This week I’ve found myself tired of using Adobe and AI to make my projects so I developed a little personal project to demonstrate that the old ways are still the best ways. I restricted myself to vintage paper and Sashiko thread to execute my idea. I could have easily made the thread in Nano Banana but AI takes all the mastery out of work. When looking at AI work, consumers no longer go, “shit they came up with a brilliant idea and then executed masterfully…” Consumers appreciate craft, intentionality, and process more than you think. Jog a Bonito my friends.
I’ve been drawn to exploring the power of language recently. As a visual person, I often rely on strong imagery to create feeling, but I’m finding a lot of power in abandoning imagery. A single line of copy, on the back of a painting, can cause a far more visceral response that any beautiful thing you can put on the front. Words have the power to force your mind to image, and to create its own visuals. A picture might be worth a thousand words, but is it?
The most important thing that’s brands can offer is something real that people can touch and feel. We brought that hope to a project for a digital invitation recently, and while I wont share the final product yet, we found the process of mixing the tactile and the digital to be very life giving.
Recently I created this spec project for a class I took with @jason_swet . For this project I built an concept around the idea that founders and freelancers are asked to perform under long-term pressure with very little guidance on pacing, rest, self talk, and regulation and this frequently causes burnout. I recognized that founders are very much like endurance athletes and I set about to design a solution and then conceptualize an advertising campaign. I designed two physical products and an app that simulated the IG of a brand like @garmin and placed it into the product of a company like @prada . These products could track your biometrics to limit screen time, monitor stress, suggest rest periods, give audio encouragement, track focus, and populate task lists. I grounded the visual language in fashion and performance sports. For the advertising campaign, I imagined moss as a signifier of growth and then set about to conceptualize OOH campaigns as well as physical spaces where growth meets digital environments. All of this work was done in Adobe and Higgsfield.
I recently concepted the visual identity around Yard 56, a global fitness challenge by @theyard_gym with help from my guy @yoursbydsgn . The aim of the visual identity was to develop a visual system that conveyed motion and effort in a digitally native environment. We wanted to engage people emotionally and get them excited about the possibility of tracking effort, and recognizing results. Huge thanks to @yoursbydsgn for working alongside me to help bring the vision to life and to @nataliaaferrari from the Yard for letting us do our thing.
