This exploratory article seeks to encourage dialogue on the merits and drawbacks of digital social media platforms. The views expressed are those of the writer and do not reflect any official stance or bias against Instagram or any other specific platform. We encourage readers to adopt an open mind to the contrasting, or controversial, perspectives that are presented here.

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12 years on...

Instagram has long reigned supreme as a hub for creative talent, established and emerging alike. Art is auctioned in DMs, bedroom stylists land editorial shoots, and small-time designers are able to launch independent labels. And yet, it is increasingly clear that Instagram's swipe-and-scroll architecture poses challenges for innovative thinkers and their multi-dimensional creative ideas.

In recent years the addition of "reels" and shopping features to Instagram's infrastructure has transformed a humble gallery into a multi-complex mall. The future of the platform is hinged on increased e-commerce and short-burst entertainment—great for the budding influencer, but an unnerving landscape for small-scale creatives.

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Battling the algorithm

The now infamous Insta-algorithm has been the cause of widespread frustration amongst creatives using the app to showcase their work. Photographers, artists and designers alike have reluctantly sacrificed their artistic integrity to grovel at the feet of the mighty algorithm. They have chosen to post 'safe' content in an attempt to ensure their profile is exposed to, at a minimum, their followers, and—if they're lucky enough—new audiences.

Creatives are quite literally boxed in; their ideas condensed into uniform, 1080-pixel panels in an attempt to be rewarded with likes and comments. In a sense, Instagram has made it dangerous to experiment—but experimentation is a key ingredient of creativity. Whilst those who arrived early in the game have mastered the 'art of the algorithm', the late(r) arrivals in the final quarter are finding it harder to land their shots. These creatives have to consciously dress their content up—or down—to make it fit for Insta-consumption.

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The Instagram exodus

But to log out of Instagram? Career suicide, surely?

500 million daily users make Instagram an undeniable powerhouse with a remarkable ability to surface new trends and be the hotbed for the next big cultural phenomenon. So is there really an alternative to Instagram? Though these are alluring assets, using Instagram as the sole building block for your presence in the creative community is unwise. As tempting as it may be to strive for Insta-fame, creatives may find greater rewards as big fish in smaller ponds.

Enter: oft-overlooked or previously dismissed 'fringe' platforms that are re-writing the rules of how creatives behave on social media. On these platforms, follower count is secondary to education, community and opportunities for growth. Case in point: Twitch, thought to be exclusively dominated by Fortnite, is now premiering luxury fashion collections and Slack, once shunned as an office-only tool, has become an epicentre for creative collaborations. If you're considering a migration from Instagram, take a fresh look at these tried-and-tested Instagram alternatives.
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Alternative social media platforms for creatives

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Reddit

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For a fuss-free and unvarnished, yet authentic, connection with your community. Reddit is not a catalyst to fame and fortune. Use it as your research lab.

Features of note

• Upvotes/downvotes. Likes have a fickle reputation—historically likes have awarded the 'aesthetically pleasing' over the 'value adding'. Reddit's reward system acts on a sliding scale, your net position being dependent on how valuable the community deems your content. Up/downvotes are a good indicator as to what resonates with your community, a valuable tool to inform your work.
• Redditors. A self-policing feature that the developers never had to programme! Redditors are keen to protect the authenticity of their community, which means exiling users they suspect are there for personal gain and not community enhancement. Information on Reddit is often refreshingly unpolished and comes from the heart, rather than being manufactured to receive a heart via a double tap!

When it's worked

Reddit is home to supportive communities that would struggle to exist in the superficial terrain of other social media landscapes. 'Subs' have naturally developed with a focus on self-improvement, not self-promotion and collaborative learning, not competition. One such sub is /r/ArtCrit—a space for users to share their work, or often work-in-progress, and receive feedback from other artists.

When tracking the post history of regular users, the progress between each submission is often evident. The feedback under each post is gratefully taken on board and artists are able to focus on developing their craft away from an often scathing public eye.

Twitch

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‍If you believe that the creative process is just as important as the end result.

Features of note

• Live streaming. Instagram is often used to parade art that is complete and polished, whereas Twitch invites followers to view the entire process— the imperfections and mishaps too! Many followers wish to learn for themselves—a walkthrough of the process is far more valuable to the audience than the end result alone. The creator also benefits from a live audience: where creating can often be a solitary process, streaming provides company. It also provides accountability—the presence of an audience forces creators to focus on the task at hand and resist the temptations of procrastination.
• Ad revenue. All creatives know that turning passion into profit does not happen overnight. That remains true on Twitch, but for successful, consistent streamers there is the opportunity to monetise a channel with paid ads. Popular streamers with a highly engaged community are also known to receive donations and 'gifts' from subscribers.

When it's worked

Twitch is still largely dominated by gaming content, but interest in the platform from other industries is rapidly increasing. Some creators have already jumped on the train and are reaping the rewards. Vicky, the artist behind Squibble Design, started streaming in 2017. By 2018, she was streaming for four and a half hours a day, four days a week and her audience is now 1.7k strong!  For Vicky, this community is everything: "I enjoy sharing my art with and explaining my process to people whilst I am working. I have met a lot of other artists from around the world and everyone is very supportive."

Glass

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For a reminder of what Instagram once was. Glass is a modest photo-sharing platform operating on a paid subscription, meaning the entire in-app community is invested (literally) in the growth and integrity of the platform.

Features of note

• No public counts. Users can still show appreciation for others' work, but only the creator themselves are notified. The lack of public performance indicators tempers any obsession with popularity, and encourages the sharing of authentic content that is true to the creator not the public—or an algorithm.
• Chronological feed. Unlike Instagram's feed, ruled by that pesky algorithm (although that may now, yet again, change), all posts on Glass are displayed chronologically. Instead of favouring bikini pics, Glass ensures exposure equality for all professional photographers and allows users to reclaim control over the content they consume.

When it's worked

Kwame Johnson is a freelance web developer based in Seattle. Instagram was his firm favourite photo sharing app, before "marketers and influencers got on it." The strong focus on community is what differentiates Glass for Kwame. "I've gotten into some friendly conversations with folks, that wouldn't have happened had we just double-tapped to like." As for the subscription fee? He's a fan of that too! "It makes it feel like the people who are on Glass truly care about photography and are not trying to be social media influencers."

Twitter

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To claim your soapbox! Engage in conversations within your industry and use your voice to influence important narratives.

Features of note

• Character limit. Tweet formulation is a lesson in effective communication. Learn to say something captivating and relevant all in 280 characters, and odds are you'll become more eloquent and compelling offline too!
• Lists. On Twitter you can create personalised 'lists' allowing you to group accounts by topic or interest. Lists can then be displayed in exclusive newsfeeds. Browsing content from a personalised list makes scrolling more intentional and creatives are more likely to come across the relevant/ inspiring content that they set out to find.

When it's worked

Twitter has earned a bit of a reputation as an elusive playground for the Silicon Valley elite and as such has perhaps been dismissed by creatives unfamiliar with the platform. But Pablo Stanley, CEO and cofounder at Blush and creator of Humaaans, has never underestimated the power of the tweet. He has earned a following of over 90,000 on Twitter and can be found actively engaging in NFT Twitter—whilst maintaining a quiet (or non-existent) public persona on other platforms. Pablo also puts his sizeable Twitter follower count to good use, by often using his platform to lift up others in his field and sharing their work.

Discord

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To find refuge from the influence of likes, votes and shares! On Discord you can talk uninhibited by the pressure of social media performance.

Features of note

• Video calls. The ability to talk 'face-to-face' allows for deeper intra-community connection. Additional in-call features, such as screen sharing, encourages collaborative learning and eliminates any unsettling competitive underpinning.
• Channels. On other social media sites, it can be very hard to find communities for very niche interests. In Discord, 'Channels' mean umbrella interests can be broken down and it is much easier to find like-minded individuals with whom you can explore your passions.

When it's worked

Muralist, Alice Lee, and software engineer, Amy Wibowo, were looking for a space where they could indulge in chatter about their various hobbies, from ceramics to sewing, hear about other creative projects whilst sharing their own and, above all, celebrate cuteness! When they couldn't find a space that did all that, they started their own: a Discord community aptly titled, Creative Cuties.

Prior to Discord, most of Alice's engagement with her community happened on Instagram. But she prefers the "semi-private, longer threaded conversations available on Discord that public social platforms aren't as well-suited for." Discord also boasts "a lot of nice integrations with community management and moderation apps—and as a platform, it has a lot of delightful touches that make it fun to be on."

Although moderation is made easy, Alice thinks the key to her communities success is the lack of interference, "Our Discord is a fun creative community, and less of a 'personal art brand extension'." The pair have opted for a light approach to moderating, "We have a strict Code of Conduct but other than that, the conversations and interactions are mostly community-driven." In fact it was one such collaborative conversation that helped decide the colour palette for this super sweet bomber jacket!

TLDR

Instagram remains a hub for creative talent, established and emerging alike. However, creatives would benefit from exploring the range of social media platforms available to them and deciphering what feels most authentic to them and their brand.

Community > Following

Education > Approval

Freedom > Algorithms

Our Colour Hunt AR filter sums up our love for colours here at Visualist. And Vivian, or Viv as she likes to introduce herself, was the one to skilfully develop it. Viv is a technical and AR artist—entirely self-taught with the help of the internet. Viv studied business, but after completing her master's degree, she got a taste for something else—she wanted to innovate. In order to do so, she knew she had to learn to code. Nowadays, you'll see Viv changing the world one code at a time. Sometimes she even creates new ones with AR filters.

At the time of writing, Viv was enjoying a 1-month holiday in Brazil but luckily for us she couldn't quite stay away from her email inbox. We speak to Viv about her love for experimentation and the many faces of code...

Coding: the doorway to innovation

I always loved computers, but Computer Science back in the day was very male-dominated. I didn’t feel like I fit the typical male developer stereotype in order to pursue it as a university degree. It’s still a male-dominated field but the democratisation of learning through the web and coding boot camps has opened opportunities to a more diverse crowd and is bringing different profiles to the industry.

I was working in the Creative Industry before and I did a Master's Degree in Innovation in an attempt to bridge the gap and jump into tech. Soon after graduation, I realised that in order to innovate, I had to code. And so, I fully committed myself to learning code on the internet. I definitely don't regret my decision!

Neon beginnings

My first AR filter was inspired by Tracey Emin's neon artwork—it had a couple of her neon writings on the screen that the user could tap and choose to feature themselves with. I still love the concept but funnily enough, it violated Spark AR’s static text policy at that time, so it was never published. Unfortunately, it was very short-lived.

Inspiration = experimentation + information

When I’m making something new, I usually explore all the possibilities within a feature or a capability and combine that with other experiments I have done in the past. Sometimes I draw inspiration from things I see on the internet but, more often than not, I draw my creative inspiration from experimentation and following my intuition.

I also try and keep up to date with new technological releases—more feature releases mean more opportunities to create. I like being part of the Spark AR community and other creative tech communities to see what’s being made.

Best of Instagram

I only post on Instagram when I have something new to show—a filter or a project. But of course, I love the AR filters. Instagram has also recently announced the integration of NFTs into the platform in the near future and I think that will be cool. I wish I was more active on other social media platforms, like Twitter for example. But I think I'd struggle to maintain the same virtual presence that I have on Instagram.

If it's not Instagram, it's...

YouTube. It suits me as a constant learner. I can save playlists and watch them offline. It's handy when I'm on the move.

Girl power

Spark AR has over 110K creators and it’s amazing that the male and female ratio is 50/50, especially considering how male-dominated the tech sector is. I don’t feel so alone there. In fact, it gives me hope for the future. It’s important to cater to diversity to continue producing great creative work.

Know your worth

When I was starting out, I asked for a lot of advice on the freelance process and how to set my rates. One piece of advice that stuck out: do not undercharge nor undersell yourself. But it was only through trial and error that I was able to stick with it. Nowadays I know my worth and can say "No" to projects that do not match my values.

Side hustles

I’m constantly saving links and videos to learn from at a later date. That is what I dedicate most of my free time to. Learning is my side hustle.

Right now, apart from coding, I’m focusing on Computer Graphics and 3D. I have tried to get into NFTs but I’m still not there ye, hopefully one day. I got caught up in the blockchain rabbit hole back in 2018 and got out of it by choosing the AR path. I’m pretty good at focusing on one area at a time and avoiding distractions—I tend to do short explorations rather than being consumed by one interest.

Vivian x Visualist (and other projects)

For my collaboration with Visualist, we wanted to create a colour hunt game that challenged users to interact with their surroundings to find a colour. I had a lot of fun developing and, eventually, playing with the filter.

Recently, I also worked on a mini-game for Maybelline NY in partnership with Popular Studio. The user has to catch the falling mascaras to the sound of the beat, scoring points results in a reveal of the full Maybelline eyelashes look at the end! It was a real test of my logic, as is often the case with mini-games. I ended up using a mix of script and patches to deliver the project. Another recent project was for Monki in collaboration with Body Dysmorphic Disorder Foundation. We wanted to raise awareness of the unrealistic beauty standards portrayed in some beauty filters, particularly those that deform the user’s face and have a negative impact on people suffering from body dysmorphic disorder. The goal was to promote a petition demanding more transparency over altered images on social media. I did this filter in partnership with PopulAR—we created a magazine cover with positive messages featuring the user and their natural beauty. We purposely avoided any 'beautifying' features.
But right now, I’m on a month-long holiday in Brazil—where I’m originally from. I have a ‘no computer’ policy. It’s the first time in 3 years that I haven’t brought my computer on holiday!

Today, it can seem that we're flooded with experts—thought leaders are around every corner, and there's enough content out there to swamp us. So, in this content-crazed climate, how do we get our voices heard?

Whilst the idea of a personal brand isn't a new one, we're approaching it from a new angle—an angle fit for the Age of Authenticity that we live in. One that seeks to be personal, organic, and, most of all, real. To do this, we've taken advice from the industry where verisimilitude—coupled with entertainment—is everything: game design.

And, to help us along our journey (and with inspiration from our favourite game at the moment: Wordle) we've created an acronym to follow: SPICE. Here are our top 5 game design takeaways for creatives to spice up their personal branding.

The what and why of personal branding for creatives

What is personal branding?

Your personal brand is the message that you share about yourself—who you are, what's important to you and the way that people perceive that message. You may be known as a creative risk-taker, always on the forefront of new developments or as a data-driven creative, leveraging information to provide consistent, rational takes. It's all up to you. Your personal brand is your signpost that says, "this is me".

Why is personal branding important?

Having a strong personal brand means that you instantly conjure up a vivid image of yourself—to both those who know you, and those who freshly discover you—and, best of all, it's an image of your choosing. It allows you to become a visible character within your field—helping to attract new clients and collaborators.

With the overwhelming amount of experts (and expert content) in the world, a strong personal brand is a way of standing out from the crowd and carving a niche (more on that later).

What has this got to do with game design?

In the video game industry, engagement is everything—game design is focused on grabbing attention and holding it. Most of all, though, it wants to do this in a natural way—if a game feels too artificial, well, it just won't be fun. The same applies to our personal branding—if our persona, or our messaging, feels forced and artificial, it won't be engaging (and may well be off-putting, instead.) Key to this is the concept of "nudging"—a communication and game design technique designed to convey information, intent, and story in a subconscious way.

We can leverage these nudging techniques to craft our personal brand in a way that intrigues, clearly communicates our message, and does it without seeming disingenuous.

5 tips from game design theory

(S): Signpost

Starting off our spice mix, signposting is a "nudging" technique used in game design to encourage certain decisions or interactions, whilst maintaining the open-ended (or self-determinate) feel of a game, namely by employing colour, lighting and form to push the player in certain directions.

In terms of personal branding, signposting can be used to imply things about ourselves, and our personal image, without saying them outright—which runs the risk of seeming artificial or forced. We can also use this technique to encourage possible contacts and collaborators to get in contact with us!

What better way to cement yourself as an expert than to write a book? This eBook—produced by Always Andri—presents her expertise in a natural (and informative!) way, without explicitly saying it. It's also extremely relevant to her chosen niche, providing a springboard for our next tip: participation.

(P): Participate

Video games manage to draw enormous audiences through their collaboration and crossover events—Fortnite's in-game Marshmello concert is just one example of this. They manage to bridge multiple communities to create unique, one of a kind events and we can do the same thing with our personal branding, if only we allow our audience, and colleagues, to participate.

Bringing participation to the forefront of her personal brand is Jesiah with her collaborative Spotify playlist. She encourages her peers and her audience to add to the playlist—not only creating an interesting and valuable collaborative resource but using the opportunity to expand into new niches and open conversations with new people. It's this two-way act of participation that helps Jesiah to draw closer to her audience, establishing her personal brand as a truly authentic one.

(I): Interact

Games are the ultimate form of interactive media, so why not use some of those techniques for personal branding? Interactivity helps to create a closer, more personal connection—both with media and with people. Whilst in game design, the goal of interactivity is to engage and entertain, we can use the same techniques to create personal connections with people—establishing ourselves as experts in our field and sparking conversations.

Laura Gao provides an excellent example of how interactivity can be used to level up your personal branding. Laura Gao—an author herself—utilises Twitter Spaces to create public speaking events with other similar authors and creatives that are open to her community. This provides her with an opportunity to put their thoughts forward, establish her as an expert in her chosen niche, and even interact directly with her community via Q&A's or adding them as speakers to the event.

(C): Challenge your audience

Challenge is the essence of video games—overcoming challenges, especially with the help of other players, is a hugely rewarding experience, and a whole lot of fun. Whilst we traditionally associate brands with social media challenges, with the advent of TikTok and other hyper-personalised social media technology, they can be an incredible tool for personal branding, too.

This Instagram challenge by Valeria Vasi combined participation, interactivity and challenge to create an event that strengthened her personal brand. She ran a competition where fellow creatives could pitch proposals, and her audience would vote on the winners. The prize? One of her hand-designed vases. Not only did this competition solidify her personal brand as that of an incredible creative (and one open to collaboration), it also forged connections with creatives in adjacent realms.

(E): Embrace

Whilst knowing your audience is critical for any endeavour, in-game design, it's everything. Game designers know their audiences inside and out—more than that, game designers know the genre and category of the game that they're designing just as well. They're immersed in similar products to theirs, and they fully embrace their audience—meaning that they can not only see the do's and don'ts of their genre, but they also get a first-hand view of what works and what doesn't.

We can apply this same technique to personal branding. It is imperative that you fully embrace your industry, and your audience. Doing so enables you to take part in relevant conversations, offer your unique insights on trending topics, and, most importantly, allows you to carve out a niche for yourself.

Through her podcast, Kinsey Ranee ensures that she is fully in sync with her audience. Often featuring guests, Kinsey's podcast allows her to consistently cover, and learn more about, topics that are important to her audience. Her focus on having guest co-hosts keeps her informed about developments in her—and adjacent—industries. More than this, though, Kinsey's podcast is personal and authentic—it fosters a deeper connection with her audience, encouraging a mutually beneficial relationship of sharing thoughts, feelings and ideas wholeheartedly. Kinsey takes embracing her audience to a whole new level.

Create your own spice mix

Ultimately, crafting your personal brand is a unique experience and the exact flavour of your spice mix (more puns!) is down to you. Whether you're hosting interactive live streams or challenging your audience to build relationships—these game design techniques are sure to keep your brand authentic and personable (not to mention flavourful!)

Claudia Kalur once called the galleries of The Met home, working for their Department of Egyptian Art. But growing reluctance to pursue a PhD (necessary to advance her career) and lingering memories of her childhood fascination with architecture and design, led Claudia to consider a different path... She did end up pursuing another degree. But this time it was in interior design.

Claudia set up CFK Interiors with her newborn daughter in tow. Years later her brand is synonymous with "pristine, timeless and tailored design"—a credit to her accomplished academic past. Claudia explains why moving on does not mean giving up and shares the wholesome origins of her love for fabric.

Family inheritance

I am from Portugal, a country over 800 years old, and my father would often take us on day trips to museums, churches, monasteries, etc. when I was growing up. Whilst as a child I sometimes found it boring, they definitely developed my curiosity. They awakened a love for art and architecture and the stories within them.

Also from my father came my love for fabrics, he was a fabric rep for mills in the north of Portugal that weaved men's suiting wools like pinstripe and plaids. I grew up with fabric swatches and always loved when some fabrics were discontinued and I could have the samples!

Memories of The Met

After a degree in History of Art (from the University of Lisbon), I moved to London to do a Master's in Egyptian Archaeology at UCL. I worked at the Egypt Exploration Society and the British Museum as part of my research as an assistant to researchers.

I was working with Egyptologists whose work I had read while an undergrad in Lisbon and now here I was working with them. I was in complete awe the whole time. I also worked at the Royal Academy of Arts where I was exposed not only to the beautiful building, but to the background process of curating exhibitions. Some of my fondest memories are of standing in the galleries with the art handlers seeing the pieces being installed.

Then I came to NYC as an intern to the Department of Egyptian Art at The Met and ended up being offered a full-time job as a research assistant, where I stayed for over 6 years. I loved Mondays at the Met! The museum was closed to the public so the galleries were empty. I loved walking slowly through the Egyptian wing and studying the collection in detail.

Awakening passions

I have always loved interiors, I have been buying interior magazines since I was 13 or 14. At the time there were none in Portugal so my first magazine was the Spanish, El Mueble. But it did not occur to me that it could be a profession, I only thought of it as a hobby. Plus, by then I was in love with Art History so I never gave it much thought.

Then my husband took a huge career U-turn—he was a private aircraft broker but after we had re-done two apartments, he decided to go back to school and do a Masters in Architecture. So, he started to bring home floor plans and we would discuss room layouts and that awakened in me the idea that I could perhaps consider doing it as a job...

A double life

I started my diploma in interior design whilst working at The Met. My job was research-based , so studying felt very natural—the diploma was a distraction!

As I became more disillusioned with work at the Met, and increasingly excited by fabrics and furniture, the thought that I might make a serious career change started solidifying. However, it took me a long time before I quit Egyptology and decided that I was starting afresh.

I think I lived a double life for a couple of years! I only told my husband and a friend at The Met that I was thinking of completely changing career paths. It was hard for me to quit something I had worked for for so long. For a while, I saw it as a form of defeat. I saw it as giving up.

Starting from scratch

I still feel like I'm playing catch up. All the time. But I think it's down to my personality, as I felt the same with Egyptology. I always felt others knew more so I had to catch up—read more articles, more books, visit more collections.

Having said that, what I did not realise was that because of my degree in History of Art thus having studied architecture—I was more caught up on knowledge than I thought.

Going at it alone

I loved working at Privet House and I learnt so much: a business perspective, choosing and buying antiques and vintage pieces, aesthetics, design, art, interiors. I met so many designers and architects I admired and learnt from them.

However, the bottom line: I wanted to do interiors, not just sell beautiful things. The shop had no intention of offering design services and so, I figured I needed to start doing it on my own. I had just had my daughter and needed a paying job so there was no way I could afford to start as an intern at a design firm.

So, I created my company and very, very shyly started offering services to friends, friends of friends and soon enough I started getting projects. My first two projects were 'zero fee' in exchange for photos for my portfolio!

Lessons from a personal history with history

My academic path and working in museums taught me a few things that I carry with me to this day. Whilst I loved Egyptology and even went on excavations in Egypt as a ceramicist, what I was interested in was art research and working in museums. I was (and still am) fascinated by flow paths and how curators design exhibitions in a way that intentionally guides people through a space.

Also, the importance of having a method. When you research and gather information whether, for an article, an exhibition label, or a design, it's fundamental to have a method.

It's all in the details

Egyptology taught me to see, and pay attention to, the details. Training your eye is fundamental in design. You may be naturally predisposed but you still need to train your eye to see more, to see differently, to understand what you are looking at and to realise why an artist or designer chose to do something a certain way.

As both an art historian and Egyptologist you spend hours looking at pieces to understand all the details, the nuances, the changes, so you can understand a period, a method, the story behind it. This helps me zone in on certain details but also to see the big picture and what works and does not work when putting a space together.

The bucket list

I lived in London for 5+ years and my aesthetic has always aligned more with the way British designers view and design interiors. I have had projects there and I keep up with the design world in the UK and France—I make sure to visit Chelsea Harbour and showrooms every time I am in London! But I want to have more projects in London, and I'd also love to work in Portugal, simply to have an excuse to be home more.

But, on the bucket list:

• Design the interiors of a boutique hotel or a historic inn. Or even a private jet!
• Have a project published in the pages of House & Garden—what a dream!

If you could go back in time...

I wish I had made the move to interior design sooner, so I could have had spent more time working for and learning from other designers. I think we have stopped appreciating the value of an apprenticeship, I think it is so important to learn from others' perspectives and experiences.

I wish I had made the move whilst in England as I would have begged for apprenticeships at Colefax & Fowler and Nina Campbell (today that list would include Rita Konig and Todhunter Earle too).

Accepting it is time to move on

It was extremely hard to leave Egyptology. I quit because I felt I had hit a wall. I did not want to pursue a PhD anymore and for an academic career that is a must. I did not want to immerse myself in a degree that no longer gave me the same joy.

Re-discovering what I now consider my first passion, interior design, may have made me doubt my future in Egyptology. I do miss working in museums terribly! Now and then I find myself thinking that one day when I have more time, I would love to study museology as a hobby.

Julia Murray has lived in many different places, but endeavoured to turn each house she settled in into a home. Unfortunately, the finished projects never quite matched up to what Julia had envisioned. Instead of being deterred from the process, Julia simply thought, "How can I fix that?" In her quest to find the solution, Julia left the record industry behind to set up her own interior design business, The House Ministry. What Julia found is that homes were not built by materials alone, but with the help of emotions. Julia now recognises her work as part of the "emotions business" and understands how our surroundings affect our mental wellbeing.

Julia talks about balancing the school run with her own school work, why you should never assume anything and how an obsession with rearranging the furniture shaped her career...

Early signs

Looking back, I realise that I’ve always been interested in houses and how people live in them, but just didn’t recognise it or even know that interior design was a possible career at the time. When I was about 14 or 15 I visited an exhibition of show homes which ignited my interest. After that, I remember sketching floor plans for my ideal house layout as a teenager and rearranging my bedroom furniture a lot.

Why she started

We moved house a lot with my husband’s job and renovated the properties we lived in. There were two issues that frequently cropped up: firstly, I discovered that trades-people I engaged to do the work didn’t always work well together, resulting in costly mistakes and delays. Secondly, the finished rooms didn’t look quite as I expected them to.

There was something missing and I didn’t know what. I decided to retrain in interior design to discover why.

Why she stays

Interior design is constantly inspiring. It’s an industry that is continually evolving and I never stop learning. Every day I challenge myself to be the best I can be. I’m lucky that I’m working in a field that I really enjoy.

Studies and motherhood

I found returning to study a really good experience, challenging but rewarding. My family and friends were all very encouraging. The tricky bit was finding childcare for my school-age children so I could do a face to face course, which gave me an understanding of design from the perspective of other students.

Defining your own success

It is so easy to compare your career beginnings to someone else’s middle or end. In the early days, I had to remind myself that those I was comparing myself to had many more years experience than me. With any training, there is still a lot to learn when putting the teachings into practice and I have literally spent hours and hours reading and researching to supplement my knowledge. I aim to be the best designer I can be and serve our clients in the most effective way.

It's not all cushion plumping and soft furnishings...

Interior design can be wrongly thought of as a frivolous pursuit—all cushion plumping and soft furnishings. In reality, it is so much more important than that.

By interpreting the feelings that people want to experience when they walk into a space, a designer will create a spatial layout and room design that delivers that for them. Think about entering a glamorous hotel, fancy restaurant or high-end store—somewhere you instinctively said "WOW!" when you walked in. You subconsciously recognised it as being a space that made you feel happy or inspired. That’s the direct effect of interior design. Conversely, a space that is gloomy, badly laid out with poor lighting can really lower your mood. Interior design directly affects the emotional well being of a space’s users.

Harnessing the power of colour

In my view, blues and greens are the most harmonious colours to promote balance and happiness. We see these colours in nature—countryside, the sea and sky—and most people love being outside. There are so many different shades and tones of both; there are endless possibilities for schemes using them. However, a colour scheme will always need other accent colours and finishes to really bring it to life.

Neutral colours such as cream, beige, sand, white and browns can also feel balanced but can become very bland unless you know how to create interest and use them together. Likewise grey has been very popular lately, but too much of it becomes oppressive.

As part of our CPD this year we are doing a course on colour psychology which explains the scientific reasons behind why certain colours make us feel particular emotions.

Wisdom from the music industry

1. Never assume anything!

2. Creativity still needs a process.

To avoid chaos and costly amendments, creative elements need to be underpinned by structure and a process to follow to take it from the first idea through to the completed result.

The reason for both these lessons being relevant is really that both industries involve creative elements being turned into a finished product with many moving parts and people involved along the way. Lots of detail means that many things can go wrong, and you have to be ‘on it’ to ensure that everything has been checked, thought about and communicated.

For example: if you don't put in writing that you want a braid added to the leading edge of the curtains exactly 2cm in from the edge, then the maker will just decide what the distance should be—and it probably won’t be what you want!

Both music and well-designed interiors have the ability to give us all an emotional boost—a pleasure that we can return to time and again. Working in the music industry introduced me to a wide range of different genres of music which kept my mind open to the fact that inspiration and enjoyment can come from many unexpected avenues.

Advice for a newbie

It is the start of a long journey, with many challenges along the route—most of them related to running a business, rather than design!

Let the music play on

I have definitely maintained my connection to the music industry. I’m still in touch with several good friends I made during my time at EMI, some of whom are still working in the industry. I listen to music a lot at home and love going to see live music when I can.

The only thing that has changed since leaving the industry is that once upon a time, I had no problem working in an office hearing two or three different artists' music playing at once—now I don’t think I’d be able to concentrate!

Vickie Nickolls was working as a trend analyser for Lacoste when she fulfilled her lifelong dream of renovating her own family home. All those years spent perfecting the vision in her imagination paid off, because when Vickie uploaded a picture of her newly-renovated bathroom to Houzz—it quickly became one of the most-liked images on the platform!

Realising her love for design, and the fact she was pretty damn good at it, Vickie left her role at Lacoste to set up her design consultancy, Interior Therapy. She only had a makeshift portfolio but that didn't stop the commissions rolling in. In fact, 1 year in Vickie received the Best of Houzz Design award, and then again the next year—and again for 3 consecutive years after!

But for Vickie, design is about more than aesthetics and awards, it is about how her spaces make the client feel . "Interior Therapy" is a fitting title for the kind of dopamine-inducing clean lines and playful fabrics that define Vickie's work.

We spoke to Vickie about finding inspiration in unlikely places, the benefits of learning as you go and what it's like to see your toilet in a national newspaper!

Laying the foundations

I have always come from a creative background—materials and visuals have always interested me. I trained as a window dresser, but I never followed that path for various reasons and ended up in fashion—eventually a buyer. But the fundamentals of window dressing I still use in my job now: technical drawing, composition and choosing complementary colours.

The threads between fashion and interiors

Much of what I learned during my time in the fashion industry, I now use in my initial design process—like how colours work together in order to build a cohesive scheme and properties of materials. Staying on top of the new and up and coming trends for the season was, again, my job and in my work now it is about pulling out these elements and transferring them into a project.

At Lacoste, I was also heavily involved with branding and how our brand was perceived, that knowledge is now very useful for my own business—to ensure my social media platforms and website are all cohesive and on-brand.

I was starting a new career, one that was totally different to what I had done previously, and yet so many aspects crossed over. I had a good eye and knowledge of colour and materials through working in fashion. I often created mood boards for the design teams and had learnt a lot about placement, scale drawings and making things visually pleasing as a window dresser— all of this helped!

A childhood dream

It has always, weirdly, been my dream to buy a house and decorate it how I wanted. I always had clear ideas, so when we brought our first house we really put our stamp on it. Our second home was more of a project and I was on maternity leave at the time so really threw myself into it, learning so much along the way.

I just knew it was something I wanted to do full time or at least something that I could grow into a business.

Making dreams a reality

I enrolled in an online course with the British Academy of Interior Design whilst I was on my maternity leave and alongside this, I used my house and my friend's houses as my projects so that I could start to build a portfolio of my work and demonstrate my style. Once I had enough images, I set up my website, Instagram etc. and the rest is history!

I managed to get halfway through the course when work started to come in and I made the decision to work with actual clients rather than finish the course. There is a part of me that wishes I had finished the course but I learnt so much from being on-site. I have picked up smaller courses on specific areas throughout the past 8 years.

Hitting the heights of Houzz fame

When a bathroom I designed was showcased on Houzz's homepage, that was the starting point for me. It even got featured in the national paper! It was great press and still is. I got so much business via that image and still receive client questions about it! Or people send me images of their bathroom which they created to look the same—that's always nice to see!

Inspiration in unlikely places

I read a lot of magazines for inspiration, such as Living Etc and Elle Decor. I also refer to my bookshelves, I have lots of books on colour and how to use it, books on architecture and lighting. But I also find inspiration in travelling, visiting galleries and exhibitions and attending trade shows to gather knowledge of suppliers and build relationships with them.

You can literally gather inspiration from anywhere, usually unexpectedly. It may be the smallest detail that can somehow be transferred into a project or a colour combination you see on a different medium that can transfer into fabric choices or paint.

Colourful homes

Working closely with colour over the years has definitely made me more confident with bold colour choices and mixing patterns. I am very specific on using the correct colour and correct tone as, for me, it really does make all of the difference.

Obviously keeping an eye on colour trends is important but I ultimately I believe it's important to choose colours you like and make you happy, not just what is a current trend. The colour you choose for someone's home is so important and has to work with them as a homeowner and reflect their style too.

Modern medicine

I spent so much time thinking about the name as it had to be just right! Originally it was going to be 'House of Nickolls' then 'Graceful Home'—after my daughter, Grace. But then I Googled other meanings behind the word 'interior' and came across the idea of 'Interior Therapy'.

I do see my work as a form of therapy. My clients trust me to create a happy, functional and safe space for them—which can be amazing for their mindset.

Listening to our early adopter community

How can we spark creativity by helping you to make better sense of ideas you've already collected?
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Through countless interviews (we estimate we've had over 392!), our early adopter community made it crystal clear: colour is crucial to the workflow, yet often missing in tools they use. They want—perhaps even need—a way of working with colour that is intuitive, delightful and inspiring. Funded by a Future Fashion Factory grant, we embarked on an R&D project with Professor Stephen Westland and Dr Qianqian Pan of Leeds University. Our vision: make colour organisation, search and navigation better for the creative process.

Our immediate technical objective was to create a colour detection algorithm in Visualist that is accurate. "Accuracy" in this case means getting as close as possible to what a human would select as a colour palette. In particular, we needed to detect colours for the types of images that are most likely saved by our users. We streamlined our dataset to focus on 6 types of imagery:

• Full body
• Portrait
• Product
• Lifestyle
• Macro
• Abstract

Creating a more "accurate" colour detection tool would give us a foundation on which to build further features to execute our vision. We wanted to enable users to search with precision, help users to 'look' if they don't want to 'search', and let users see the links between everything in their library.

Building with your community isn't just user interviews and prototype testing

Our quest to develop our proprietary colour detection algorithm thus began...

... one that is accurate

... one that mimics the human eye (or brain)

... one that helps our community save time when creating

Our community of colour connoisseurs—designers and stylists, working in fashion, interiors, graphics—all have an eye for colour. We wondered: how could we utilise their collective colour knowledge (and intuition!) to help us to build, and improve, our colour detection algorithm?

The solution, conceived by our product designer, came up serendipitously during a Zoom conversation with our Leeds University collaborators. Enter Colour Swatch Fridays, an ongoing activity in which our community members sent us their colour palettes every week, based on images we've selected. We'd then compare these 'human swatches' against the 'AI swatches', and periodically tweak our algorithm to make it AHAP (as human as possible). Here's the catch: there was no fancy data collection site. Everything happened within Instagram.

Here’s our guide on finding ways to involve your community whilst building your product.

The dos and don'ts of involving your users

Asking your community for ongoing input isn't as daunting as you might think. If your early adopters know why something is fundamentally important to your product, they'll help. If the task appeals to their natural interests they'll be more likely to do it.

1. Meet them where they are

Where do your early adopters hang out? Are they on Slack, Reddit, Twitter or Instagram? For our community, Instagram was (is!) their natural habitat. Many are creative directors, interior designers, and personal stylists who are on Instagram to both enhance their personal branding and look for inspiration. So, we slid into their DMs. Every Friday for 13 weeks, we would send them a new message with their latest colour swatching tasks.

Think about where your users are and how you can meet them there. Choose the path of least resistance, always. Just because Slack is the "go-to" for many SaaS early communities doesn't mean it's the right place for you.

Tip: it helps to have already nurtured a 1:1 relationship. Our community knew us as people, not just a company—which brings us to the next point.

2. Introduce intimacy through voice

It's not just what you say, but how you say it. What that meant: it was important to be clear and concise, but it was even more important that our users knew whom they were doing this with. We were intentional early on about getting our community to feel like they knew us individually. That meant regular phone calls and DMs, which sparked familiarity, camaraderie, and also a sense that they were let in on what was happening behind the scenes.

We could have sent an email with clear instructions on what steps to take—but that wasn't us. For our instructions, I made a screen recording of myself demonstrating the colour swatch activity in Instagram whilst explaining what I was doing in a voiceover (even if I absolutely cringed when hearing it back). Colour Swatch Fridays were taking place when much of the world was in lockdown and introducing voice allowed me to not only make the instructions easy to understand, but also to feel more connected with our beta users. As a bonus, sending it as a voice note meant that we had to very concisely convey our instructions. This forces you to really distil down what the 'job to be done' is for the user, and not overwhelm them with the minutiae.

If you’re a brand that's building in public, don’t miss out on opportunities, big or small, that can strengthen your brand's personality or add a new dimension to who you are and what you're building. Find ways to communicate that reinforce your brand voice, be it product updates (check out Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri), behind-the-scenes content or an activity for your beta users.

3. Be consistent

Consistency creates rhythm. Rhythm establishes discipline, for us, and anticipation, by our users.

We sent our task out on Fridays and collected the results on Mondays. This worked for us because the responses could trickle in over the weekend, and users could colour swatch at whenever was convenient to them. We passed the results on to our Future Fashion Factory partners on Monday mornings and discussed the results on Tuesdays. Pick a schedule and stick to it. Let your community know what to expect. Give it a name like we did as it holds you accountable to stick to your schedule. Plus, Colour Swatch Fridays had a better ring to it than 'Weekly Colour Swatching'.

Consistency builds trust and shows respect for your community members' time.

4. ... but still provide novelty

We didn't send the same style of photo each week. We had 6 types of imagery we were testing, and so we mixed things up each time. Our community is one of aesthetes. Why not use the opportunity to delight them too?

We challenged them. Instead of just creating a colour palette, how about ranking them in terms of importance? We also intentionally chose some photos that we thought might be tricky to create a colour palette of five colours.

We surprised our community by using photos from their community in the activity.

Whilst consistency creates rhythm, it can also breed boredom or nonchalance. When an activity spans a longer time frame, think about how to maintain interest with little surprises—or challenges—every now and then.

5. Reward your community

Our early adopters were investing their time into our product. We needed to show our appreciation.

The major reward for our early adopters was in the future: a colour detection algorithm they could use seamlessly in their workflows. We weren't able to provide this straight away, as it took us six months to develop, test, iterate and launch. So, we decided to reward them by giving them unique merch designed by our team. We sent bundles of socks, pins and stickers that appealed to their creative identity.

6. Keep them in the loop

When building in and with the public, you want to be able to share the insights you're gathering in a way that's informative and fun.

We brainstormed ways to regularly share the results with our early adopters. We created mini-quizzes on Instagram stories and got them to guess which colour palettes were created by our AI and which ones were created by them (a Turing test, in technical parlance).

Think about ways you can show the results of your community's efforts. Share it with them at regular intervals. You may be surprised by what further dialogue it creates.

Tip: This is when good organisation helps. We stored all the results in our Google Drive, so we could easily pull the results for sharing.

7. Iterate

Designing community activities is no different to building a product. It’s important to test your assumptions and throw out anything that doesn't work.

We experimented with the time of day we sent out our message, the number of swatches we were getting our users to do, and even how we worded the instructions. The latter wasn't as crucial once our community got the hang of the task, but was particularly helpful for the new cohorts of 'colour swatchers' we roped in each week. In the beginning, our instructions were simple (or so we thought): create a colour palette from an image. We then tested a different set of instructions with another group: pick the dominant colours.

Continuously assess your process to find the most efficient way to build alongside your community, and remember not to get too attached to a particular way of doing things.

8. Keep it warm

Don’t treat building with your community activities as stand-alone events. Instead, think of it as part of a much bigger tapestry, interwoven with smaller and shorter types of engagement as well.

The nice thing about a weekly activity is that you’re slowly getting to know each member of the community. Each activity shared comes with a quick catch up message. You soon learn which weeks they were feeling productive, and which weeks simply sucked. You learnt which gigs they were going to and what their second or third jobs were like. An ongoing activity is a great jumping off-platform, so don't let these connections go cold. Whatever activity you design, remember to continue to check in and keep them onside.

9. Make it easy (and harmless) to say no

This sounds counter-intuitive, but quickly identify who's not interested (or not available) and let them opt out.

As the activity ran 13 weeks, we also collected data that could help us to see trends in one user's colour swatching activity across the weeks. But we also made it clear internally that this was a bonus, not a requirement. This meant that our fundamental research target of comparing human swatches vs AI swatches was never in jeopardy, even if we had dropouts along the way, as long as maintained our baseline target of the number of human swatches.

When involving the community in building, always be prepared that commitment levels can vary across the length of the experiment. It's thus important to mitigate any impact on your development objectives.

From a community perspective, figure out why someone's not interested, and weigh up the efficacy of re-engaging them in another activity. Was it the scope of the task or the timing? Or were they simply just not that into you?

10. Find ways for it to live on

What did your community like about the activity or process? Is there a thread that you can unravel that shows you new ways to keep them onboard with product building? Three things worked fundamentally well for us:

1. Quick: Thanks to Instagram, users could finish the task in minutes, not hours.
2. Fun: There was a light, gamified element to it.
3. Stimulating: But only just. It was thought-provoking, but not mentally taxing.

We parlayed these philosophies into our Instagram stories: polls and quizzes that appeal to the creative, that have them pause—just for a moment—to think about how they approach visuals.

What we'd do differently next time

Here are the things we'd do differently for our next community-building product activity:

1. Aim bigger. It was our first time involving the community, and so we started small: we only engaged with a handpicked group whom we thought were most likely to participate, and we tempered the request to a minimal amount. On hindsight, there was a lot of excitement from our users in being involved in Colour Swatch Fridays. We could have involved much more users, and (maybe!) asked them to do more watches each Friday.
2. Bring it to Reddit. We would have looked to Reddit to find our kindred community of colour lovers and introduced them to our mission. Who knows if we could have made a bigger impact, with more data collected and more early adopters? But we live and learn. Check out our newly launched subreddit here where we continue exploring the world of colour.

Conclusion

This was a surprisingly rewarding experiment for us. We started out with the objective of gaining data to build our colour detection algorithm. And we ended the process with a highly-engaged community who not only enjoy the rewards of what was built, but also experienced the inside track of co-building with us.

We received so much buy-in from our community during the 13 weeks.

When we told them that Colour Swatch Fridays were ending, it was a bittersweet moment.

But we were also delighted when our community began experiencing the auto-generated colour palettes on Visualist:

Here’s how you can start brainstorming ways to involve your community in unexpected avenues:

• What are your early adopters made up of: are they developers, designers, writers, photographers or fitness fanatics?
• What activities appeal to their natural interests?
• What data would enrich your product, making it even more efficient?

Once you’ve designed an activity, the rest is simple: meet them where they are, remove all barriers, reward them generously and treat it like a series of experiments to see what works. Good luck!

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To learn more about our Future Fashion Factory project, read Cherie's interview here.

As an event and wedding stylist, social media is your greatest tool. We hear a lot about how to craft an Instagram feed that stands out from the crowd and attracts real clients, but let's face it—Instagram is getting a little crowded in the wedding pros department! If you're an event and wedding stylist looking for an alternative to Instagram, it's time to think a little bit more outside the box: Reddit. Reddit? How does that relate to marketing for wedding planners? But this alternative social media platform is an underrated gem for conducting market research and generating new client leads.

What is Reddit, anyways?

For those unfamiliar with the site, Reddit is comprised almost entirely of user-generated content. Users can create posts with written content, links, or images and content is categorised into subreddits. Subreddits—your new marketing secret weapon.

How Reddit can help you as a wedding planner

Joining subreddits is a great way to connect with your ideal client. Where better to source feedback and new ideas than your precise target market? Think of it like you’re going undercover (without the need to be sneaky!) Typically these subreddits are filled with friendly and helpful individuals who can also offer sound advice. Don't spam pages with self-promotion but be upfront about your profession as an event and wedding stylist. Ask for opinions, collect feedback on new business ideas or assets, and offer advice to those asking for it—everyone appreciates the wise words of an expert.

How to find your wedding community on Reddit

Finding your respective community on Reddit is a lot easier than you think. The website’s interface is relatively easy to navigate. Start by searching for keywords related to your industry, for example, "wedding". You'll be met with a list of posts and communities containing that keyword. Spend some time browsing each subreddit to get a feel for the community. Before joining a subreddit, you should take a look at the number of active users and the frequency of posts published on it. Some subreddits have been idle for some time meaning the posts there are probably outdated, which is something to be wary of. However, there’s no harm in diving deeper into these subreddits as they could still be a goldmine of consumer feedback.

Best Subreddits for Event & Wedding Stylists

Feeling overwhelmed and don’t know where to begin? We’ve got you covered! Here are five subreddits to use as a starting point...

• r/Wedding. One of the most active wedding-related subreddits. Users come here to share experiences, detail their plans, or ask questions.
• r/WeddingPlanning. Newly engaged couples visit this sub to seek advice from other members. As a professional, offering friendly advice to those who need it could open up lots of opportunities for new client relationships. You can also use common questions and answers to better inform the services you offer your clients.
• r/WeddingSolutions. Locations, catering, entertainment—this subreddit covers all the fundamentals of wedding planning. Read regularly to stay ahead of the game with what is trending.
• r/BudgetWeddings. Lots of clients want their dream wedding without breaking their budget, can you turn that dream into reality? Also, a treasure trove for budget-friendly planning ideas that you can relay to your clients.
• r/WeddingsUnder10k. This is another great community that shares money-saving tips for weddings–specifically under $10,000. Weddings don’t need to be costly for them to look good! You just need to know how to lay down the right cards, and this subreddit will show you how.

Curiosity fuels creativity. The side effects of curiosity, enhanced observation, deep thought and excessive questioning, are all building blocks for creative innovation—Einstein even credited his genius to "passionate curiosity". But the curious mind's incessant hunt for satisfaction has its dangers. Curiosity didn't kill the cat, information overload did. Excessive podcast plays and endless scrolls frustrate, confuse and ultimately take a toll on productivity. Newsletters are an antidote to infoxication. Delivered direct to your inbox and pre-filtered to ensure quality, newsletters allow creatives to spend less time searching and more time, well, creating. Feed a curious mind, without the junk, by subscribing to these newsletters...

Superorganizers

Sender

Dan Shipper wanted to build a productivity software company and so to start, he created a newsletter. Turns out, that newsletter was a big success! Dan adjusted his focus and is now CEO of Every—a bundle of weekly writings from radical thinkers. Our favourite: Superorganizers.

Subject

A productivity power pack. Dan Shipper offers the inside scoop on "how smart people organise what they know" via interviews with some of the worlds most efficient minds.

From the archives

Simon Eskildsen is the definition of erudite. His awe-inspiring approach to learning will leave you with the urge to re-read everything you've ever read. But this time, read it like Simon!

The Art of Noticing

Sender

Rob Walker wants to open your eyes to the benefits, but more so the joys, of observation. His newsletter is the addendum to his acclaimed book named, you guessed it, The Art of Noticing.

Subject

"It's for people who want to stay interested in life." Lessons in appreciating the "overlooked and underrated". Monday evening sees the arrival of a 'prompt' in your inbox—an activity to trial in aid of improving the way you interact with the world.

From the archives

In a world where search engines have superseded conversation, Walker makes the outlandish suggestion that instead of 'Googling' you could try asking a human!‍

Creativerly

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Philipp Temmel—digital product designer by day, creative newsletter curator by night. Creativerly was born out of Phillip's generous desire to "share experiences and findings with fellow creative minds".

Subject

A comprehensive guide to building your productivity toolkit, accompanied by Phillip's insightful learnings from across design and tech. A real treasure trove for new-app fanatics.

From the archives

Slow and steady wins the race. Reclaim control with productivity tools that champion order and serenity.

Brain Food

Sender

Spy turned Wall Street sweetheart (no, seriously), Shane Parrish. Shane takes the findings of doyens past and turns them into actionable insights for his readers. Unsurprisingly, his straight-talking approach quickly proved a hit with big-time financiers.

Subject

Brain food supports a simple objective: "Go to bed smarter than when you woke up." Bite-size wisdom curated from great minds across eras and industries.

From the archives

Brain Food's teaser offers a definitive way to differentiate between intellect and wisdom: "The curse of knowledge is that it closes your mind to what you don’t know. Good judgment depends on having the skill— and the will— to open your mind."

Subscribing to this newsletter is a great way to start...

Dense Discovery

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Kai Brach launched his newsletter in 2015. A few re-brands later it has come to be known as Dense Discovery. When not busy compiling his weekly insights he advocates for sustainability and the protection of our natural world.

Subject

Thought-provoking stimuli, need-to-know developments and interesting accessories—a help-sheet for the insatiably curious. A seasoned Dense Discovery reader is sure to make a great dinner party guest.

From the archives

After all this new knowledge acquisition, it may be useful to practice some humility. This thought-provoking edition explores how we measure intelligence and in doing so, questions humanities superiority complex.

Eager to subscribe? 5 Newsletters for Entrepreneurs

1. Superorganizer
2. Art of Noticing
3. Creativerly
   
4. Brain Food
5. Dense Discovery

I first heard the term 'creative compost heap' from Neil Gaiman during his Masterclass on writing fiction. He was discussing his creative process—how he comes up with story ideas, and what happens to The Ideas That Time Forgot. I loved it so much that I ran with it, and have been using it since—not just for writing, either, but for all of my creative pursuits.

The compost heap is where you throw your ideas—any and all of them. For me, it's mostly my notebook. I write down every idea that I have (I tend to have a different notebook for each project I'm working on), no matter how small, and I let them mulch down. I don't try to remember them, and I certainly don't try to use them all—I just leave them. Soon enough, they start to transform. They pop back into my mind, mixed and combined with all of the other ideas, to form something new, something innovative, something exciting. That's a creative compost heap.

How your 'creative compost heap' can boost your creativity

We know that memory is imperative to creativity and that taking notes helps us to remember—so what better way to develop our creativity than writing all of our ideas down (or, perhaps even better, doodling them). Using this method, we can recycle our ideas—no matter how significant—and use the discarded scraps to generate new ones.

Many creatives—authors especially—have little idea where their ideas come from (a common joke being 'the ideas shop'—if only), but many attribute their ideas to confluence—that is, two, previously unrelated ideas coming together. If that's the case, then we, attempting to up our creativity (and generate multitudes of ideas in the process), should deign to become veritable collectors of ideas—keeping them not in our active mind, but in our subconscious, where the waves of our imagination can allow them to clash and bump together, forming something new entirely. We just have to be patient.

The compost heap technique can be used by all creatives—writers and non-writers alike, and it can generate more than just creative writing ideas. For visual creatives, your compost heap could be a scrapbook—a collection of interesting ideas, doodles, shreds of materials, colours. You could even go digital, but that's a topic for another blog post.

Creating daily is a key part of creative life—and whilst having a daily sketchbook can put pressure on ourselves (a detriment to creativity), a compost heap is a wonderful place to sketch pressure-free, aiding your idea generation and visual confluence all the while.

How to build a compost heap

Whilst developing your creative compost heap is rather simple, like any creative habit, it can take some time to get accustomed to. The route that worked for me was keeping a notepad and pen on me at all times (I keep a notebook by my bed and a miniature one in my pocket!). Whenever I have an idea—no matter how small or inconsequential I think it is—I write it down.

Your notes don't have to be detailed or neat, either—the goal of the compost heap isn't to refer back to it but to provide a place to discard ideas so that they can exit from our active mind into our subconscious and mulch down into something new. Of course, if you're curious you can always have a look back—just be sure not to make a habit out of it!

Habits—creative habits, especially—can be difficult to start, let alone maintain. Here are our top tips to ensure that the process is as painless—and as sustainable—as possible. (Excuse the puns...)

Get a good compost bin

In our case, our compost bin is more of a notepad or sketchbook—but this advice still applies! Though it's not strictly necessary, it can definitely help—having a notepad and pen that feels nice to doodle in and write with encourages us to use it more, making our habit that much easier to develop.

Throw in everything you can—especially scraps

Perhaps the hardest part is remembering to throw in everything you can whilst the idea is still fresh. This includes quotes, half-finished sentences, inspiring images, news stories, paragraphs—anything you like!

Let the worms do their thing

A common adage in composting is 'let the worms work'—we want to do the same thing. Generating ideas using our compost heap is passive—it will happen without us thinking about it and aid us in coming up with more ideas in the long term. Attempting to force ideas out or put too much pressure on ourselves will hinder the process, and leave us frustrated and uninspired.

Avoid perfectionism

This is one of the pitfalls that I often stumble into. The idea of the compost heap isn't perfection (I'm not sure that compost can even be perfect), and the things we throw in there don't have to be ground-breaking (or, even, 'good'). The inverse of this is true, too: we don't want to be avoiding throwing ideas into the compost heap because we feel that they're too good. Whilst Stephen King famously doesn't keep a notebook (and believes that an idea, if good enough, will not be forgotten), we can't all be Stephen King—and we can all be susceptible to lapses in memory. So why not write every idea down? Some of them might be keepers.

The results

Ultimately, the goal of our compost heap is confluence—helping our ideas to bump into other ideas and create something great. Writing things down, drawing, and doodling is a passive technique to keep them in our heads for longer. Though we may use other techniques alongside it, in the end, every adept gardener (or creative) should have a compost heap—and, perhaps, one day, you'll wake up to find that your discarded scraps have turned into brown, earthy gold.

A regular feature in the pages of Vogue, Alice Wilkes designs weddings akin to those in fairytales. Alice marries seamless planning with boundary-pushing design to provide her clients with the big day they've always dreamed of. Alice's fantastical creations have also set the backdrop for industry events hosted by Maison Margiela, Pandora and Valentino.

Alice offers a "peak behind the curtain" of her process with the help of an infamous wedding day tradition...

Something Old

I am completely satisfied when I see the vision and the hard work from the last few years of planning come to life in real-time. It is great to see the delivery of the amazing designs we have been conceptualising from the start. I always find that taking some time to digest the day after, before moving on to the next project, is invaluable. It not only helps with the planning for the next wedding but is a great motivator for myself and my team.

Something New

I pride myself on being a flexible planner and for me, the most important element with new clients is understanding how they work and how much communication they require. I can then implement their preferences in an effective manner.

I start by asking my clients to send inspiration imagery to show designs they like via cuttings from magazines, Instagram and, of course, Pinterest. Each couple has their own way of archiving and storing their dream wedding so it’s up to me to draw that out of them. How much I encourage them really does depend on the client though.

I also need to understand how important the overall aesthetic and the details are to my couples—are they really invested in a beautiful photographer to capture the editorial shots? What’s important to them as a couple to ensure we’re a good fit?  Do they care about the detail? That’s what truly helps me to understand my couple.

Something Borrowed

As a wedding designer and given my passion for creativity, I draw inspiration from everywhere. From a film to a piece of music through to a place I’ve visited. Being inspired by the actual location and using the ingredients of the surroundings and weaving them into the actual wedding is a magical feeling.

As we move into 2023, we are noticing more and more couples focusing on dramatic and incredible table scaping. It’s all about the detail and ensuring elements such as layering, vibrant colours and bespoke touches are seen across the table. We are also noticing couples are far more concerned with ensuring their guests come away from their wedding feeling special and unique with couples looking at items such as hand-drawn table placing, handmade tapestries and artwork produced on the day.

Something Blue

The colour is the starting point for a client—what excites them? Most couples do have an idea of a certain hue they want to be seen at the wedding–it’s then about me ensuring they know that colour can and will dictate most of the other design elements.

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Visit Alice Wilkes' website here, or browse an archive of her work on Instagram.

Have you ever felt that you’re all out of ideas? Drained, tired, feeling like the inspiration just isn’t there? This can be a natural part of being a creative, and we’ve all experienced it from time to time. If it continues for long enough, though, it can become a problem—then, it transforms from a creative lull to something much more sinister: creative burnout.

Whilst burnout can affect all workers, it’s particularly prevalent for creatives. Luckily, there are measures we can take to prevent our creative thoughts from turning sour or running dry: self-care. We spoke to five incredible creatives: from designers to poets to CEOs, with a focus on their self-care routines and rituals. We’re here to share the tips, tricks, and strategies that keep their creativity on track.

The 3 signs of creative burnout

We all know the feeling of being in the ‘zone’ when our creative ideas are flooding out, seemingly endless—it’s even a proven scientific phenomenon. Some days, though, the creative ideas just don’t come, the inspiration isn’t there, and we take a rest. Creative burnout is when, for whatever reason, the flow of ideas grinds to a halt, and doesn’t return—despite our wishes. Suddenly, our torrent of creativity shuts off. It can cause a feeling of tiredness, exhaustion, or even frustration at ourselves—it’s as if we can’t “think straight”.

But how do we tell if this is a normal ‘rest phase’, or something bigger? Much like we all have our unique creative processes, the same is true for burnout—the signs, symptoms and experiences of each person are unique. Still, some signs are ubiquitous—and they’re more common than you may think:

• Self-doubt. As creatives, we all experience self-doubt—sometimes, even, the infamous imposter syndrome—but if this lingers, it can be a sure-fire sign that we're feeling fatigued. We could be questioning whether we’re really good enough, or comparing ourselves to our co-workers.
• Creative block. This one makes the self-doubt that worse—what could be more validating to our innermost doubts than feeling that we’re all out of ideas, too? Creative block is characterised as a period of drought in our creativity—the ideas just aren’t flowing, or at least, not as liberally as we’d like them to.
• Procrastination. We all procrastinate sometimes—but when we find ourselves doing it habitually, especially for tasks that we used to enjoy, that becomes a problem. And a tell-tale sign. How can we get our creative juices flowing again if we don’t feel motivated?

The 'what' and 'why' of self-care for creatives

What is self-care?

Self-care is the processes, routines and rituals we have in place to ensure that we maintain our personal health—or, as mental health advocate, CEO and ampersander Poppy Jaman OBE puts it, our ‘wellbeing toolkit'. It’s the weekly trips to the museum, the night-time mellow tunes, the early morning jog—anything that relaxes us, allows us to rewind, and take care of ourselves.

Why is self-care important?

Self-care has a multitude of benefits—including improved productivity and focus, reduced stress, and even improved physical health. Crucially, for creatives, these are all ways of freeing our minds and fostering creativity. It can prevent us from overworking ourselves, piling on too much stress in our daily lives, and stretching ourselves too thin—leaving no time for us.

Self-care tips from creatives, for creatives

The how of caring for ourselves can be easier than we think, and it doesn’t have to eat huge swaths out of our days. Learn how five fellow creatives recharge their creativity.

Recognise your stress signals

For Poppy Jaman OBE, the best self-care is proactive. She practises recognising her early warning signs—her ‘stress signals’—that indicate when it’s time to pull out the wellbeing toolkit. Your stress signatures are unique to you and they will typically be behavioural, emotional, and physical things. Those stress signals differ for everyone: it could be a lack of motivation or a feeling of irritability. It takes time to recognise these signals, but when that realisation comes, it pays dividends, providing us with an early-warning system for preventing burnout.

For Poppy, it's a physical symptom: jaw ache. When Poppy recognises those signs, she takes quick action to look after herself—her ‘care list’ includes yoga and cold-water swimming, the latter of which provides her with an energy boost that can last for days.

Aaina Sharma is another ampersander who uses stress signals to take note of her mental health. If Aaina is lacking inspiration—not feeling like taking pictures during her daily walk, or procrastinating during work—for multiple days in a row, she knows that something is wrong, and it's time for a break. Aaina explains, "Most days, I’ll make my to-do list and drop my son off at nursery in the morning. That walk is my indicator of whether or not I feel energised."

Practise mindfulness

Mindfulness—characterised as being fully present and aware of what’s happening around us—is a recurring theme when it comes to combatting burnout. Mindfulness can help us to keep in touch with our feelings, mental health and needs. Zaffrin O'Sullivan practises mindfulness through beekeeping—a practice that has taught her to remain in the moment, and learn to be still. "[The bees] taught me to stop and look at the flowers. They’ve taught me how to be still, how to hold this moment and be in a moment.

Block out time for yourself

It can be easy to get overwhelmed sometimes, and that’s a sure-fire way to start feeling burnt out. Ariel Norling prescribes setting designated times and days for tasks—not only for work but for self-love, too.

Having these set times not only makes Ariel more productive, but alleviates feelings of guilt on her off-days, and gives her permission to spend the day on herself. "Without any guardrails on that, I'd just feel that I should be writing and researching all the time. That guilt would really start to bring me down."

Spend time alone (or don’t!)

For Mona Arshi, having time to be alone is an important part of her wellness routine—giving her time to be comfortable in her own body and mind.

The opposite is true for Terumi Murao—for Terumi, the power of community is healing. "It’s very nurturing to spend time with people that make you feel good, that share values and that validate who you are."

Get physical

Exercise and eating well are huge parts of a self-care routine. For Sara Shah, dance is more than just a way of maintaining health and exercising—it helps her to feel rejuvenated and energised. At the end of a long day, she comes home to dance with her daughter, helping her to unwind and relax.

In Sara's words, "I think dance has healing powers. If I'm having a stressful day, I just put on my favourite song and dance in my living room with my daughter."

Try, test and explore

Ultimately, we don’t know what works for us until we’ve tried it. There are multitudes of different techniques to try—the ones that we’ve suggested are just a start. Whatever our methods are, though, taking time for ourselves is imperative to the creative process. It prevents creative burnout, helps to foster our best ideas and, most importantly, helps us to be our best selves. No matter how busy we are, we can all try to fit a bit of self-care into our schedules—and the results will pay dividends.