Learning Out Loud in a Season of Change
Everything’s always changing. Thank goodness. So are we. Take a walk with us through the last few months.
All that you touch
You Change.
All that you Change
Changes you.
The only lasting truth
is Change.
– Octavia Butler
It's been a wild, wonderful, heartbreaking, heart-strengthening few months in the Field. The world remains the world—violent, angry and overwhelming, often by design. We do our best to show up for the people, places and causes we love. We're lucky to be able to do the work we do…
…To be in community with the beautiful souls at Braver Collective, as we make patient progress toward launching a digital healing space made by survivors, for survivors in 2024.
…To revisit our work with Mo Amer, a vital, hilarious, brilliant voice whose Netflix show belongs on your holiday watch list. (Case study coming...soon enough.)
…To kick off with the exquisite mind behind Almond & Fig, a living family memoir, told in recipes and stories from Palestine.
We've had the chance to tell our own story here and there too. Take a walk with us through a season of change.
September
We gathered in downtown Chicago with 1,000 designers and took the stage at the 2023 Brand New Conference. We were spellbound and stirred by this year’s speakers—it felt like watching a fire take form. A new generation of leaders and luminaries is emerging, dear friends. And they give a damn about everything.
Pali from Templo praised the importance of play and Sisyphean labors of love in times defined by mass displacement and widespread trauma. Reggie at Ghost Note knocked hard on our hearts, daring us to reject linear time and dance to the music of our principles. That man said our work can be an act of revolutionary joy—we still haven’t stopped screaming.
Juana Roca went for liberatory mischief. She asked who gets to be an ex-pat and who is an immigrant. She invited us to reject dated language and re-root our work in lived wisdom and experience. Bijan from Fisk grew up a few miles from Kristin, isn’t that lovely? He said everything’s practice—put your reps in. Throw a party about it sometimes. And Taamrat from Collins glimmered and glowed, she took an hour and taught us—
Pierce complacency.
Command attention.
Make your work unignorable.
Know who you’re for.
Know who you’re not.
And Kristin did her Kristin thing, speaking on strategy like it’s a map of the soul, putting poems in decks, things of that nature. She shared her favorite exercise. (It’s this one.) We might make a reel about it. We’ll see.
And then October happened.
October
Our trusty third, beloved Lauren—the brains behind the spreadsheets—did the hardest thing: she said goodbye. It was time to step back from work and be with her beautiful family. She helped us build this business from the ground up and blossom. We’re forever grateful.
And so three became two. We two threw ourselves into each other’s arms and a really dope project. It’s a visual essay, to be published this spring in the Chicago Graphic Design Club’s inaugural print magazine. The theme? Genesis. We tell our origin story through collage. It was a joy to make. Wild isn’t it, how cathartic creative work can be.
Collaboration is alchemy.
Tell everyone you know.
November
Nermin served as a judge for the STA 100, helping shape a cohort of winning work that doesn’t just stand out. It stands for something.
From Drew LeVan’s hand-drawn revolutionary posters to Isometric’s civil rights exhibition design, this year’s honorees suggest change is in the air. We cannot help but feel hopeful.
And we got a little love of our own—Communication Arts includes us as a Fresh feature this month. It’s nice, seeing signs that something is working.
Even as the ground shifts under our feet, we are learning to ride the wave. To actually, factually trust the process, embrace what it offers and adapt, to slow down sometimes, and at others, take leaps. We are capable creatures, and creative too. We have everything we need—each other, and plenty of faith there’s always good work that needs doing.
And Now?
2023 is winding down and so are we. Our winter/spring books are shaping up. We’re thinking about the year behind us as we envision the year ahead. We have so much to integrate, and so much more to learn.
We’ll keep striving for the sweet spot between staying knee-deep in great work and giving ourselves ample time to play, rest, grieve and wander.
We’ll stay open to new ways of thinking and doing, building and breaking, chasing ideas and embracing change. We’ll keep trying to evolve.
And we’ll keep learning out loud here with you.
May you have a kind, restorative December. May the world get sweeter soon. May we work with you, somehow, some way, to make it so.
A PARTING INVITATION
What has changed in your world this year? What has changed in your inner world? How might that shape the year ahead?
Write to us. Tell us everything.
