Hey friends 💚
Hope this finds you well, as you're all getting ready to slam your laptops shut and spend some quality time with friends and fam.
Last time we spoke, I was deep in a thought spiral about finding meaning in my work and wondering where I, as a professional shape-shifter, “fit in” anymore. If you've worked in marketing long enough, you might know that feeling - being both part of and apart from so many different scenes. It can leave you questioning your place in an industry that never stops evolving.
These reflections feel especially meaningful as we approach this Saturday's winter solstice - that point in the year when light begins to return after the longest night. In 2024, I spent a lot of time wrestling with how emerging technology was changing the design landscape. Like many of us, I wondered what it meant for creativity, for craft, for the future of design itself as AI, organic content, influencers, and "data-driven decision-making" accelerated. Where I’m starting to net out is that I feel both excited and intimidated to see the most talented creatives taking chances on their own ideas, and pursuing new ways to let their work and networks support them. When everything crumbles, you finally get a chance to build something radically different. If everything I thought I knew is changing, perhaps that's exactly what I needed.
Minh Do, cofounder of Machine Cinema and Fantastic Day, captured this feeling perfectly in a recent video. As he put it: “Sometimes, we have to make space for ourselves to be anything and become anything. It's that thought that seeded this video. I looked at an AI image randomly generated of an old woman looking into the abyss of time and dimensions, and I thought to myself, what would it be like to spend an entire lifetime traveling through dimensions, a constant journey of reinventing yourself wherever you go as you adapted to next contexts. In truth though, this is just how life is.”
2024 wasn’t the year I expected, but in a lot of ways it was the year I needed. When I realized this summer that I was falling out of love with design, I intuitively knew I had to find a new way back. Between billable hours, I’ve been using my time to try the things that I had always shied away from, and I hosted some truly gratuitous experiences - from multiplayer panels to Halloween rave’s. I found myself excited by the scrappiness, exhilarated by shifting my focus from “this needs to look a certain way” to “this needs to be fun”. It made me realize I’ve been limiting my own growth for too long by focusing on design as just an output, and waiting for the perfect client, the perfect role, or even a big enough social following for these outputs to be “successful”. There’s a beautiful passage in Design Literacy in the Age of Intelligent Automation that made this realization really click for me, “Design and the profession of the designer must transform from a specialist function pushing pixels into a universal attitude of resourcefulness and inventiveness”. These qualities are so dear to me because they’re how I’ve done everything up to this point. I’ve broken into advertising after learning all my design skills from the internet. I took a leap of faith and started a business after discovering my own grit and tenacity in a boxing ring. Being resourceful and inventive helps me see that there's really not a right or wrong answer categorically, what matters most is deciding what the moment you’re in really needs and why. And of course, having the courage to trust your own vision. 💚
In 2025, I'll be exploring new ways to offer design beyond just a service. I want to use it as a way to share that feeling of being empowered to do the impossible. That’s ultimately why I fell in love with it in the first place. A great design doesn't have to make something pretty. It just has to make something feel purposeful.
If you're also feeling that pull toward something bigger in 2025, let's grab a virtual coffee and talk about it. Sometimes, the right conversation can unlock the next step forward.
In any sport, your team is everything. In boxing, especially, the people in your corner—the ones who see what you can’t—can be the difference between winning and losing. This year, I’ve been so lucky to have an incredible corner. Your advice, feedback, referrals, favors, and jello shots have meant the world for me.
Feler D. for hosting a Collective Inquiry with me.
Shelby H. for being such an amazing co-conspirator, and a testament to “design beyond outputs”. And of course… the jello-shots.
Justin B. and Emily I. for capturing the magic with your amazing photos.
Hannah S. for being my Halloween ride or die, and Lena (OFFLINE) Dan (Operating System, Bogus) Maggie (Thistle & Spire), Mikey (Moshicam), Paulie and Blake at 110 Studios, and our DJ Corey H. for helping me bring that cursed vision come to life.
Zak and the Collab + Currency team for letting me use their office.
Jovian, for a lifetime of skill-sharing.
BorrowLucid, for always showing me what’s possible on the bleeding edge of emerging tech.
Jenny, for our conversations that leave me truly inspired.
Minh, Jaime, Domingo, and Kaya for being part of this newsletter and it’s journey.
Ericka N. and Shazeem K for guiding me to the other side of some really cringey ideas.
Andrey M., for being in my corner, no matter what.
Until next year, ✌🏽👁️👄 👁️
– Jordan N.