logo expressions" loosens things up for merch. The team also illustrated 40 badges to match the revamped programme: bold, accessible, and designed to add a pop of colour to every uniform.

"Red Stone has helped set a new direction for Explorers Scouts to meet the needs of Generation Alpha, balancing real-world skills and adventure with a powerful sense of belonging," says Chris James, brand and content lead at Scouts. "The brand feels fresh, equally at home on screen and in print. It's inspired by the outdoors, shaped by young people and truly captures the fun, friendship and freedom, pointing to brighter futures."

For Red Stone, the brief came down to challenging assumptions. "Positioning Explorers as an antidote to the intense, always-on nature of life for teenagers today, we wanted to build a brand that embraced individuality, curiosity and most importantly, fun," says Rich Corr, associate creative strategy director at the agency. "From the strategy through to the graphic assets, the brand is welcoming, eclectic, and just a little bit irreverent."

It all rolls out as Explorers gears up to relaunch and reach more young people across the UK. Grown up, you might say.

Most illustrators are signing away rights they don't understand. Experts from Handsome Frank and Jacky Winter Group reveal how to stop this from happening to you.

If you've ever signed a work-for-hire agreement without fully understanding it, you're not alone. Most illustrators have. But a single contract decision could cost you tens of thousands in lost income over the course of your career.

To understand what's really at stake, and how to negotiate better terms, we spoke with two of the industry's most respected agencies: Jacky Winter Group and Handsome Frank. What they revealed might shock you, but they also share actionable tips to protect you.

Work for Hire vs Project Licence

Let's start with the two main contract types: work-for-hire and project licence. Clara Marcus, managing agent and producer at Jacky Winter Group, explains the difference.

"Under a work-for-hire agreement, the artist is assigning ownership of the work to the client, who can use that work however they wish, without further compensation," she begins. "With a licensing agreement, the creator retains copyright and remains the legal owner, and licenses it to the client for a specific use."

This seems like a technical distinction. But it's actually the difference between a one-time payday and recurring income.

Jon Cockley, co-founder of Handsome Frank, offers an example of what this means in practice. "A book cover we worked on was licensed as hardcover format only, within the UK," he recalls. "When that book became a success and led to a paperback and audiobook formats, the illustrator received additional money. Subsequently, when it was licensed to the US, German, Spanish, and Polish markets, the artist received an additional fee each time. If we'd agreed to work-for-hire terms, the artist wouldn't have received any income from the book's success."

Same illustration. Same client. But because it was licensed rather than sold outright, the artist earned money every time the work was used again.

How licensing actually works

Clara breaks down the four factors that determine a licence. "Firstly, region: where the work will be used. For instance, worldwide, the UK, and Europe. Secondly, duration: how long it's been in the market. That might be, say, one month, three years, or all time. Thirdly, media: what it's used for. For example: online only, paid print, all media. And finally, exclusivity: is it only for this client, or can the artist license it elsewhere too?"

This structure is crucial because it creates the possibility of extension fees. "You might create a set of illustrations for a three-month campaign that ends up being a huge success," Clara says. "If the client wishes to extend the use for a further 12 months, you would charge a fee for that. Negotiating license extensions is one of the most rewarding parts of my job. Letting an artist know they will receive an additional fee for work they delivered months or years ago is always a great feeling."

When work-for-hire actually makes sense

Don't think, though, that a work-for-hire agreement is always bad. As Clara says: "On 95% of projects, we'll push for a licensing agreement, but there are a few situations where this might not be appropriate, such as when working with existing brand IP or characters."

More broadly, Jon adds, "Some clients will only agree to work-for-hire terms. Sometimes this can be a legitimate request. With a logo or brandmark, for example, it makes sense for a client to own their brand outright without limitations. In other cases, though, it can seem unnecessary. A client will tell us they intend to use something only for a limited time or in a specific territory, yet they still insist on a work-for-hire contract. In these scenarios, it's really a case of whether you're comfortable and whether the fee fairly compensates you."

The key phrase here is: "whether the fee fairly compensates you". A work-for-hire agreement demands premium rates precisely because you're giving up all future income.

Red flag language

Whichever contract type you choose, Clara identifies some specific clauses that could spell long-term trouble. "Waiving moral rights means you have no right to be credited for your work, and couldn't take legal action if the client decided to do something awful with the work you deliver, even if that caused you reputational damage."

More insidiously, "allowing for derivative use means the client can adapt, edit or create additional work from the artwork delivered. They could put a Christmas jumper on the character you've painstakingly created and use it in their festive campaign. Or even train an AI model to generate new assets based on your original artwork."

An even more dangerous phrase to look out for is: 'Use any medium now known or hereafter devised'. "This future-proofs the client's ability to use your work however they wish, even in technology that doesn't exist yet," explains Clara. "Keeping an eye out for this is particularly relevant in the age of AI."

Jon adds another critical warning. "Derivative works clauses are a big lookout, especially with recent AI capabilities," he cautions. "Sector exclusivity is also increasingly requested, particularly in drinks. My advice would be to avoid these if at all possible, and if unavoidable, minimise and limit them as much as you can."

Pricing a buyout: the multipliers

If a client insists on ownership, they need to pay accordingly. Clara provides a useful framework. "If the client needs an all-time, all-media, worldwide license, it would be reasonable to charge between 150 to 200% of the creation fee," she says. "If the client wants a full copyright transfer, this would sit closer to 250 to 400%."

The range exists because context matters. "There are heaps of nuances that determine where on this scale you sit," Clara explains. "The size of the client and their reach. The specificity of the work. If you created something for a singular purpose, even with a very broad license, the actual use would be limited. Whereas if you created a broad illustration—two characters shaking hands—the potential use could be huge."

Jon is cautious, though, about universal rules. "There's no one-size-fits-all answer to this question," he says. "Every project is different. It depends on the deliverables, the artist's process, their profile and the sector they're working in. I love the idea of there being a simple equation, but it's much more nuanced than that."

The AI trap: a new urgency

AI deserves its own section because it's new and potentially dangerous to your future income. "Giving away the rights to train AI models wasn't something we'd even considered until quite recently," says Clara. "But I'd say it's now essential to include a clause in your contract that states that the client cannot use your work to train AI models unless stated. If you're not calling this out directly, it could be considered open to interpretation."

It's pretty simple, really. An AI trained on your style can generate new work in your voice without paying you. Your contract needs explicit language preventing this. Full stop.

The Purchase Order trap

Sometimes, the threat to your rights doesn't come in the initial contract, but at the very end of the project. Jon warns of a sneaky administrative trap: agreeing to Purchase Order (PO) terms. "In this scenario, you may have agreed and signed a contract, completed the work and submitted your invoice, only to be sent a PO which carries different terms and conditions than the contract you've agreed to," Jon cautions. "Sometimes even adding the PO number to an invoice will essentially state you've agreed to new terms which may supersede and replace the previous agreement." The lesson? Always ensure the terms on a client's final paperwork match the contract you originally negotiated.

Resetting after bad contracts

If you've signed bad terms before, you're not locked in forever. Both agencies offer a script for renegotiation.

"We'd always recommend discussing contract terms over a call," says Clara. "Otherwise, negotiations can get a bit angsty. Understanding why the client has requested certain terms is key, as this allows you to explain why those clauses could be damaging for you, and hopefully you'll find a solution where both sides feel protected."

Often, clients' demands for broad terms stem from simple anxiety or a lack of legal understanding. Clara points to exclusivity as a prime example. "Clients will say, 'I need a full copyright transfer because I don't want the artist to sell the work to another client,'" she notes. Once you understand that their underlying fear is competition, you can pivot the conversation: "Reassure them that, actually, an exclusive license will protect them from that scenario," without you having to surrender your copyright.

She adds: "Don't be afraid to be honest and explain that you've educated yourself about copyright and contracts since you last worked together, and that you'd like to work together to create an agreement that works for everyone. You can also point them to industry bodies like the AOI, which have guidance around contracts and licensing. Sometimes referencing an official body has a lot of weight, particularly with corporate clients.

"Even if you previously signed bad terms, this client is coming back to you because they loved working with you," Clara points out. "You have leverage here, so don't be afraid to be firm but fair!"

Jon agrees. "If your style has been central to a brand's identity, then the client also has a vested interest in the continuation of a happy, collaborative relationship," he reasons. "Fee increases are certainly possible and should be discussed annually, or at least every couple of years, with any long-term partnership."

Key takeaways

Over your career, these licensing decisions will compound. A single illustration, correctly licensed across multiple territories and formats, might generate income for years. The same illustration, signed away as work-for-hire, generates one cheque, then disappears from your accounting records.

The agencies stress that you have more power than you think. Clients return because they value your work. Contracts shouldn't be something you sign without reading. And industry standard language exists precisely so you don't have to invent it from scratch.

So, read your contracts. Ask questions. Know the difference between all-media and online-only. Understand what "derivative works" means before you agree to it. And remember: the fee that looks good today might be costing you thousands tomorrow.

In response to AI's rapid takeover of editorial imagery, Anna May and the team behind MISC magazine made something physical and human. Here's why.

Most of us in the creative industries have spent this year complaining about AI in one form or another, whether that's over a pint in the bar or in the comments online. What's harder is doing something about it. But that's exactly what fashion stylist Anna May and a small crew of photographers, makeup artists and an art director have done with MISC, a self-funded print magazine now on its second issue.

Anna's day job sits across e-commerce and commercial styling; the kind of work that pays the bills but rarely leaves much room for creative risk. "That's the reason why I started the magazine: I couldn't be as creative as you can be when you're doing commercial work," she explains. "It's a personal project, and it's the same for the other creatives involved, because we all felt the same way while working together."

The whole thing kicked off from a fairly random conversation. Anna was working with a makeup artist, who introduced her to an art director, who'd previously put together a magazine for a client. From there, MISC was born. When the team were brainstorming names, the art director saw a label on a box saying 'misc', and the title stuck.

Let's do it

What's striking about the new publication is how unstructured its founding was. There was no mission statement drafted in advance, no business strategy behind it. "We just thought: let's do it," recalls Anna. "It was simply about creating something and building a platform other creatives could join too." That ethos extends to how the magazine is produced. "It's entirely self-funded," Anna adds. "We ask for favours, and everyone who contributes does it in their own time, for free."

They've just released issue two, titled Process, which moves beyond fashion to bring in interviews with artists and makers from across the creative spectrum. These include tattoo artist Thomas Hooper, Lincolnshire-based artist Kate Genever and bespoke tailor Gordon Webber. "We never wanted it to be purely a fashion magazine," Anna notes. "It's really more about art in a broader sense."

The most telling detail is that MISC was never meant to be a commercial product at all. "We were thrilled that Unitom decided to stock it," says Anna (you can buy issue 2 here). "But selling the magazine was never really the intention."

The original plan was simply to print copies and send them to producers and art directors whose work the team admired, partly as a reaction against how disposable digital images have become. "Everything feels like it's about the screen now, and it's all so instant," she says. "You see an image, and within seconds you've moved on to the next one, without really taking it in. For us, it was purely about seeing our own work in print."

Ironically, that low-key approach paid off in ways nobody expected. "I've actually picked up work from sending it out to art directors, which was never the intention," Anna says.

The AI conversation

And this gets to the heart of why MISC matters right now. "AI is one of the main reasons everyone on the team wanted to do this," says Anna. "We found it unsettling how quickly AI is being implemented across so many parts of our industry, and how fast it's already taking roles away, especially in the e-commerce work that's my bread and butter.

"I'm slowly losing clients because those images can now be generated quite easily through an AI app," she continues. For Anna, MISC has become an answer to that unease. "Our project is really pushing back against that, saying that what we do is a joy," she says. "I got into this work because I love photography and fashion, so it feels strange that robots are suddenly being used to create imagery. I never thought it would happen this quickly."

It's a sentiment that will resonate with plenty of creatives who are watching the same shift unfold in their own corner of the industry. MISC doesn't offer a solution to that anxiety. But it does offer proof that a small, unfunded, joyfully chaotic alternative is still possible. People making things together, in print, on their own time, simply because they want to.

Co-founder Jeremy Sahlman on building a studio from a chance meeting on a Boston street, chasing ideas nobody asked for, and why taste is the one thing the new tools can't fake.

I didn't meet Black Math in a boardroom. I met two of their team – Travis Tyler and Louis Jannetty, both genuinely gorgeous humans – over a beer at OFFF Barcelona, after another brilliant festival, sharing jokes and banter, talking about everything from football and AI to the small absurdities of cultural differences. It told me everything I needed to know about the studio before I'd seen a single project: warm, curious, up for a laugh, and far more interested in people than in posturing. So when I sat down with co-founder Jeremy Sahlman, I already had a hunch the studio's story would be a good one. It is.

It began like most great stories: without a plan. Jeremy had left Los Angeles to go and live in the woods, well before remote work was common, so he found himself travelling back and forth to Boston, meeting people and trying to work out what came next. On one of those trips, he met Evan Fellers on the street. For the month that followed, Evan sent him an unbroken stream of videos – about his life, his ideas, the work he was making – until, almost inevitably, the two started collaborating.

"He had built something interesting, I had built something of my own," Jeremy says, "and over time we realised we were trying to create the same kind of future." Eventually, they each closed down what they had and built something together. That became Black Math.

Although if there's one thing he likes to add, it's that the story was never really about two founders. "To me, a studio is an amalgamation of everyone's point of view," he says. "The good ones get reflected in the persona of the whole company. That's the part I care about most."

Founded in Boston in 2012 as a boutique animation studio, Black Math has since grown into a globally connected creative partner working across design and technology, with people in Boston, New York, Portland, Richmond, and Costa Rica, and clients including Meta and Google. But ask Jeremy to define the studio's philosophy, and he's refreshingly honest about how long it took to find one.

"It took us a long time to realise we even had a philosophy," he says. "Creative people tend not to hold beliefs too tightly. Curiosity is part of the job." After enough years, though, the patterns started to emerge – and the biggest one has a name the studio now puts front and centre. They start with art.

For Jeremy, "art" is less a medium than a moment. "It's when all the pieces lock together perfectly," he says. "The idea, the visuals, the writing, the interaction, the feeling. Everything supports everything else. It feels original. It feels inevitable. It feels like something that could only have come from the collective minds of the people who made it." That, he says, is what Black Math is chasing.

The projects that excite him most, he says, are the ones that refuse to sit in a tidy box. "We're at a moment where brands can be products, products can be experiences, and audiences can become participants rather than spectators. The old formats still matter, but they no longer limit us." He's drawn to work that feels playful – experiences that invite exploration and discovery, and "give people a reason to engage rather than simply consume". More than anything, he says, he's interested in things that haven't been done before. He also believes creative people have a far bigger role to play in products than they're usually handed. "And that's only becoming more true," he says.

That appetite has sharpened as the ground has shifted. Jeremy is clear that the pace of change has accelerated and rewritten the job description for creative teams. "Creative people have been navigating constant change for years, but it feels like the pace has accelerated dramatically," he says. "The biggest shift for me is that creative teams can no longer just be executors. We have to be leaders. We have to help shape the conversation, define what's valuable, and guide people toward opportunities they may not see yet." Black Math, he adds, is different from what it was five years ago: "Our responsibility is bigger now, and that's exciting."

What human qualities does he think matter most these days? His answer comes in four parts. Imagination first – "the ability to dream up things that don't exist yet has become incredibly valuable". Then he points to curiosity, "a willingness to explore without knowing exactly where you'll end up". Next is taste, a word he knows has become loaded. "I mean it in the sense of knowing what to keep, what to remove, and what makes an experience resonate," he says. "The people who will create the most meaningful work are the people who combine imagination with discernment." And finally, playfulness: the spark of someone following a genuine interest rather than a predetermined expectation. Why? "Because audiences can feel the difference."

What he's craving, then, won't surprise anyone who's been paying attention: time, space and partnership. "I'm tired of conversations that revolve entirely around speed and efficiency," he says. "Great work requires iteration. It requires trust. It requires enough room to explore the possibilities before settling on the answer." The relationships he values most are the long ones, where studio and client chase an ambitious goal together and push each other towards better ideas. "That's what I want more of. Less transactional work and more creative partnerships."

For all the industry's anxiety, Jeremy is optimistic – and his positivity is rooted in possibility rather than certainty. "There's a tendency to focus on uncertainty right now, but I see a creative landscape that's opening up," he says. "The tools are more powerful. The barriers are lower. Audiences are actively looking for new kinds of experiences." It feels, he says, like a moment when creators have permission to rethink the rules. "The future isn't fully defined yet, and that's exactly what makes it exciting."

If you want to know what Black Math looks like at its best, he points to a recent internal hackathon in which the team gave itself a few weeks to build a completely new kind of experience. The result sat somewhere between an audiobook, a social platform and a collaborative art experiment – a system that let many people contribute to a single, evolving creative work, and a wider conversation about what participation might look like next. "Nobody asked for it. There wasn't a brief," he says. "It was simply a group of creative people exploring an idea they couldn't stop thinking about. That feels very Black Math."

Sustaining a studio, he's learned, comes down to a few hard-won truths. The first is that a studio's opinion is its value. "Clients don't hire creative partners because they want agreement. They hire creative partners because they want perspective," he says. "Every time we abandon our point of view too quickly, we make the work weaker." The second is that the best work grows out of genuine partnership rather than an adversarial back-and-forth. And the third is perhaps the most quietly radical: that embarrassment is one of the biggest obstacles to innovation. "The best ideas often feel strange at first. You have to be willing to put them into the world anyway."

As for what's next for Black Math, Jeremy is refreshingly honest. "I genuinely don't know. No one does," he says. "Anyone claiming they have a perfect roadmap is probably kidding themselves."

What he can promise is that they'll be following curiosity. "We'll keep chasing original ideas. We'll keep surrounding ourselves with talented people who care deeply about making great work."

For its tenth edition, the cult charity auction returns with 700 one-off record sleeves from the likes of Murugiah, Clare Twomey, and Thierry Noir. And you won't know who designed yours, or which song is inside, until you've won it.

It's been a highlight of our creative community for a decade, and it's back once more with the same much-loved format: an anonymous auction featuring some of our favourite artists and designers.

If you've somehow been living under a rock, here's how Secret 7" works. Seven tracks from seven well-known musicians are each pressed 100 times onto seven-inch vinyl – 700 records in all. Artists, illustrators, designers, and the odd musician are then invited to create a one-off sleeve for each one. The catch (and the joy) is that it all stays secret. You bid on the sleeve you love, not the name behind it, and the artist and the track are only revealed once the record is in your hands. You could walk away with a superstar's song wrapped in a legend's artwork, or an emerging name you'll be glad you spotted early on.

These days, War Child is behind the project. But Secret 7" was founded in 2012 by Kevin King and Jordan Stokes, set up while King was working at Universal Music. It's why the music has always come from the Universal catalogue. It ran for seven editions until 2020, raising over £500,000 and gathering sleeves from the likes of Sir Anish Kapoor, Yoko Ono, Sir Paul Smith, and Ai Weiwei along the way. War Child revived it in 2023, and this is the third edition under the charity... making it the tenth in all.

This year's seven tracks come from John Lennon, The Last Dinner Party, Gabrielle, The Maccabees, Skin, Glass Animals, and Bastille – with Lennon's 'Out the Blue' and The Last Dinner Party's 'Let's Do It Again!' among the songs hidden inside.

A gloriously broad line-up

Ok, so the roster of visual artists for 2026 will mean you'll want to bid on everything. Ceramist Clare Twomey MBE, French muralist Thierry Noir – whose elongated faces became a symbol of resistance across the Berlin Wall – and British Sri Lankan multidisciplinary artist Murugiah sit alongside graphic designer Anthony Burrill, New York-based British artist Jon Burgerman, and Liverpool creative Sumuyya Khader. All well-loved and familiar names to us all.

There are sleeves from The Connor Brothers, Joy Yamusangie, Ken Nwadiogbu, Joey Yu, and Welsh artist Pete Fowler, best known for his Super Furry Animals artwork. Andy Vella, who has been making covers for The Cure for more than 40 years, has returned to the project, having supported it since 2012. Ben Kelly, the interior designer behind Manchester's legendary Haçienda, has created one, as have artist, poet, and director LionHeart, photographer Rebecca Zephyr Thomas, and Chris Lloyd, known for sketching live concerts.

There's a lovely thread of musicians who've crossed into art, as well. The Maccabees' frontman, Orlando Weeks, has made a sleeve, as has Justine Frischmann, who co-founded Suede and fronted Elastica before leaving music for a career as a visual artist.

One extra detail for collectors this year: every record carries an exclusive B-side etching by Murugiah, whose candy-coloured, South Asian-influenced work spans film, architecture, art, and design.

The artists on their sleeves

Clare Twomey's contribution might be the most radical of the lot. "The work is composed from Wedgwood blue Jasperware dust, produced by grinding precious Wedgwood objects into pigment," she tells Creative Boom. For her, the material speaks directly to the song it accompanies. "Hope can be understood as a reconsideration of what appears fixed or permanent; through acts of imaginative reconstruction, new spaces for contemplation and possibility can emerge."

Jon Burgerman, who has taken part more than once, sums up the appeal. "Every time I've contributed, I've been equally excited for the exhibition, to see if anyone can spot my sleeve, and that all of this art will be going to such an important cause," he says.

For Murugiah, part of the fun is the mystery itself. "To know that most customers of the auction will not know which artist has designed which sleeve and for which song … it's such a fun thing to be a part of," he says, "and to create a piece of art that is tangible and tactile in this ever-growing digital world we live in."

More than the art

For War Child, the auction means more than the sleeves. "Secret 7" continues to demonstrate the powerful role that creativity can play in driving positive change, even in some of the most dangerous parts of the world," says the charity's fundraising and engagement director, Charlotte Nimmo. "We're hugely grateful to the exceptional artists who have contributed their talent to this year's campaign."

The money funds mental health support, emergency aid, education, and protection for children affected by conflict, with the charity and its local partners working in Sudan, Ukraine, Gaza, Afghanistan, the DRC, and elsewhere. More than 520 million children – one in five worldwide – have had their lives affected by conflict, according to War Child. Across its nine editions so far, Secret 7" has raised over £900,000, and 100% of proceeds go directly to that work.

How to take part

All 700 sleeves will go on show at 180 Studios in London from 18 to 30 August 2026, with an online auction running from 18 August to 2 September. Find the one that stops you in your tracks, place your bid, and wait to discover what – and who – you've been lucky enough to win.

As for this year's tracklist? You can see the full details over on the dedicated website. Personally? I'll be bidding on something for The Maccabees. Good luck.

The Milan-based, Sardinia-born illustrator reimagines retro glamour as something stranger and far more self-possessed – and he got there by taking the long way round.

The women in Federico Salis's illustrations are not waiting to be admired. They turn their backs on you at the poolside in a red polka-dot swimsuit. They drive off in a yellow convertible without even a second glance. They hold a martini behind a slab of golden hair, or hide behind flame-lensed sunglasses, or simply dissolve into soft, wavy ribbons before you can pin them down. They are sensual, full-figured and rendered in glorious, glossy, saturated colour. And they are completely, magnificently unbothered by the fact that you might be watching.

That's what makes Federico's work stand out. It features a cast of confident, voluptuous female figures, painted with the high-shine finish of vintage advertising and tattoo flash, then sometimes twisted into something surreal and knowing. A face melts into a stack of curves. A woman becomes a fish, her shoal swimming across a patterned sea. Retro pin-up is the starting point, but Federico keeps pulling it somewhere odder and more tender.

Colour is doing a lot of that work. "I'm an extremely emotional person, and in some ways I have a dark and gothic soul," he tells Creative Boom. "I love mystery, and I feel attracted to shadows. But when I draw, colour naturally emerges." Those saturated tones, he says, let him "express all the different shades of our emotions" and "bring light to things that are sometimes difficult to explain with words". It explains the consistency of his palettes – the reds and golds and pool blues that recur like a signature – and the strange warmth that sits beneath even his coolest, most graphic images.

The long way round

The training behind all this had nothing to do with illustration. Federico studied 3D Effects for Performance and Fashion at the London College of Fashion, and he chose it because it frightened him a little. "It felt completely new to me. It pushed me outside my comfort zone," he says. There was something else in the decision, too: a way of sidestepping the comparison that can paralyse anyone arriving in the art world. "Maybe I was also afraid of being judged for the way I drew. Doing something unfamiliar removed that measuring scale." Looking back, he credits that detour with teaching him to "embrace experimentation and to trust unconventional paths" – and you can see the fashion thinking everywhere, in the styling, the poses... the love of a strong silhouette.

For a long time, he says, the people around him could see where he was heading. "It almost felt like everyone around me understood what I was meant to do before I did," he says. "Only in recent years have I realised that I was the only one who didn't believe it was possible." There was no single piece, no lightning-bolt commission, that tipped illustration from a side interest into a career – just a slow process of self-discovery, and eventually a decision he repeated to himself until it stuck. "It became a daily mantra. Drawing is what I want to do with my life."

Slowing things down

Look closely, and something else emerges: a deliberate stillness. Even the woman in the convertible, mid-drive with the wheel blurred under her hands, feels suspended rather than rushing. Federico likes, in his words, to "suspend time" – to create moments that feel almost like slow motion. "We live in a reality that moves at the speed of light," he says, "and perhaps my work is an attempt to pause for a moment and reconnect with ourselves." People often assume that choreographed quality comes from his performance background, but he is not so sure. "Not as much as people might think. I believe it's more connected to a need to slow things down."

The sea keeps showing up, too. Salis grew up on Sardinia – pieces such as SALTWATER, HORIZON and DOWN BY THE WATER return to it again and again – and the pull is unashamedly personal. "For us, the sea is everything," he says. "It heals, regenerates and gives you perspective." Now based in Milan and living away from the coast, he keeps painting it. "In a way, painting water is my way of returning home."

He is generous about what each city gave him. London, he says, shaped him "through years of constantly living in survival mode"; Milan gave him "the opportunity to apply everything I had learned" and the room to put himself out there. But he resists crediting geography too heavily. "I don't think it's only about the city you live in. What matters more is the relationship you have with yourself and with the environment around you."

How a piece begins

There is no rigid process to his work or a reliable formula. "I don't really search for ideas," he says. "I recognise them when they arrive." Sometimes the spark is a line in a song, a melody, a scene from a film; sometimes an emotion arrives first and demands to be translated into an image. Music, in particular, seeps into the work – right down to those evocative, statement-like titles. "Very often they come from the music I'm listening to while I'm working," he explains. "Sometimes I imagine the illustration together with its soundtrack, and that soundtrack eventually becomes the title. I've always been drawn to titles that sound like bold statements."

He knows a piece is finished, he says, "when I feel there is nothing left to add" – though he admits the impatience of already thinking about the next one. The work that doesn't make it stays on his computer, saved for another day. "I often return to them weeks, months or even years later. I believe everything has its own timing."

Finishing the work, protecting the self

Ask Federico what a healthy practice looks like, and he says the finished work is already part of it. "Over time, I've developed a consistent visual language because I kept making work instead of endlessly preparing to make work. If I had only practised without completing things, I would never have understood how to evolve."

In a field he readily calls "incredibly saturated and fast", he is refreshingly unbothered about the game of staying visible. Asked how he protects his voice, he answers, honestly, that he isn't sure he knows... and that he is more interested in protecting something else. "Right now, I'm trying to protect my wellbeing. I don't want to spend my life chasing everything. I simply want to keep making work that feels honest to me." He has had to learn, too, to value his own work rather than judge it harshly. "Every piece is unique. If something doesn't receive attention from others, I know it has at least received attention from the person who created it. And sometimes, that's enough."

What's next for Federico? Painting, for one. But with larger formats and different materials. He eventually hopes to combine illustration with animation and moving images. "I feel like I'm still discovering myself," he says, "and I don't want to limit where that curiosity might lead me."

For anyone who has had a similar path into illustration, sideways and unsure, his advice is the same thing he had to teach himself. "Don't compare yourself too much to others. You are you. Technique is important – it prepares us and gives us tools – but at some point you have to loosen your grip and allow your creativity to speak." And then, the line that sits at the centre of his whole story: "Not every journey has to be linear. Sometimes taking the long way around allows you to discover something that a straight road could never teach you."

The self-taught illustrator, muralist and pattern designer on swapping advertising for a sketchbook, painting 42 feet in the air, and why slow periods are easier when your income isn't relying on one thing.

If you've spent any time on the colourful side of Montréal as I have, you'll have probably already seen Anne-Julie Dudemaine's work without knowing her name. It's on the giant Osheaga logo, on a BIXI mural, along Promenade Wellington, and even on a Canada Post stamp. Her work has a way of turning everyday city scenes into something joyful, bold, and unmistakably hers.

What makes her success all the more remarkable is that none of it was the original plan. Anne-Julie has a degree in Communications and spent years working as an advertising project manager before burnout pushed her to rethink everything.

"Eventually, I started showing signs of exhaustion and found myself longing for a more creative career," she tells Creative Boom. "I took some time off to recover, started drawing every day, taught myself Photoshop, and after stumbling upon a video of Lisa Congdon talking about how she became a working artist, I knew that illustration was what I wanted to do."

More than a decade on, she has built an impressive practice that spans illustration, murals, surface pattern, and, most recently, ceramics. "I get bored easily, so it felt natural to keep exploring new mediums and creative outlets," she explains. "I also think it's important, as an artist, to diversify your income sources. It brings more stability and helps you navigate the slower periods that inevitably come with creative work."

Colour and pattern play a key role in her work, which is quite the contrast, given she started out using only black and white. It was a trip to Portugal that changed everything. "I fell in love with the traditional tilework and all of its colours and patterns, and I started incorporating those influences into my work. A few years later, I took a job as a pattern designer for a children's fashion brand and immersed myself in the field. That experience had a huge influence."

She adds, "My style has evolved quite a bit over the years, but I feel really good about where it has landed. It feels authentic and very much like me."

Montréal also runs right through her portfolio, from the BIXI mural to Promenade Wellington. Anne-Julie says it's a fantastic city for creatives. "Art is everywhere, and you can really feel that people value and appreciate it. When I started drawing more seriously about eleven years ago, Montréal became my first subject. I drew iconic streets, architecture, cafés, and everyday scenes from the city. In many ways, Montréal shaped the artist I've become and continues to inspire me today."

Anne-Julie has worked with everyone from Osheaga to Le Devoir and L'actualité. Is there a project that felt like a turning point, or one she's most proud of? "Painting the giant Osheaga logo was definitely a highlight. It was the first time I operated a boom lift, and I was up there on my own, painting forty-two feet in the air. It felt both terrifying and exhilarating, and it gave me a lot of confidence moving forward," she says.

Designing an illustration for a Canada Post stamp was also a real bucket-list project. "It's one of those opportunities you never imagine you'll get, so seeing it become a reality was incredibly rewarding."

When Anne-Julie is stuck, she loves to make collages. "I have a huge collection of colourful cardstock, and I'll start cutting and arranging shapes until a composition begins to emerge. Sometimes, though, the best thing I can do is step away from the project entirely and come back to it later. Inspiration has its own timing, and I've learned not to force it."

For anyone following in her footsteps, Anne-Julie believes the best way to get started is to draw a lot. "It's a cliché, but practice really does make you a better artist. But I'd say try not to compare yourself to others too much. It can be incredibly paralysing and prevent you from finding your own voice."

"I'd also recommend diversifying your sources of income," she continues. "If having a side job helps pay the bills, it can actually give you more freedom creatively. It's much easier to make meaningful work when you're not constantly stressed about money."

What's next for Anne-Julie? She'd love to create an art installation somewhere. "The idea of translating my work into three-dimensional forms and creating an immersive, interactive experience is really exciting to me. I also dream of being given carte blanche for a large outdoor mural, something ambitious, colourful, and highly visible that would allow me to fully explore my creative vision."

From graphite on paper to digital drawing to vector brushes in Fresco, illustrator A has developed a new visual alphabet through experimentation and dubbed it Sour Soda.

Being an illustrator is a wonderful job, but it can be easy to get into a rut. Clients look at your portfolio, see something they like, and commission you to create similar work. It's a good thing! You get to work consistently with people who understand who you are and what you do. But it's a bad thing when the artist inside needs the freedom to produce something fresh, different and entirely unattached to any established style.

Sour Soda Studio is a new initiative by an already successful illustrator to break out of the confines of a more or less set way of working – an anonymous project that refuses to be bound by what's come before. We'll call them A, for clarity.

"It is a project that explores a colourful, surreal and slightly strange language, where simple forms and full colours are used to build images that are poetic, decorative and narrative at the same time," says A.

Curving, organic line work and a lack of hard corners give it a gentle, natural feel, while the simple forms and colours nevertheless lend impact. The subject matter in the Sour Soda portfolio so far has focused on nature, the environment, resources, consumption, and sustainability. But it was the visual language that came first – something that has been gradually shaped over the last four years or so, and that steps away from the two styles A has previously worked in.

"The first two came more from the gut. This one was built much more from the head. It differs in many ways," says A. "First of all, it is made in Illustrator, so it is vector-based, not pixel-based. I use brushes in Fresco that allow me to draw freehand in vector, and that is where the line came from. I wanted a black line that almost felt engraved."

A continues: "There is also an internal visual code: the way I draw trees, clouds, people, clothes, hair, grass, animals. A kind of grammar. If I had to describe the general feeling, I would say it is a world where sharp edges almost do not exist. The forms feel as if they were made of rubber or clay, something soft and malleable."

After honing the aesthetic, A looked for a topic to apply it to and chose something that matters to them and to nearly everyone else on the plane right now – the environment. Applying the newly created style to narratives about climate, resources and consumption was the next step. Still, A wanted to go one further and introduce a decorative approach alongside the storytelling. It's a move cognisant of illustration's changing role in today's media.

"I think illustration is moving further and further away from its old role of accompanying articles in magazines. Magazines are not read or sold in the same way they once were, and illustration is slowly taking on a different function," says A. "Translating a concept into an image through a visual metaphor, that remains fundamental, and it is still very important to me. But today the decorative dimension has to be considered as well."

As a result, throughout the Sour Soda portfolio, you'll see forms repeated, not quite as patterns, but decoratively in ways that create a pleasing regularity and cadence in the images. This often adds to the sense of calm they convey and chimes with the theme of nature once again.

All the Sour Soda art so far has been self-initiated, but moving forward, A hopes to start attracting clients to the look and feel they've developed. The intention will be to apply the style to a range of topics, not just the environment, and that's when its flexibility will be tested. The door is wide open regarding future directions.

Finally, if you've been wondering why A's project is called Sour Soda, well, that expresses the duality A sees in the work. "I also liked the idea of alternating lighter images with harsher ones. The figures curled up on themselves, almost egg-shaped, and repeated until they start to form a pattern, belong to the 'Soda' side of the project – lighter, more playful, more immediate," says A.

"Other images are more acidic, more 'Sour' – the giant devouring natural resources, the polar bear on a melting iceberg eating a flower child while people dance around it. The name Sour Soda comes from there: from the attempt to make the sweet and the sour coexist in the same language."

The Southern California designer on dropping out of art school, working for Gucci and the UN without dulling his vibe, and why making thousands of pieces for nobody but himself is kind of the whole point.

Tyler Spangler describes his own work as "like a rainbow-flavoured popsicle dipped in the ocean and placed on a rock to melt", which is pretty much spot on. The Southern California designer makes maximal, candy-coloured digital collages that are loud, fun and a little bit unhinged, and they have carried him from booking punk shows in his own rented warehouse to a client list that today boasts Gucci, Hermès, Nike, Chanel and the United Nations. Not bad when you discover he got there without following the usual path.

A "shy kid" with a bachelor's degree in psychology from California State University, Tyler later studied at ArtCenter College of Design before dropping out to start his own design studio. Art, he says, has been the constant through every phase of his life. "No matter what I was focusing on, I was making art in some form." When he started booking punk shows, he made the flyers for them, and the bands' album covers, too. ArtCenter came next, but it didn't last. "Honestly, I got jaded and also couldn't really afford it, so I dropped out with the intention of starting my own freelance business," he says. He realised he could turn the DIY approach he used during his punk days into an actual design career. "I figured I should probably prioritise the one thing that I have been consistently doing for pleasure as a career."

The look that makes his work entirely his was set early on. He grew up in Orange County in the '90s with a dad who surfed a lot, immersed in a surf culture that was, in his words, "brash and loud", alongside video games and cartoons like The Simpsons and Nickelodeon. "The abrasive patterns and neon colours of that era just soaked right into me," he says. He started making traditional paper collages, but it was the move to digital that made everything click. Suddenly, he could use all that bright, candy-coloured chaos to talk about any subject, even the heavier ones. The punk flyers and album covers of the 1970s and '80s remain a touchstone for him: he loves the energy and raw messaging.

Collage became his way of exploring deep and meaningful things long before he had the language for it: that an image changes depending on what surrounds it. The spark came from surf magazines, surf and skate videos, and eventually punk culture. "I noticed this when I was young, and I would listen to different songs while I was checking the surf," he says. "Depending on the style of music I was listening to, the feeling and intention of the waves changed." The lesson stuck. "Images aren't static. It's really cool to explore all the different moods and meanings a single image can transform into simply by changing what it's sitting next to."

Doing things his own way traces back to his early twenties when Tyler took his savings, rented a warehouse space, bought a cheap PA and threw 13 punk shows before it got shut down. The era taught him what he calls the core lesson of punk: "doing what you want without asking for permission or caring what anyone else thinks". With no traditional artist role models to follow, he took that rebellious confidence into freelance life. Chasing an audience, he reckons, is a trap. "It's really hard to know what an audience actually wants, and trying to figure that out will strip away the uniqueness of anything you are trying to do as an artist; it will turn you into a marketing department."

Collage isn't the whole story, though. Alongside it, Tyler makes grand graphic statements – bold typographic pieces that draw on his psychology degree and hint at his own self-awareness. He didn't set out to put the degree to work, but he can see it threaded through everything, especially these text-based works. "It feels like I'm channelling my psychology background into accessible ways to translate thoughts and behaviours," he says. They began as a way to process his own panic attacks. "I figured if I styled my phone notes to look visually appealing, it might help other people relate to and cope with their own anxieties, too."

It's an approach that has somehow survived contact with some of the world's biggest brands. Working for the likes of Gucci, Hermès, Nike, and the UN hasn't watered anything down, because, he says, the brief works the other way round. "I just have to remember that they're coming to me because of what I do. If you align with brands that get your vibe, the connection is natural." His style has shifted over the years, but the core feeling – "colourful, chaotic and peaceful, curious" – is always there, making it easy to inject his own optimism into a corporate job without losing his approach.

His process is built to protect that spontaneity. He rarely starts with a plan. Instead, he opens a blank document, pulls up his folder of go-to colour palettes and textures, and lets the music take over. Slow, heavy stuff like Electric Wizard tips him into "this surreal trance"; '80s punk like Black Flag makes the work quick and poppy. He works fast to keep the impulsive, stream-of-consciousness energy alive, translating whatever mood he's in straight onto the screen. And he keeps all of it. "I save and upload everything I make; I never delete or throw anything away. I love to see the lows and highs over time."

Crucially, a huge amount of that output has no client attached at all. And Tyler is adamant that the personal work matters most. "It's infinitely more important," he says. He likens it to sport: "Each artwork is a punch practised, a mile run, a lap swum. You have no idea what kind of art you are capable of unless you methodically peel back the layers of your thoughts." He's made thousands of pieces simply because doing it is a daily, relaxing therapy. It's also where the paid work comes from. "My archive of personal work is exactly what major clients see. If you make the stuff you want to see in the world, the paid work for that exact style will naturally follow."

"Embrace your own weirdness," he adds, "and keep pushing through the saturation. Some of your work will suck, and some will be gems, and you can't plan for that."

After working on his own terms for so long, his hardest-won lesson is to stop looking sideways. Social media, he warns, can homogenise design alarmingly fast. "You really have to put your head down, embrace your own weirdness, and just keep pushing through the saturation," he says. "Some of your work will suck, and some will be gems, and you can't plan for that, you just have to keep pulling information out of your brain and translating it into art."

As for what's next, he's in no hurry. "I just view this whole journey as an ongoing experiment that hopefully never finds an answer," he says. The plan is to keep pushing his recurring themes, keep mixing digital and traditional, and stay true to the mission that has carried him this far: "injecting colourful curiosity into a chaotic world".

From white rabbits bounding out of a 3D cinema screen to schoolkids firing laser beams across the corridor, the Tokyo illustrator takes the most ordinary moments of daily life and tips them somewhere surreal.

You think you know what you're looking at. A Shunpei Kamiya illustration starts somewhere completely ordinary – a packed commuter train, for instance, or two salarymen slurping ramen after a long shift. Familiar, everyday, right out of Japan. And then it isn't. White rabbits come bounding out of a 3D cinema screen while the audience gawps in their paper glasses. A couple of schoolkids lock eyes and fire red laser beams clean across the corridor. One man, mid-appointment, lifts his shirt to show the doctor a round hole punched straight through his middle. No explanation offered. None needed.

It's the kind of work that makes you do a double-take, then grin – and that double-take is rather the whole point. The Tokyo-based illustrator, a member of the Tokyo Illustrators Society, builds everything on it, turning the most ordinary corners of modern Japanese life into surreal, sharply observed scenes painted in flat gouache colour, a glorious mashup of manga and fine art.

So where does all this strangeness come from? He says it comes down to attitude. "There are already countless pictures in the world, so I feel compelled to create something that people do not usually draw," he tells Creative Boom. "Otherwise, I sometimes wonder what the point of my making pictures would be. I am not interested in being strange for its own sake. I always look for hints within ordinary daily life."

A deliberate stillness

Look closer and even his most eventful scenes – the leaping rabbits, the duelling laser beams – have a curious stillness to them, as though caught mid-thought rather than filmed.

Where plenty of illustrators chase movement and drama, Kamiya keeps everything almost frozen, and that's no accident. "When people try to depict movement or dramatic moments, they often rely on photographs or paused video frames. I do not want my images to become too photographic," he says. "Photography is naturally better at capturing motion and fleeting moments. Painting and illustration are different forms of expression, and I want my work to remain within the territory of drawing rather than imitate photography. That may be one reason why my work often feels still and static."

Much of the tension in his work comes from what he chooses not to explain – and he's refreshingly candid that getting the balance right is still a struggle. "Someone once told me that my work is very 'linguistic' and leaves little room for ambiguity. I thought that was a fair observation because my ideas often begin with words," he says. Since then, he's tried to hold back. "I have tried to remind myself not to explain too much when making an image. At the same time, there are occasions when being deliberately explanatory can create its own kind of humour or interest. Finding the right balance remains difficult."

That restraint isn't the same as indifference, though. Before he starts, he spends a long time imagining how all sorts of people might read the same scene from their own angle. "I believe an artwork is completed when it is viewed, so I leave interpretation to each viewer," he says. "Just because I made an image does not mean I know the 'correct' meaning of it."

So where do the scenes themselves come from? Everywhere at once, it turns out. "Things I have seen, things I remember, things I imagine, and images made by other artists," he says. "All of these memories and impressions blend until a clear image forms in my mind. My task is then to translate that image onto paper as faithfully as possible."

There's a distinctly Tokyo quality to that, too. In a high-tech city that can feel like one long sensory explosion, one painting strands a lone figure in a canyon of giant app icons, each blinking with unread counts in the hundreds – a portrait of exactly that overload. "Modern Tokyo, and perhaps Japan more generally, is flooded with information. Every day we are overwhelmed by an endless stream of things to absorb and process," he says. "I think my work reflects that environment very directly. In some ways, my pictures are rather 'head-driven'. I sometimes think of them as an act of editing symbols and signs."

From Doraemon to Hopper

His influences run from Japanese illustrators such as Makoto Wada to classic painters like Edward Hopper. But the biggest pull, he admits, came from somewhere far less rarefied. "If I am honest, the strongest influence on me as a child came from Japanese manga such as Doraemon, Kinnikuman, and Dragon Ball," he says. "Later, when I became an illustrator, I realised that those influences alone were not enough, so I began looking more seriously at both Western and Japanese art history."

His own surfaces are flat and unfussy, plain colour over visible texture, yet he's alert to what "handmade" can do that a screen can't. "When I look at the work of other artists, I am often captivated by the beauty of the painted surface itself. Even a subtle analogue texture can add value and presence to an image," he says. "I also think many artists simply enjoy the physical process of making things by hand more than working digitally."

If there's one stage he'd never shortcut, it's the very beginning. "The most enjoyable stage is coming up with the idea. I love imagining possibilities and developing concepts." The other reward comes right at the end: "when an image that has existed only in my imagination finally emerges as a finished work after many twists and turns."

The honest part

Like a lot of creatives right now, Kamiya is uneasy about where the industry is heading. "I worry that fewer people will be able to make a living as illustrators, and that Japanese illustration culture itself may become weaker as a result," he says. "So far, no new field has truly emerged to replace publishing and book-cover work as a major area of opportunity for illustrators." And he's quick to add that his own position is no luxury: "In general, I try to accept as many commissions as possible. Unless I am exceptionally busy, I rarely turn work down. I do not feel that I am in a position to be highly selective about projects."

Pressed on what would actually help illustrators starting out today, he points to a problem of visibility. "Anime, manga, games, and contemporary art continue to thrive," he says. "In that context, illustration may have become relatively less visible. I would like to see more attention given to the exciting and innovative work being created in illustration today." The responsibility, he reckons, runs both ways – publishers and the wider industry looking more closely at what illustration is doing, and illustrators making the case for themselves: "Illustrators must continue to communicate what makes illustration unique, valuable, and exciting."

On AI – the worry humming under so many of these conversations lately – he's measured rather than alarmed. "At the moment, I still feel that AI-generated images have not surpassed the individuality of human-made work," he says. "However, AI will undoubtedly continue to improve, so the real question is how far it will develop." It's where it all leads, more than the tools themselves, that gives him pause. "Will future artists compete over who can write the best prompts? That does not sound especially enjoyable to me, so I try not to think about it too much."

If there's a thread running through all of this, it might be his refusal to pretend the work comes easily. Ask whether he's ever fully satisfied with a finished piece, and he just laughs it off. "To be honest, it is rare for me to feel that a piece turned out exactly as I hoped. More often, I look back and think, 'I should have done this differently'," he says. "No matter how much preparation I do, things often do not go according to plan." Far from putting him off, that gap seems to be the entire point. "Making art has taught me that improvement comes only very slowly. Perhaps that is exactly what makes it so rewarding."

Sarah Jane Coleman AKA Inky Mole has illustrated nearly 100 fairies, monsters and other fae creatures for Dr Elizabeth Dearnley's upcoming book The Fairy Spotter's Guide.

"These things may or may not actually exist. I think they all do, but that's for another discussion," says Sarah Jane Coleman, as we talk about the challenges of depicting mythical and folkloric creatures from all around the world.

"Pictures are scarce," she continues. "You can find myriad impressions of, say, Nessie, but Nunavut's Qallupilluit, Hawaii's Mo'o or Mexico's El Coco, who is terrifying, are less easy to find."

Everything Sarah mentions is to appear in The Fairy Spotter's Guide, written by Dr Elizabeth Dearnley, which comes out in September from Hachette. Whereas many of the books about fairies we've come across in the past focus on European folklore, this edition crosses continents and cultures to catalogue some 80 weird and wonderful creatures, including over 100 of Sarah's illustrations.

The Nottingham-based artist was a natural choice for the project. Her portfolio is full of ghosts and beasties, spiderwebs and shadows, with a vintage, gothic vibe facilitated by her use of natural media such as calligraphic pens, pencils, watercolour and a bit of collage. She deliberately leaned into a handmade, non-digital aesthetic for the book, and the outcome feels completely authentic to the subject matter.

"I wanted to feel like a late-Victorian textbook artist, working away at these terrible fae with a scratchy fountain pen under gaslight," says Sarah. "Elizabeth and I are showcasing creatures that are ancient, organic, textured; who would, if you were to get close enough, wreak havoc with your understanding of what's real and what's not."

"In the spirit of the folklore itself, I wanted these pictures to be entirely physical – they exist outside a screen – and there's a seat-of-the-pantsness to committing an illustration to paper that you can't feel with all-pixels, as they are so easily deleted."

Working from the manuscript, with just a little direction from the art directors, Sarah's approach was spontaneous and instinctive. There were back-and-forth discussions about how the illustrations would populate the book – whether full page, DPS or spot – but she dived straight in and started on the first creature as soon as the brief was settled.

With so many of the folkloric creatures new to Sarah and beyond even the scope of Google, she relied on the author's text – often based on oral tradition and translation – and came up with her own interpretation of what they'd look like. Plenty of trust came her way from the art directors. It turns out her favourites were generally the hardest to draw.

"I'm really not good at drawing animals, and so when I saw how many of these were animal-based or human-animal hybrid, I had the tiniest little panic attack. As an illustrator, it's often assumed you can 'draw anything', but I am living proof that's not the case! Those ended up being favourites because I was forced to really put the effort in, like being back at college – among them are El Chupacabra, the Werehyena and the soaring Impudulu," says Sarah.

Others she would add include El Coco, which does horrible things but of which there are very few visual impressions, and Ghūl, a changeling-type creature. "So, he's saying, 'Yeah, you KNEW it wasn't Graham, didn't you? And where's Graham now?' Answer: He's likely to have been eaten," she says.

Both illustrator and author are credited as the creators of The Fairy Spotter's Guide, and both are very pleased with the outcome. If there were 80 more creatures to draw, Sarah would do it all again. But right now, she's working on her first solo book – written and illustrated by Sarah Jane Coleman and coming out in January.

The Enough and Fuzzy Feelings director and filmmaker returns to short filmmaking with a tender, funny and increasingly unhinged portrait of people who just want to be loved.

Most of us spend a fair amount of energy hiding the needy, pathetic parts of ourselves. (I know I do.) Anna Mantzaris wanted to put them on screen instead. Her new stop-motion short, Please, is a comedy about the very human longing to love and be loved – told through a run of loosely connected, tender and absurd scenes, and anchored by a starring voice performance from Oscar-nominated Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård as a character named Winston.

The film won Audience Award at Animafest Zagreb earlier this month and will be screened at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival this week. It marks Anna's return to short filmmaking after her enormously successful Good Intentions and Enough, and her Emmy-winning film for Apple, Fuzzy Feelings. Anna, who also animated on Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs, wrote and directed Please, with additional voices from Molly Nilsson, Jonatan Unge and Ika Nord, and music by Phil Brookes.

The idea has been bubbling in her head for ages. "It started during the Covid pandemic and the lockdowns in London, when everyone was so isolated for a long time and so much became online," she tells Creative Boom. "We became more obsessed with our self-image because we saw ourselves on screens in Zoom calls all day. We spent a lot of time looking at ourselves while feeling disconnected from other people." It was this acute self-awareness running alongside a deep hunger for connection that became the film's beating heart. "I wanted the characters to try to break out of this bubble, to reach out, to show their longing, but in a not-so-perfect way."

Running through Please is Anna's pushback against self-help culture and its promise that we can optimise our way out of difficult feelings. "I love the flaws we have as humans – I think it's what makes us interesting and relatable," she says. "There's this self-improvement idea that we can somehow decide what and when to feel something, that it's something we could control. I don't really believe that. To feel needy or pathetic is part of being human. I wanted to let those feelings exist rather than fix them.

"I'm interested in the difference between what we show the world and what we actually feel. Presenting the 'ugly' feelings through the puppets makes us feel seen. They get to do it for us, so we feel we're not alone."

Instead of a single narrative, Please is built from overlapping vignettes that reappear and gradually accumulate into something much bigger. "I love observations – little moments that tell a lot," Anna explains. "Working in a vignette-like way suits me. I also like the idea that many people are struggling with the same thing." It's an approach she developed on Enough and wanted to push further. "I've kept the vignette format, but now we revisit characters and give them a couple of beats on their journey. There's a lot of freedom to play with rhythm, escalation and the juxtaposition of scenes. I love the idea that the combination of little scenes can together tell a bigger story."

If you're familiar with Anna's work, you'll know it's always lived in the awkwardness of something being sad and funny all at once. Finding that line, she says, is largely instinct. "It's just a gut feeling. Most of the time, you can hold things a lot longer than you think – more is more. It's better to push it too far and then bring it back a little bit."

The casting of Skarsgård came about by chance. "My producer, Johan Edström, is the landlord of Stellan's office in Stockholm and knows him," Anna says. "Johan sent him the script, and Stellan replied, 'When can we do it?'"

Behind the camera, Please was a genuinely European undertaking. Co-production was spread across Sweden, France, the Czech Republic, Norway and Finland. It was produced by APPARAT Filmproduktion AB and co-produced by Passion Paris, with Arte, Film i Väst, SVT, Mikrofilm AS and Kuli Film, in association with YLE and Böhle Studios, and distributed by Miyu.

Directing a stop-motion film across that many countries took serious coordination. "We had to do it this way because it was a European co-production, and because there were so many sets and setups," she says. "It actually worked well – all the studios worked really hard. But it was complex and needed extra planning, like a style bible for set design and a cinematography supervisor to ensure all the lighting maintained a similar tone and followed the chronological order we needed. In a single studio, it would have taken a lot longer, or needed a much bigger team."

The puppet-making process that Creative Boom first explored with the painstaking craft behind Enough remains broadly the same, refined over years of commercial work. The team made more than 40 puppets in Anna's Stockholm studio, all built on wire armatures. "Wire armature was a must for time and budget, and I actually prefer it," she says. "I like how you can customise the shapes so much, and have more rounded arms and legs. But I've advanced the puppet-making a lot since Enough – the details in the face, the eyes, the shoes." A costume maker in Prague sewed the outfits from textiles that Anna sourced before the puppets were shipped to their shooting locations. "A lot of DHL expenses, to say the least."

Returning to personal work after commercial projects has been its own reward. "Commercial projects have allowed me to evolve a lot, and I've met so many talented people I've learned from," she says. "I like that it's fast, a big crew, decent budget, lots of problem-solving – it has good energy. But personal projects are something I'd missed. At its core, it means more to me. It takes a long time, and the budgets are a fraction, so it's heavier work – but also more rewarding."

In her head throughout were the filmmaker Roy Andersson ("always in my head"), the films of Ulrich Seidl (Animal Love and In the Basement), and Liv Strömqvist's comic The Reddest Rose Unfolds, about romantic love through the ages. As for how far she's willing to push an audience as the film tips into chaos, Anna isn't thinking about comfort at all. "I think about what fits the film and what the characters need. I've thought of it as three acts, and in the third, a lot of the characters give in, let go, or lose it. I like it when they get a bit unhinged and do something drastic."

So what does she hope people feel as they walk out? "I hope they think it's funny and heartwarming but also a bit sad at the same time," she says. "And that they feel seen. We're all just humans, and we're all a bit messy and needy sometimes."

Next comes Annecy, then a proper break in Spain. "I need it after a year and a half making this film." After that, an art grant in Sweden and some early-stage ideas to develop through the autumn, alongside the festival run. Brilliant stuff as always. We can't wait to see more.

More than 1,000 fringe events, one short list: the no-pass-needed picks we'd actually add to our Cannes schedule.

Your flights are booked, you've found a friend's sofa to crash on, and the sun cream and Birkenstocks are in the bag. Now what?

With more than 1,000 fringe events taking place across the week at one of the biggest creative events on the calendar, it can be difficult to know where to start at Cannes Lions. We've picked a handful that don't require a festival pass and are worth adding to your schedule.

However, if you want the full experience, access to all the talks, and easier networking opportunities, it's worth considering the Student, Creator, or Start-up badges.

Curated by Design

I wrote about Brian Collins and COLLINS House last year. As someone who waxes lyrical about talent over followers, it's one of the places I'm most excited to return to. Brian has built a reputation for championing talent over status, and last year, COLLINS House was recommended to me more than any other place.

The no-lanyards approach means conversations start with curiosity rather than job titles. A particular shoutout goes to the Tuesday PM session, Pantone Presents: Golden Hour. Pantone, colour stories, designers, sunset views over Cannes and hopefully a few conversations that make you rethink your own work.

Pound the Pavement

If networking over exercise is more your jam, there are multiple walks and runs happening across the week.

One of the friendliest is the Cannes Lions Run Club. A 5K morning run along the Croisette organised by Shakuri Studios in partnership with Trailblazers Sweatworking Club. The pace is built for conversation rather than competition and runs Monday to Thursday throughout the festival.

Global majority creatives

Inkwell Beach was built to create the kind of space many people felt was missing from Cannes. Founded in 2019 as the festival's first inclusion-focused beach activation, its mission is simple: make people feel welcome and included in the conversation.

This year's theme is "License to Lead: Reclaiming the Art of Storytelling", and the atmosphere tends to be less about collecting business cards and more about the people, stories and perspectives shaping the future of the industry.

It brings together diverse creatives, marketers and culture-shapers, creating space for conversations that don't always happen on the main stages. Expect panels, networking and programming throughout the day.

Pinterest

Is it just me, or does everyone have lovely things to say about Pinterest? Pinterest has worked with independent creators in its activations for years. While some houses can feel geared toward people with enormous followings, Pinterest has always felt welcoming to indie creators.

This year, you can get a tattoo. Yes, really. Sephora salon if you fancy a bleach touch-up, and the Pinterest Patisserie, which turns your personal style into a bespoke sweet treat. I'm sensing a sensory theme emerging from this year's activations.

Adobe Studio

You can usually tell how seriously a company takes creativity by how many places they show up at Cannes, and Adobe is everywhere this year.

Alongside Adobe Studio at Le Majestic, you'll find the team at Creator Beach, SPORT BEACH, the Pinterest Manifestival, LinkedIn's Profile Studio and a hands-on experience outside the Palais with Walt Disney Imagineering and L'Oréal. There is even an Adobe Boutique offering what they describe as the ultimate creative journey through Cannes.

If your week revolves around design, content creation or creative technology, you'll probably cross paths with Adobe more than once.

Canva Creative Cabana

Canva is a more welcoming space for freelancers, founders, and small business owners who need to wear multiple hats. There are no hidden activities or passes required; all are welcome if registered. Canva has tripled its space from last year and will include a gelateria and a Pride Party.

Expect a mix of creator-economy conversations, design-focused programming, and practical discussions for people building businesses without huge teams behind them – all alongside activations that bring AI into action.

Creators & Culture

Hot tip from Fiona Hughes, EVP of Media & Influence at Allison Worldwide, as a stunning space with loads going on and creators on every single panel. Creators & Culture are running the culture village, a villa set apart from the main festival chaos.

It's a fab line-up that will look at how creators are shaping campaigns rather than simply promoting them.

World Woman Foundation

Cannes is brilliant. It can also occasionally feel like listening to the same people talk to each other.

The World Woman Foundation programme brings together diverse voices, stories, and perspectives through discussions on creativity, storytelling, film, innovation, and representation.

The Power of Presence: Building Experiences Bigger Than the Screen

If you're interested in building things offline, I'd put this talk from the UTA beach on your list for Thursday afternoon.

Kerrie Finch from AKA joins Pinterest, STURDY., Rocket Mortgage and United Talent Agency to discuss why real-world experiences continue to create the strongest connections in an increasingly digital world.

They're talking Bad Bunny's Puerto Rico residency, the Super Bowl, Coachella and what happens when people experience something together rather than through a screen.

In theory, you want to feel seen. But in practice, your brain is telling you to hide. Here's how to do both.

Welcome to another edition of Dear Boom, our advice series that tackles the questions keeping creatives awake at night. This week's dilemma speaks to a paradox many of us experience day to day.

"I feel constantly torn between wanting to be seen and wanting to disappear," writes an anonymous creative. "Whenever I properly show up online, share my opinions or put more of myself into my work, good things happen: people connect, opportunities come in, the work feels more alive. But afterwards, I often want to retreat again.

"I think part of me is scared of being judged, criticised, misunderstood, or simply too visible. But at the same time, I'm tired. Not burnt out exactly. Just aware I can't keep running at full speed forever. So how do you keep showing up without shrinking yourself? And how do you stay visible without completely exhausting yourself?"

Why we feel the fear

It's a great question, and perhaps we should start by explaining exactly what's going on here. Brand strategist Eve Macdonald kicks us off.

"Because we are creatives, we subconsciously judge everything we see," Eve explains. "This is why we are creatives: because we can evaluate everything visual, strip it back and down. It's a skill that makes us good at our jobs, so when we put something into the world—our baby, our creative projects—of course, it's terrifying! We know other people are going to judge our work."

In short, this isn't neurosis; it's a necessary part of the creative mind. The problem is, sometimes that fear feels bigger than it actually is.

As type designer Sergej Lebedev notes: "Algorithms largely determine visibility on LinkedIn. So even if you have thousands of connections, often only 10-20% of them will see a given post. The pressure to be 'too visible' is often greater than the reality."

Strategic designer Nadja Rodriguez explains how this can play out in practice. "Putting your thoughts out there can feel huge from the inside. Vulnerable, risky, weirdly exposing; like serving a small piece of your creative soul to the internet on a silver plate."

When that happens, it's useful to step back and gain perspective. "From the outside, nobody remembers these details," she points out. "They don't track if your post falls flat or if you go quiet for a few weeks to recover. What people remember over time is whether you kept showing up."

The importance of boundaries

One thing that our community was keen to point out, though, is that "keep showing up" doesn't necessarily mean "post every day". As brand coach Fliss Lee acknowledges: "The pressure to be constantly visible can be stifling, and as creatives, we need downtime to rest and recharge. So I'd say, first and foremost, give yourself permission to not be constantly visible. It's unattainable, and of course, anybody is going to burn out trying to do it. Then, define what 'visible' means to you. To do that, I'd suggest looking at the types of promotion that energise you."

For some, that'll be networking and in-person events. For others, it'll be writing, podcasting, or simply being discoverable through your work (rather than your personality).

Either way, the most important thing is to create sustainable boundaries. In that light, creative coach Ellie Foden sees visibility as a pulse rather than a constant. "Every time you go past a comfortable level of vulnerability through what you create, or just the act of sharing it, the capacity of the nervous system expands too," she explains.

"So we need to do things to feel safe again in that new level of vulnerability." Illustrator and designer Michelle Abrahall offers an example to follow. "I share a lot of myself online," she says, "but I get to choose which days are for taking photos or creating a reel, and which days are for slobbing around in no make-up. I uninstall the app on a Friday evening, have a lovely digital detox over the weekend, then pop it back on a Sunday evening. I started doing this years ago, and it's become an ingrained habit now."

Making a clear separation

One important part of setting boundaries is clearly separating your personal and work life. As brand builder Edward Dalton explains: "There's a difference between showing your work and giving away all of yourself. You can be visible without being permanently exposed. You can engage without feeling like you need to perform constantly."

Also, think about what you're trying to achieve: visibility is not an end in itself. As illustrator and creative director Nat Carroll says: "It's about asking 'where am I out of alignment?' instead of 'how do I push through?' Because often it's not visibility itself that's exhausting; it's everything we carry while trying to be visible. For me, letting go of a few draining things changed how I show up more than any content strategy ever did."

How to fight the fear

All of the above advice makes logical sense. But the fear of being visible can seem anything but logical. So it's worth having a think about what's really holding us back.

For visual designer Hannah Starley: "The fear is rarely about having a thought, vision or idea. It's about how it will land with other people. Will they understand it, criticise it, dismiss it, or misinterpret it? The mindset I've been trying to adopt is that you'll be judged regardless of what you do, so you might as well lead with intention and purpose. The people who are meant to resonate with your message, values, and work usually will, and those are often the people whose support matters most."

But what happens when the fear gets overwhelming? Organisational development specialist Alexey Lobachev advises: "Rather than pushing through it or hiding from it, get curious about what's happening in those moments. Visibility doesn't have to shrink you, and rest doesn't have to exhaust you. Watch them move through you, rather than define you." In other words, shift your focus from "how do I force myself to be visible?" to "how do I help my nervous system feel safe while being seen?"

Key takeaway

If you take one thing away from this article, let it be this: you don't have to choose between being seen and being protected.

Instead: expand, retreat, expand again. Define visibility on your terms. Separate your worth from your visibility. And remember that the people worth reaching will find you when you show up authentically… even if that's less often than the algorithms suggest you should.

Finally, know that the tension you're feeling between visibility and hiding isn't a sign you're doing something wrong. It's a sign you're becoming more yourself. And that, ultimately, is exactly what makes being visible as a creative sustainable.

The London studio has shaped the look and feel of Frida Redknapp's new range of cooking blends, now on shelves in M&S and Ocado.

There is a certain trap waiting for any "healthy" food brand. It's that whole worthy, slightly joyless aesthetic that signals goodness but risks forgetting the pleasure of actually eating. Frood, a brand-new range of whole-food cooking blends, has sidestepped the usual virtue signalling, thanks to London studio Regular Practice.

Frood is the brainchild of Frida Redknapp, a Swedish-born mother of five and a trusted voice in family, food and wellbeing. Inspired by her own kitchen hacks and family favourites, she set out to make healthy home cooking effortless without sacrificing flavour. The result is four cooking blends: Swedish Meatballs, Bella Bolognese, Golden Curry and Mexi Fiesta. Each combines dried fruits and vegetables, grains, seeds, plant proteins and other wholesome ingredients. You add your own choice of protein, a little water and oil, then mix and cook a complete meal in 20 minutes. Every blend is fibre-rich, a natural source of protein, packed with real veg, and notably free from ultra-processed ingredients. Nice. I'm sold.

But how does it look... Given that's a lot for a brand to carry? How do you convey convenience and nutrition, speed and care, modern shortcuts and real food – all at once? Hold too tightly to the health story, and it reads as a supplement; lean too far into convenience, and it loses the warmth. Not an easy thing to design. The job for Regular Practice, therefore, was to make all of it feel like one joyful, coherent idea on a supermarket shelf.

Regular Practice is a London branding studio that crafts visual identities, creative direction and brand strategy for ambitious brands. The name itself does a lot of work here. 'Frood' is playful, warm and memorable – a small, confident piece of language that captures the brand's belief that "real food can be quick and that everyday cooking should feel like a pleasure rather than a chore". It's also a nice foundation for everything that follows.

On the shelf, it looks loud. The 'Frood' wordmark is the hero: an oversized, chunky sans-serif that runs almost the full width of each pack. On an aisle full of soft, soothing wellness cues, that takes some nerve. And it does the one thing a challenger brand needs most: make you read it and, more importantly, remember it.

Underneath the bold opener, though, there's some further logic. Each blend gets its own colourway, so the range reads instantly as a family while every flavour is easy to tell apart: green for Mexi Fiesta, a warm red for Bella Bolognese, a sunny red-and-yellow for Golden Curry and – my favourite touch – blue and yellow for the Swedish Meatball blend, a cheeky nod to both the dish and Frida's own heritage. The wordmark flips colour against each background, so the logo stays constant while the palette shifts.

Accompanying photography by James Moyle shows the finished dish, so the promise never feels abstract. The set design feels aspirational and appeals to the target audience. And Redknapp is the star, which helps add credibility. A short stack of plain-spoken lines does the reassuring: "the ultimate kitchen hack", "1 pack + 1 protein = delicious meal", "real ingredients, nothing else", alongside neat flashes for high fibre, real veg and ready in under 20 minutes. It's the part of the design that carries the nutrition story without ever turning preachy.

The brand follows Redknapp's conviction that food is about connection, joy and everyday wellbeing. Frood is pitched squarely at busy people who want real nourishment without the faff. We all know it's a crowded, fast-moving corner of the market, which makes the clarity of the branding all the more important. Shoppers have seconds to understand what a product is and why it is different. Regular Practice smashed it.

Artists Trevor Wheatley and Cosmo Dean, with design studio Puncture, have moored an entire convenience store on Lake Ontario – glowing, solar-powered and just out of reach.

There is a convenience store floating on Lake Ontario right now, and it’s fully stocked. Well, we say "convenient", but that's definitely not the case. Called Global Convenience, it's a new artwork moored at Harbour Square Park Basin on Toronto's waterfront, moving one of the most ordinary spaces in any city – the corner shop – onto the water, filling it from floor to ceiling, yet leaving it deliberately inaccessible.

Made by Toronto artists Trevor Wheatley and Cosmo Dean with design studio Puncture – the partnership of Rashad Maharaj and Spencer Cathcart – it is the sixth piece commissioned for the area's annual Floating Public Art program in seven years, and arrives as the city prepares to host matches for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Part sculpture, part shared memory, it is built around themes of arrival, daily ritual and migration.

The corner store, Wheatley says, was the whole point because it is unremarkable. "It's one of the most familiar and universally understood spaces in a city," he tells Creative Boom. "Almost everyone has a relationship to a convenience store, whether as a place to buy something quickly, meet a neighbour, or simply pass by on a daily route." Moving it onto the water, he adds, lets people "see something incredibly familiar with fresh eyes. The store becomes less about what it contains and more about what it represents – ideas of convenience, desire, access, and our relationship to the urban environment."

He describes the convenience store as "a kind of cultural crossroads… where products, languages, traditions, and identities coexist in one contained space" – and the team took that literally, stocking the shelves by hand with real products sourced from around the world. Among Wheatley's favourites are the plantain chips, the Coffee Crisps and a stash of vintage newspapers from 1999. But pushed for a winner? "Probably the shrimp puffs," he says, "because I'm allergic."

The signage borrows cues from Japan, Brazil, the US and Turkey, though Cathcart says nothing was meant to be a replica. "We wanted it to have the clarity of a prop or movie set, where people understand it immediately, but the details still feel strange enough to make them look twice," he says.

Building on water rewrote every decision, with buoyancy, wind and weather all in play. Weight was the biggest challenge: the walls became vacuum-formed plastic, the fire hydrant foam, and even the ice box freezer is a replica built from leftover studio plywood. "Those constraints improved the work," Wheatley says.

"They forced us to focus on the essential visual cues that make a convenience store instantly recognisable, despite being constructed from surprisingly lightweight materials." And the lake is still editing the piece. "The current and waves move it dramatically," he says. "Since the installation, we've continued to add and adjust elements in response to the site. In that sense, the harbour is still shaping the work."

The team also took "a crash course in solar power" so the store could glow after dark – a version Cathcart calls "totally surreal". "During the day, it is definitely a spectacle… However, at night it gets totally surreal," he says. "Most of us know the glow of a corner store late at night, but seeing that light hit the water was something else. The reflections and patterns make it feel like a fever dream. Let's hope for a sunny summer."

The collaboration is the first of its kind for the four, who met years ago when Puncture brought Wheatley and Dean in to make hanging typographic installations for WayHome Music Festival. "I've always felt designers and artists should work together more often, because each side brings something the other can't," Cathcart says. "Regardless of roles, it was four old friends with an undying dedication to making this project amazing."

The response has already been the way the artists hoped. "The other night, a man came up and told us it reminded him of every convenience store he'd ever been in, all at once, and how that feeling made his day," Wheatley says. "I think that's about the best response you could ask for."

Global Convenience is on the water at Harbour Square Park Basin throughout the summer season, best seen, like any good corner store, after dark.