In a major shift for the creative industry, Microsoft recently launched an ad for its Surface line that was almost entirely created by artificial intelligence. Using tools like Hailuo and Kling, the design team generated every scene except for a few human close-ups, such as hands typing. The ad ran for three months without anyone noticing it was AI-made, proving Shelley Palmer’s insight: “If you cannot tell the difference, there effectively is no difference.”
This milestone highlights a critical transformation in how brands create content. As Palmer smartly frames it, creative work now falls into two categories: “required” content, practical, executional work increasingly handled by AI, and “inspired” content deeply human storytelling still beyond AI’s full reach. Microsoft’s Surface ad achieved a 90% reduction in time and cost while maintaining broadcast-quality standards. For brands and agencies alike, this signals an urgent need to rethink how creativity is produced, valued, and rewarded.
When I led strategy at Crispin Porter + Bogusky, one of the most decorated creative agencies in history, we focused intensely on unpredictable human creativity. Later, at Victors & Spoils, we pioneered open talent models, demonstrating that creativity could survive and thrive in new structures. In my book Open Talent, I argue that embracing open networks and AI-driven collaboration doesn’t diminish creativity; it liberates it, amplifying human potential by automating required content.
The implications are clear: AI can now efficiently handle the “required” creative work, freeing human teams to focus on the “inspired” work that moves hearts and builds brands. However, the economic efficiencies AI brings are already compelling brands to recalibrate their balance between human creativity and machine-driven execution.
Brands now have the opportunity to fundamentally rethink their creative strategies. First, it’s no longer necessary or financially wise to pay for agency overhead. Freelancers, empowered by AI tools and connected through emerging platforms like Hence Creative, can deliver exceptional results with greater agility and at a fraction of the cost. The bloated agency model is giving way to streamlined, open networks that prioritize speed, innovation, and return on creative investment.
Second, companies must recognize the opportunity to automate and streamline their required content. AI can rapidly generate high-quality, functional creative assets, enabling brands to reduce costs and reallocate resources toward more strategic and emotionally resonant initiatives. This shift is not about replacing creativity; it’s about reclaiming the time and space for deeper innovation.
At the same time, AI’s ability to handle routine creative tasks allows human teams to focus on what matters most: inspired storytelling. Freed from production-heavy demands, creative professionals can push boundaries, explore cultural narratives, and forge the emotional connections that truly engage audiences. In this new era, the brands that thrive will be the ones that understand creativity as more than content; they’ll see it as a profound emotional dialogue with consumers.
Finally, brands must adopt an open talent mindset. AI reaches its greatest potential when paired with diverse human insights. By tapping into a global pool of freelance and independent talent, brands can access broader perspectives, richer ideas, and faster innovation. AI isn’t a competitor in this model; it’s a collaborator, amplifying the capabilities of a dynamic, distributed creative workforce.
Ultimately, the adoption of AI-generated content might spell the end of traditional ad agencies that cling to outdated structures. Those unwilling to evolve will find themselves struggling to survive. But those who embrace AI as a tool for enhancing human creativity, blending technology with diverse, open networks of talent, will lead the next wave of storytelling innovation.
The future of creativity won’t be built behind the walls of traditional agencies. It will emerge from open ecosystems, where humans and machines collaborate, liberated from legacy systems, and ready to meet a new era of brand building.
We speak to the great and the good to get the temperature of the industry as we head into the halfway point of the 2020s.
As we approach 2025, the creative industry stands at a fascinating crossroads. The rapid evolution of AI is reshaping how we think about design. To gauge the industry’s mood, we’ve spoken to leading creative directors, agency founders, and industry visionaries about the trends they believe will define 2025.
Their insights reveal a complex landscape where technology and humanity intersect in unexpected ways. And in these changing times, they’re very much worth paying attention to, even if you’re the sort of person who generally ignores trends.
Because it’s no exaggeration to say that this moment feels like it’s going to be pretty pivotal in design history.
That’s how Jan Eumann, executive creative director at Wolff Olins, is feeling right now, anyway. “Generally, we try not to worry too much about the big trends in graphic design,” he begins. “Instead, we focus on where society is headed and how we can have a meaningful impact where it matters. That said, in terms of what work looks and feels like, we’re clearly in one of the most transformational shifts in technology since the introduction of the computer.
“AI has been central to many, if not most, conversations about technology over the last few years,” he continues. “But considering the increasing maturity of tools and applications, there’s no point watching from the sidelines any more.”
Yet, although AI might be the biggest story, it’s not the only one. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and the rise of AI has also produced a number of counter-trends that designers also need to know about. Plus, of course, there’s plenty of other stuff going on in the design world beyond that. So read on as we outline the 10 biggest design trends that are captivating design leaders’ minds right now.
1. AI moves to the final output
The conversation around AI has shifted dramatically. Whether you love it or hate it, one thing’s for sure: you can no longer ignore it.
Some, like creative director Michael Freimuth, are giving it a cautious welcome. “As a relatively early adopter, I’ve enjoyed seeing creatives become less intimidated by AI and more experimental with it,” he says. “Using it in more practical applications as a tool has been a nice antidote to the ‘deer in headlights’ vibe from last year. Understanding its limits and strengths, as well as when it’s creatively soul-sucking and awful versus experience enhancing, feels like progress.”
A collaborative zine produced by Franklyn and Michael Freimuth highlighting ai artists across an array of themes and visual exploration
As our special report earlier in the year shows, many agencies have already incorporated AI into processes such as idea generation, prototyping and mock-ups. But even if you’re not keen, OMSE founder James Kape points out that this emerging tech will still find you, somehow or other.
“AI has deeply embedded itself into everyday design tools, even when you’re not actively seeking it out,” he explains. “In Photoshop, for example, you can use the Generative Fill feature to remove, fix, or generate content with just a few clicks. Beyond that, new AI platforms like Exactly.ai enable users to generate illustrated assets from simple sketches, offering a new level of accessibility to design.”
And things seem to be moving faster and faster as we approach 2025. AI is now firmly embedded in search for Google, generative images are getting better and better, while numerous platforms are showcasing generative video tools that are shockingly convincing.
Red Antler crafted the brand identity for a new AI infrastructure company, Ori, using augmented design applications to bring the AI brand to life
Red Antler crafted the brand identity for a new AI infrastructure company, Ori, using augmented design applications to bring the AI brand to lifeRed Antler crafted the brand identity for a new AI infrastructure company, Ori, using augmented design applications to bring the AI brand to life
Could the coming year see AI become ready for prime time rather than just a handy ideation tool? Kiser Barnes, partner and CCO at Red Antler, believes so. He predicts that next year: “AI will transition from being a behind-the-scenes tool for processes and sketches to an actual execution tool, creating brand assets and content in real-time. AI’s role in design will become more direct, moving beyond ideation to final output.”
Even so, though, the elephant in the room is that AI will probably put many designers out of work. In an article we published in May, Simon Case predicted that AI will destroy jobs and create a movement towards one-person design agencies. As the capabilities of the technology continue to advance, that scenario does seem to be getting more and more likely by the day.
2. The return to physical experiences
As AI accelerates, though, our experts believe there will also be a powerful movement in the opposite direction. “The faster technology moves, the more we’ll see a counter-trend emerge: a return to handcrafted, human-centred design,” says Barnes.
Graeme McGowan, co-founder of Jamhot, agrees. “As the world of AI develops, we’re leaning into creating more human connectedness through our work,” he says. “That’s something that I think will be more important to brands going forward.”
Miro LaFlaga, co-founder of Six Cinquième, takes a similar view. “More and more, I see younger generations coming full circle, with the pendulum swinging back to a time where real life, genuine, intimate, in-person connection is king,” he says. “What will that look like? We know the digital world isn’t going anywhere, but I believe brands that can play both sides well and connect the two experiences to create meaningful engagements will win.”
This trend is particularly evident in retail, where Tom Munckton, executive creative director at Fold7Design reports “there’s a rebalancing happening of the ‘virtual’ to ‘physical’ showings for brands, with big retail marketplaces exploring more and more IRL [in real life] experiences combined with pure e-commerce. This is in line with broader trends around human-made design. With the world wearying of AI, we’re seeing more of the human details, nuance and imperfections creep back in.”
Andy Harvey, founder and executive creative director at Communion Studio, adds: “In 2025, I think we’ll see a reaction to the screen-saturated world of recent years. This could manifest in two significant ways: hyper-personalised nutrition, driven by a deeper understanding of the power of natural health, and a desire for more IRL gatherings, driven by a return to face-to-face connection. And perhaps a little more hedonism.”
3. The craft renaissance
As another element to the backlash against AI, along with a broader rejection of mass production and digital saturation, there’s a growing appreciation for craft and heritage in design. Luigi Carnovale, founder and creative director at Design LSC, outlines several key factors driving this trend.
“The first is personalisation,” he begins. “Consumers want unique, handmade items with personal meaning, moving away from mass-produced products. The second is sustainability. This focus on eco-friendly and ethical consumption aligns with the craft’s slow, intentional production. Thirdly, advances in technology will blend with traditional craftsmanship, creating innovative yet authentic designs.”
4. More experimentation
As design tools become more accessible, the industry faces an interesting dichotomy. As Mike Perry, founder and chief creative officer of Tavern points out: “Inexpensive Adobe competitors such as Canva means everyone’s a designer, or thinks they are. As a result, a wealth of content is being created. But since these programs rely so heavily on templates, everything coming out of them looks the same. It’s becoming harder to find new ideas and aesthetics in this sea of copies-of-a-copy-of-a-copy. With AI being trained on all this content, we can expect to see even more of the same in the future.”
At the same time, though, he sees opportunity in this challenge: “Less gatekeeping means more room for experimentation at the fringes. We expect to see continued iterations on the ‘undesigned’ trend, more chaos, more maximalism to counter the crisp, clean, blandness the algorithm will inevitably continue to serve us.”
5. The rise of design writing
If we reach a stage when AI can create images, videos, and other final outputs just by reading text prompts alone, it stands to reason that writing text will be an increasingly important design skill in 2025 and beyond.
As Perniclas Bedow, creative director at Bedow, puts it: “The industry is now ready to embrace the written word. Articulate what you do before you do it. Craft sentences and use the words as a guide rather than visual references. It’s time-consuming and challenging, but it opens up new worlds and shifts the outcome away from the formulaic.
Bimmi’s brand narrative, Nature’s Poetry, is conveyed through typewriter letters. Work by Bedow
A Lovely Atmosphere was created for GBGT Box’s promotional boxes. The square boxes represent the atmosphere’s five layers. Work by BedowSwee Kombucha’s probiotic brews are 100% natural, with a packaging design based on 100 cells, each filled with a color representing the percentage of each ingredient. Work by Bedow
Neko’s logotype is split in half, with the lower part slightly ahead, reflecting their tagline, Ahead of Your Health. Work by Bedow
6. Sound becomes a key design element
Another trend emerging for 2025 is the increased importance of audio in digital design. Simon Carr, design director at DesignUps, provides some detailed insight into this.
“As audio becomes more accessible and more popular with web tools, it makes sense that there will be more creative ways to utilise sound files on websites,” he explains. “This could be implemented in many ways: from soundtracks to UI sounds as a user navigates and makes choices.”
And here’s something else that may be changing. “It’s long been felt that auto-play audio on a website should be avoided,” says Simon. “But going forward, I expect websites with a focus on sound will implement options to play audio or not, based on stored user preferences.”
7. Sustainability takes centre stage
Environmental consciousness continues to significantly influence design decisions, with positive results being seen in areas such as packaging. Brands are recognising that this will get them much further with the public than anything that might be perceived as ‘greenwashing’.
“Brands are looking to wear their ethics proudly, like a fine suit,” says Simon Manchipp, founding partner at SomeOne. “In 2025, expect a visual language that whispers of environmental stewardship: natural textures, earthy palettes. But brands will not only look sustainable but ensure they’re rooted in ecological mindfulness. Packaging may move to be as minimal as a haiku, made of materials that leave barely a footprint, and designs will exude a sense of calm, as though the planet itself had taken a deep, contented breath.”
8. Minimalist maximalism
So what impact will all this have on what designs actually look like? “I’ve heard a lot of talk about ‘Minimalist Maximalism’,” says Cat How, founder and executive creative director of How Studio. “Minimalism has been a dominant design trend for many years, but in 2025, this trend, I think, will 10x itself and blend the simplicity of minimalism with the boldness of maximalism. So, we are still embracing the clean lines and white space of minimalism with more expressive and unexpected elements, such as vibey colours, massive type, and other eclectic elements.”
Wild Thingz by How&How
Blum by How&How (Designers: Lina Aragon and María Alejandra Maya-Fresa)Blum by How&How (Designers: Lina Aragon and María Alejandra Maya-Fresa)
9. Health becomes the new luxury
The wellness sector is experiencing unprecedented innovation and investment right now, and that’s having an impact on design. Because health is becoming inextricably linked with wearables and tech, but someone has to make sense of all that data, or it’s next to useless.
“Visualising health data is becoming the ‘new luxury,'” stresses Sarah Williams, co-CEO of Beardwood&Co. “Apple is doubling down on Health in their latest Apple Watch release, and everyone from Spotify CEO Daniel Ek to health platform Equinox to motivational speaker Tony Robbins is getting in on the opportunity to offer high-end, data-driven health services at a premium. The key focus? Making the unseen visible and the future predictable.”
Choice Organics. Work by Beardwood&Co
This trend extends beyond personal technology into physical spaces, notes Roly Grant, creative director at Without Studio. “The biggest trend we’re experiencing is investment and innovation in being active and staying well,” he reports. That includes: “specialist hot/cold studios; luxury martial arts clubs; more accessible family health clubs… expect energy from this space, as new concepts compete to stand out in 2025.”
Another notable development is the emergence of women’s health brands. “Start-up brands are winning big with women by creating effective products for our bodies and communicating with refreshing honesty about our journey through periods, pimples, mood management, vaginal health and menopause,” explains Julia Beardwood, founder of Beardwood&Co. “Brands such as Modibodi, Starface, p-HD, Winged, MixHERS, Womaness and MenoWell, all founded and led by women. No one cares better for women than other women.”
10. Inclusivity becomes non-negotiable
The push for authentic representation is certain to gain continuing momentum in 2025. “Brands will go beyond tokenism to embrace authentic representation,” predicts Simon, “ensuring that every facet of human experience is not only acknowledged but welcomed into the fold. Expect to see designs catering to every ability, culture, and shade of human life. It could be a glorious symphony of inclusivity, visually expressed with grace and humanity.”
When it comes to inclusivity, one aspect that’s often overlooked is age. As Oscar Mason, creative strategist at Outlaw, points out: “In an industry distracted by ‘magpie trinket trends’ it’s easy to lose sight of where the real opportunity lies. One thing bubbling in my view is the shift in marketers, designers, and brand managers placing emphasis on those who have the greatest spending power: those who are in their over 50s.
“In the UK, people over 50 make up 40% of the population but control a massive 80% of the wealth. Yet, we are washed with Gen Z insight reports and briefs that request us to target those who happened to be born between the years of 1997 and 2013. Sometimes it feels like we are reflecting marketers’ tastes rather than those of consumers.”
Looking ahead
As we move towards 2025, the design industry appears to be embracing seemingly contradictory forces: technology vs humanity, minimalism vs maximalism, digital vs physical, and youth vs experience. In the second half of this decade, successful designers and brands will be those who can navigate these dualities, creating work that resonates on both emotional and practical levels.
If we can all strike this balance and harness a thoughtful approach to design, the creative industry should have an exciting and transformative year ahead. Keep reading Creative Boom to stay abreast of developments, and we’ll keep sharing the best stuff to inspire you.
There’s never been a better time to invest time and energy in your own website – especially if you’re a creative freelancer, small agency or designer-maker.
As the fierce battle for social supremacy between Musk and Zuck rages on, it’s become all-too-clear in recent months that the social channels we’ve dedicated so much of our promotional bandwidth to can become obsolete just as soon as something shiny and new comes along.
Social channels come and go – but your business website is here to stay. And it deserves your full attention.
The journey to hooking your next client begins with making the best possible introduction, more often than not online these days. So here are five key elements that all successful ‘About’ pages have in common. It’s time to tell your story the right way.
1. Who are you?
Much like every superhero comic ever written, all businesses and creative endeavours begin with an origin story. A starting point that makes them unique. A reason for existing. What’s yours?
In the same way that a great PR pitch to a journalist looks to hook interest early on, your ‘About’ page should kick off with why you do what you do.
Make it personal. What led to you founding the business? Why are you so passionate about this creative area? How are you solving a problem that needs solving? If your ‘About’ page achieves nothing else, it should quickly convey your roots while also making your offering relevant to the here and now.
2. Be bold and confident
Brits, especially, aren’t always great at patting ourselves on the back and shouting about our accomplishments. Sure, that’s a respectable attribute in daily life. But when it comes to business, it pays to be bold and confident.
Your ‘About’ page is the perfect place to shout, loudly and proudly, about your experience in the industry: awards you’ve won, testimonials you’ve received, high-profile clients you’ve worked with and campaigns you’ve delivered.
If you’ve achieved big results in the past, use your ‘About’ page to really showcase what sets you apart from the rest. After all, if you can’t be a cheerleader for yourself, how can you expect anyone else to believe in you?
3. Get social
With your ‘About’ page serving as a digital introduction to your creative offering, don’t miss the crucial chance to take this fledgling relationship with your audience further by linking to your social channels on your ‘About’ page.
Whether it’s LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook or –yes – even Threads, make it super-easy for anyone with a passing interest in what you do to connect with you on social media, truly learn who you are, and begin that all-important first conversation with you.
4. SEO, SEO, SEO
There’s no point crafting beautiful prose for your ‘About’ page if nobody will read it – so always take the time to maximise your content with an SEO-first approach.
Much like with the rest of your website, carefully consider the keywords you want to be linked to and smoothly weave these into your copy.
Optimise your meta descriptions, header tags and images. Use short paragraphs and SEO-friendly headings to keep the page punchy. Link to existing content on your site and other trusted external sources to further boost your search rankings. Paying attention to these small details can make a huge, huge difference.
5. Be you
There’s only one you in this world – and that’s a very good thing. Your ‘About’ page should celebrate your unique you-ness, serving as an authentic window into who you are, both in the workplace and away from it.
How much of your ‘true’ self you want to bring to your website is a personal judgement call – but if the pandemic years proved anything, it’s that we all crave real human connection and that genuine personalities sell. It’s a hugely overused adage, but it’s trotted out time and again for good reason: people really do buy from people.
Whether it’s sharing your favourite movie, talking about your slightly unusual pastime, including photos of your gorgeous office dog (which, let’s face it, is guaranteed to improve dwell time) or quoting your philosophy on a happy life, visitors to your ‘About’ page should leave with a much clearer idea of who you are and what gets your creative juices flowing – and be itching to work with you.
David Palmer, the owner and ECD of Manchester-based creative agency LOVE, has spent his career learning to love failure. But then again, he hasn’t had much choice.
“Creative people face more regular rejection than just about anyone else on the planet,” he tells Creative Boom. Palmer estimates that LOVE, whose star client list includes Jim Beam, Nike, and Vogue, loses three times the pitches it wins – and he says that failure rate is pretty standard for creative businesses.
“Failing is simply part of your day-to-day when you work in the creative industries,” he says. “You can pour your heart and soul into a project and apply the best strategy, thinking and design skills, only for a senior or a client to say they don’t like it.”
For Palmer, dealing with this means you have to have the skin of a rhino and be a rubber ball: always ready to bounce back. But Palmer is adamant that having tough skin and a resilient attitude doesn’t mean ignoring your failures or rushing past them. Instead, Palmer advocates for his team of creatives – and the industry at large – to develop a healthier relationship with creative success by being willing to acknowledge and embrace creative losses.
“Handling failure is like going through the five stages of grief,” Palmer tells Creative Boom while recounting a time he got the call about a lost pitch while on holiday in Greece, effectively ruining any chance for some much-needed R&R.
The five stages of grief were originally laid out by psychologist and author Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in 1969 as a framework for navigating one’s own end of life. The use of the Kübler-Ross method has been expanded and reconceptualised in many ways over the past 50 years and has been transformed into a powerful tool for confronting loss of all kinds.
According to the trajectory laid out by Kübler-Ross, a griever moves gradually from shock and denial to pleading, bargaining, or desperation, then on to anger – an experience David Palmer of LOVE says he can relate to every time he and his team lose a pitch. “It really can feel like the world is falling down around you, and it’s totally normal to feel really angry in the beginning,” Palmer tells Creative Boom.
As a leader, Palmer thinks it’s healthy to make room for negative emotions – that by accepting the anger that comes with creative rejection or failure, you’re one step closer to accepting the failure and moving on. “It’s useful for young creatives to know that it’s just perfectly natural to feel like that,” Palmer says.
Photo Credit: LOVE
According to Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief, depression and/or anxiety often follow the stage of anger. In a creative context, Palmer likens this stage to the period of flatness, discouragement, and self-doubt that often accompany creative failure – once the rage passes, the real grief starts to set in. From this low point, someone with healthy coping mechanisms will ultimately find themselves ready to take action toward recovery and learn to accept their loss or failure. In contrast, someone with unhealthy coping mechanisms may remain stuck at rock bottom.
And that’s where Palmer gets concerned because he’s not convinced that creatives today have the coping skills they need to sustain a career path that’s inevitably studded with failure and rejection.
“In sports and school, kids are taught that failure is a bad thing, that it has to be avoided or ignored,” he tells Creative Boom. “But failure is unavoidable. Especially in this industry, because it’s so subjective, you need to be aware of it. And you need to find healthy ways to deal with it.”
Because, at the end of the day, failure isn’t a bad thing. “Rejection can be a catalyst for really positive things,” Palmer says. “The sting of failure propels you forward in a way that gives you more energy and momentum than if you didn’t have it at the beginning.”
To prove his point, Palmer recounts an experience from his first job out of design school, working for a boss who seemed deadset on keeping him down. “I couldn’t win,” Palmer says, recalling a particularly discouraging event in which he watched his work be crumpled up and tossed in a skip. At that moment, it was as if he went through all five stages of grief at warp speed. “I’d been working for two years, but I had nothing to show in my portfolio, and I was at a point where I realised: every which way, I’m going to fail. And from there, I went: you know, you’re a problem solver. So what are you going to do?”
Once he’d gotten through the shock, anger, and blow to his self-esteem, Palmer accepted that the way he was working wasn’t working. So he decided to change his approach. Instead of offering the big, original ideas that appeared to make his boss feel threatened, he found ways of prioritising his boss’s approach while still managing to leave his own mark… it was a lesson in compromise that’s served him well in a long-term client-facing career. He’s living proof that approaching failure and rejection with curiosity and determination are the building blocks of a sustainable creative career.
Photo Credit: LOVE
While it’s important for creatives to learn to take individual responsibility for themselves and develop healthy coping mechanisms for acknowledging and dealing with their failures and rejections, Palmer thinks that agency leaders and even clients should also be taking responsibility for the part they play in creating a more positive culture in the creative industries.
He’s aware that the way feedback is delivered can have a lot to do with the way it’s received and that creative leaders and clients alike may lean toward unnecessarily brutal feedback without giving much thought to the effect their response will have on the creative behind the work.
At LOVE, feedback is mitigated first through the accounts team, who can help separate the helpful feedback from the not-so-helpful feedback before sharing it with the creative team. “That way, we can ensure feedback is framed constructively, giving our team a more positive place to start that journey toward accepting rejection.”
Ultimately, Palmer questions whether the industry as a whole needs to reevaluate its relationship with and vocabulary around failure. A working understanding of the five stages of grief and how those stages manifest in experiences of creative failure is a good start – but he’s open to ideas and conversation, telling Creative Boom: “As an industry, I wonder all the time how everyone else is doing it, and what could be improved.”
Adobe has just made some big announcements at its Adobe MAX event. We explain why creatives should pay attention.
Every year Adobe holds a huge event in Los Angeles, simulcast to the world, called Adobe MAX, where it announces the latest big updates to its industry-leading software, such as Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects and Premiere Pro.
These are the tools that power creative professionals across the world today. So it couldn’t be more important to pay attention and learn how the latest features can save you time and money and help you become more productive and creative.
Adobe MAX community pavilion
So, what did we learn from this year’s Adobe MAX? Overall, that creative software is changing fast as it adapts to a fast-changing world. As a result, artists, illustrators, designers, photographers and other creatives can access new and exciting ways to work more quickly and efficiently, collaborate more effectively, and protect their creations from exploitation and misrepresentation.
Read on as we outline the key themes of Adobe MAX 2022, which not only explain how Adobe software is evolving but highlight where the creative industry is going as a whole. So even if you’re not an Adobe user, they’re still worth paying attention to.
1. Creativity is becoming more collaborative
It won’t have escaped your attention that the days when a client briefed a designer or illustrator and then sent them away until they were finished are now a distant memory. Nowadays, it’s typical for multiple people to weigh in on your design, throughout the creative process, from clients to stakeholders, colleagues to bosses.
In theory, this should lead to an end product that everyone is happy with. In practice, though, it often results in endless, confusing email chains, 57 versions of the same visual, and no one being quite sure who’s agreed to what.
In short, whether you use email, Slack, Dropbox or Google Drive, creative collaboration is never as simple or seamless as you’d like it to be. Which is why one of the biggest announcements of this year’s Adobe MAX is Share for Review.
Share for Review
This feature, now live across a range of Adobe software, allows you to instantly share a link to, say, the Photoshop file you’re working on with others. They don’t need Photoshop themselves: they just need to click the link, and they’ll instantly see your creation in their web browser. They can then add comments, which you can see and feed back on, and everything takes place in Photoshop.
It’s a brilliant feature and one we expect to radically change how we collaborate in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects, Premiere Pro and more.
It also fits nicely with Adobe’s recent announcement of intent to acquire Figma, which makes it easy for UX designers to collaborate on app and web prototypes in the browser. Not to mention Adobe’s Camera to Cloud tech, which it’s just announced is being put directly into Fuji and RED cameras. That means 8K footage can be transmitted straight to production houses via the Cloud without any tedious mucking about with memory cards. Another great win for fast and fuss-free collaboration.
Camera to Cloud tech in RED cameras
In short, if there was any doubt in your mind that the future of digital creativity will be more collaborative and primarily based in the browser, it’s time to cast that aside. Yes, in this post-pandemic world, we may spend more time at home, physically by ourselves. But that doesn’t mean we’ll be working alone: far from it.
2. AI can be a friend to creatives
The rise of technologies like generative art can’t have escaped your attention and is scaring a lot of creatives witless. Will such tech make us redundant? Adobe is on the side of the optimists, believing there will always be a need for human creativity, imagination and ingenuity. Instead, it sees huge potential for AI and machine learning to make our creative work easier and allow us to do and produce more.
For this reason, it’s been developing a technology it calls Adobe Sensei, which identifies common time-consuming tasks, and finds ways to let the software take the strain. At Adobe MAX this year, it’s announced some huge leaps forward in this regard.
For example, in Photoshop and Lightroom, it’s made the Object Selection tool work even more accurately, with a wider array of objects. If you’ve never used Object Selection before, it allows you to hover over an object within a photograph and the software will automatically detect and select it. You can then tweak it to your liking or just delete it with a single click. Content-Aware Fill will step in and fill in the background, so no one would ever notice it was ever there. (Read more in this blog post.)
Select Object in Lightroom
It’s a great example of how AI can take the dull grunt of work out of our jobs, giving us more space to be more creative. What this tells us is that the future of creativity will be less about learning complex software skills and more about our ability to engage our imaginations and come up with truly groundbreaking concepts. Sounds good to us!
3. Authenticity is increasing in importance
Is this true? Is it real? Never before, it seems, have these sentences appeared so often across the internet. Whether you’re sharing a photo or video or clicking on a news story, the rise of fake news and propaganda is making us question the evidence of our own eyes. And so Adobe has taken a big step forward this year in helping us authenticate our photos, videos and design work as genuine, in structured and easy-to-access ways.
Content Credentials in Photoshop
A new Photoshop opt-in feature, Content Credentials, automatically capture edits and identities information from your image. This attached metadata establishes a paper trail for images that have been changed or enhanced. In other words, if anyone needs to check who originated an image, who edited it and how they can do so directly within Photoshop.
As well as helping stop the spread of fake news, Content Credentials could also be useful in the fight against NFT theft, whereby scammers mint and sell NFTs based on images they didn’t actually create. And in general, the wild west nature of the internet isn’t going away, so anything Adobe can do to help creators protect their intellectual property is clearly a good thing.
4. The future lies in the metaverse
One of the less-reported announcements at this year’s event is that Adobe is teaming up with Meta to develop products for the metaverse. But in terms of the future of the creative profession, this may turn out to be its most significant.
On the one hand, the metaverse is very much in its infancy, and we don’t really know what it is yet. But on the other, companies are pouring billions into developing the metaverse, and eventually, they will want a return on that investment. That, above all else, is going to require content: 3D, immerse, 360-degree content. And so whether you’re an artist, illustrator or designer, this is an important area where your skills will increasingly become in demand.
Most of us, of course, wouldn’t know where to start. This is why Adobe dedicated a considerable portion of its Adobe MAX keynote this year to the new integration between well-known tools like Illustrator and a new set of 3D tools under the Substance heading.
Substance 3D
Substance uses a lot of those AI smarts we were talking about earlier. And that means you don’t have to be an expert 3D modeller to create three-dimensional images: you can leverage your existing skills in ways that are surprisingly easy and intuitive.
For example, there’s a cool 3D Capture tool in Substance 3D Sampler you can use to turn a group of photos into a 3D model. You simply have to walk around an object, take a bunch of photos from different angles, and the software creates a 3D model for you to tweak. Anyone who’s been put off in the past by overly complicated modelling software will find this an absolute treat.
Where to learn more
Want to delve deeper into the updates announced at Adobe MAX? Then great news! More than 200 sessions from Adobe MAX are still available to watch online for free, here.
Must-sees amongst them include the Opening Keynote, in which Adobe’s experts outline the latest products, features, and innovations, and Sneaks, in which Adobe’s Bria Alexander and comedian Kevin Hart look at cutting-edge tech the company is planning to bring to products in the future.
As well as software updates, Adobe MAX 2022 featured a wide range of speakers from across the creative world, and the best place to start is watching the Inspiration Keynote featuring illustrator Kadir Nelson, DJ Steve Aoki, photographer Cristina Mittermeier, director Siân Heder, and artist Jeff Koons.
You can access all this content and more on the Adobe MAX website, so we’d urge you to take full advantage and get a huge burst of creative inspiration for free!
When it comes to working for brands and companies, have you ever had moments of tearing your hair out? Here, creatives share their client horror stories and offer tips and advice for anyone encountering the same situation.
It’s almost Halloween, a time of spooks, sprites and devils. But you don’t need to look at the world of the supernatural to give yourself a fright. Anyone who’s worked as a creative freelancer will have experienced clients with monstrous qualities, ranging from the power-mad to the downright criminal.
Don’t get us wrong: most clients are decent human beings. And even when they’re being particularly difficult, it’s more a case of poor communication and lack of understanding of what freelancers actually do. Part of our job is to meet them halfway, guide them through the process, and put systems in place, including watertight contracts, so everyone understands their responsibilities.
“I find that the best way to deal with clients is to be clear on your plan and way of working while also being clear on what’s expected of them,” says creative director Martin Homent. “I’m my experience, most clients seem like a nightmare because they don’t quite understand what the process is and don’t want to show themselves up by stating they don’t know something.
“Creativity can sometimes seem like a complete mystery to some clients,” he adds. “Even the ones who are trained marketers. So always let them know your process, and guide them with where you are along the way.”
This approach will work in the vast majority of cases. But unfortunately, not all. Because the sad truth is that some clients are pretty impossible. In this article, we identify seven types of deadly-difficult clients and offer advice on how to deal with them.
1. The ego drunk on power
This type of client isn’t just misguided or out of their depth; they’re fundamentally unpleasant and enjoy lording themselves over others.
Manchester-based photographer Enna Bartlett offers a typical example. “At an event where I was the photographer, one of the attendees kept putting their hand in the air, clicking their fingers and going ‘You, photographer, we need photos’. Even though they weren’t anything to do with the team who briefed me on the job.”
Martin Homent shares a similar tale. “I once had a client who stopped our presentation two minutes in to ask who we were and why we were there,” he recalls. “For context, he was new, and our agency had worked with his company for over a year. He then insisted we sat outside while he discussed our work with his team and made them deliver the feedback while he was silent.”
When you get treated this way, keeping your emotions in check and staying professional is difficult. Sometimes, though, it’s possible to cope with an oversized ego simply by appealing to that ego.
Illustrator Ben Rothery describes such a client. “She’s like Anna Wintour x Ursula, the sea witch,” he says. “She screams, swears and changes her mind a lot… she’s a real peach. But she generally gets managed by telling her that any idea we want to push through was originally hers.”
2. The zero-integrity
Ego-driven is one thing, but what’s even worse is when a client lacks all integrity. Artist and Illustrator Carina Lindmeier gives a shocking example. “Once, a client tried to force me to copy a fellow illustrator,” she explains. “I said NO, even though the budget was good. It’s important to always stay true to your values.”
When illustrator Sarah J Coleman, aka Inkymole, was in a similar situation, she found sticking to her guns and having representation helped resolve the issue. “The client relentlessly repeated: ‘If you could just make it look more like X’s work’,” she recalls. “To which I relentlessly replied, ‘Nope. You hired me: if you wanted X, you should have hired X.’ Ultimately, my agent bollocked them, called time, and I got paid in full.”
When a client has absolutely no scruples, though, often the only thing to do is say goodbye. Illustrator Rachael Presky gives a startling example. “I had someone say, ‘I don’t want to sound bad, but I only want skinny European people – meaning white – in the illustrations because that’s what we all aspire to’,” she says. “I walked away very quickly after that.”
Unfortunately, walking isn’t always the end of the matter. “We had a client that wanted to use images from Google despite copyright licences,” says artist Ranjit Sihat. “We were met with harassment, so politely told her we could not work with her, didn’t take any more payment, and returned all her prep work. She threatened to take us to court. Luckily, because we stopped replying to the harassing emails, the client stopped.”
3. The scammer
We’ve all had this happen. A client commissions you to do work, then deny you payment on grounds so ridiculous it would be funny if it didn’t leave you out-of-pocket and worried about how to afford your food, rent and bills.
“I had a client that asked me to vectorise their sketch into a useable logo, then refused to pay me as they weren’t happy with the design,” recalls illustrator and album cover artist Paul Phillips, aka True Spilt Milk. “Even though it was their own design!”
Art director Tim Easley tells an equally shocking tale. “One client of mine lied about their identity and stole loads of my work for their own portfolio, then didn’t pay me,” he explains. “I had to make a small claim against them. And so my tip in this situation is: don’t waste your time chasing things up politely when it’s obvious they won’t pay.”
Designer James Kindred highlights another common way freelancers are scammed. “Once, we had a sizeable pitch for a local transport business,” he explains. “We were told we had won the pitch, but they wouldn’t pay us for the work as it had ‘already been done and they didn’t need any changes’.”
Dishonest clients pop up everywhere, it seems. Currently art director at Apple Music, Sanchit Sawaria once had a client who asked for a ‘Covid Discount’. “Then, in the middle of the project, during a candid conversation, they slipped up that their company wasn’t affected by Covid,” Sanchit reveals. “Later, they changed the brief in the middle of the project. I lost money and, most importantly, time.”
The biggest takeaway from such stories is that if a client seems off in any way, it’s worth following your gut and checking them out. “I was recently approached to work for free – in exchange for publicity – to an audience that’s not remotely like mine,” says artist Berenice Howard-Smith. “So I looked up the parent company, who have filed at Companies House, and it became clear that they make enough profit to pay me if I decide to work with them. Which I do not.”
She adds this tip to avoid scam clients. “My code of conduct has reduced the chancers, which means the above is very rare,” Berenice says. “This sets out when and how I communicate – email, Zoom, never WhatsApp – as well as my ethical approach, expectations, and other FAQs. It sets us all up for success in a non-aggressive way.”
4. The terminally lazy
Clients who purposely set out to screw you are just evil. But there are also clients who don’t pay you simply because they can’t be bothered with the admin.
“I once waited six months for payment from a job with a major sports brand,” says photographer Steven Jones. “I eventually found that the person I worked for, who’d since left the company, had never bothered submitting my invoice. Luckily I had a PO, so eventually, I got paid. Always get a PO number!”
Graphic designer David Dooley gives an even more exasperating example. “I once worked freelance with a company for a few months and had trouble getting payment from them,” he recalls. “I ended up joining them full-time, and it STILL took four months to get a bunch of invoices paid, despite me sitting beside the accounts department the whole time.”
And spare a thought for one-man creative studio Stckmn. “I took a nightmare client to court for using all the project assets but refusing to pay,” he says. “After two years of back and forth, court appearances, legal fees, I won the case… then the client died.”
5. The wallet-clutcher
Another type of client thinks they’re entitled to withhold cash simply, well, because they want to. Illustrator Lucy Engelman offers an example. “I delivered six different iterations of one project. The client refused to pay because they ‘didn’t like how it turned out’, then insulted me until I stopped asking for payment. In future, I had to add ‘Client has to pay for finished work regardless of personal feelings about the work’ to my contract. Every misadventure makes the next one a little easier.”
Often these problems come down to client education. But sometimes you really have to wonder what planet people are on. Take this anecdote from brand and editorial designer Luke Tonge.” A client signed off a print project from their ill-timed winter beach break,” he remembers. “Then, when they got home, and the publication arrived, they decided they didn’t like it anymore and expected me to rework and pay for a full reprint. That alone would have cost more than my tiny fee. I explained politely: no way José!”
Similarly, Sarah J Coleman namechecks: “The client who let me finish the many lettering pieces in a project, only to invoice the agreed fee, and be met with ‘I’m not paying that, for what’s basically glorified graffiti’. I read him a Guide To Lettering For The Hard-Of-Thinking, and yes, he paid in the end.” If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, read our article on How to get paid by clients.
6. The utterly baffling
Nightmarish clients come in all shapes and sizes; some are just plain weird. Branding, website and interaction designer Neil Holroyd recalls how: “Once had a client tell me the circles on the design presented weren’t round enough.”
Graphic and book designer Nathan Ryder can match that. “I had a client who didn’t like lowercase L’s,” he explains. “So he used uppercase i’s throughout four manuscripts of over 160k-180k words in each. Not as straightforward as ‘just’ doing a find and replace, I can tell you!” But Nathan had a strategy for dealing with such clients. “As a youth, really difficult clients got ‘hidden’ extras in their artwork.”
And how’s this for an informed critique? “I was working on illos for a book,” recalls illustrator Maggie Stephenson. “Everything was going well, a TON of time invested, all illos approved. Until the client’s kid, who was about eight or so, wanted it all changed. That was a quick farewell.”
7. The totally inappropriate
Most advice on dealing with clients assumes they are, under the surface, reasonable human beings. But sometimes, that just isn’t so.
Visual designer Anna Negrini gives an example of how client behaviour can tip from being ‘difficult’ to ‘weirdly inappropriate’. “There was one client who used to leave feedback as vocal messages on WhatsApp, despite me asking him to write emails instead,” she explains. “There were tons of these messages, mixed with the reportage of his wonderful holiday in Botswana, so I had to listen to all of them.”
And just hear what happened to Tim Easley. “I had a guy approach me to do some work by drawing one of my illustrations himself, commenting on how it looked like his version had a cock, then offered to buy me cupcakes and take me to Rome,” he explains. “He then stalked me at a meetup I’d said I was going to on Twitter but stayed a good hour or so before he actually said who he was. I refused to work with him.
“My main tip here,” adds Tim, “is that if there are red flags, it’s best not to work with someone. Either that or get payment up front and agree on terms in writing, so you’re not losing anything from it. And remember, you can fire a client if they’re being a nightmare.”
Here’s when the joy of freelancing really kicks in because you always have the option of just walking away. After all, no money in the world is worth being made to feel worthless. If you decide on that option, read our article on How to dump a difficult client for more advice.
