Jon Biggs

How marketers are creating systems that think for them 👇 Savvy creatives are - developing 'projects' to generate copy and ideas in specific voices and with actual context by loading in brand guides and existing writing - using Claude's web search to identify industry news, brands to watch, and campaigns to reference - using Claude's new Gmail and Docs integrations to run lightweight CRMs and organize workflows My latest (made for Anthropic on Instagram)

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I had a great chat on the "Time to Create" podcast about the evolution of the creative role. As tools become more automated, the role of a creative partner changes from "maker" to "curator and guardian."The challenge? Not letting the tech dictate the output. At Bloom, we use technology to accelerate the process, but we never let it bypass the "soul" of an idea. We’re answering the "close enough" trap by doubling down on human intentionality and craft. If you’ve been feeling like your creative output is starting to look like everything else, this conversation is for you. #BloomCreative #BrandStrategy #Innovation #StuartWitter #Kaedim #CreativeDirection

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What does it take to create a brand video in the age of AI? 🤔 For us, it meant creating a dynamic, mixed-media piece that blends our new brand identity with AI-generated visuals. 🎨🤖 This approach amplifies our workflow, making it faster and more adaptable. For example, using AI-generated voiceovers allows us to make changes effortlessly, giving us a new level of creative flexibility. 🎤✨ The video uses the powerful analogy of a race to tell the story of how we're evolving to bridge the gap between AI investment and real business results 🏁 It’s about more than just having the technology; it’s about orchestrating your work and workforce to win in this new AI-powered era 🏆 Bringing this vision to life was a true journey, and a heartfelt thank you goes out to the talented team who made it happen. 🙏❤️ Raz Elispur André M. Ágata Melquíades

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I'm delighted to chat with Joe Keegan on the "Rule of Thirds" Podcast. Joe and myself discuss how brands and clients are challenging the status quo, causing a shift in perspective and budgets across the creative sector. We chat about how designers can give themselves the best opportunities to separate themselves from the pack by building a strong portfolio and nourishing lasting relationships throughout their career. Joe started his career as a video director fresh out of college. After working his way up to direct music videos and branded content for some of the largest names in the urban music scene Joe turned his eye to crewing up teams. Since then, over the past decade or more Joe has been crewing up projects and designing workflows for the world's leading production studios, brands and agencies across Motion, Video, VFX, and Design. Joe is the founder of Unorthodox Studios and also runs a Unorthodox Talent. The Episode will Premier on June 19th at 1:00pm (BST You can schedule the Episode via the link https://lnkd.in/eSKU2BuY

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So I keep chipping away on my little ai tool and it's really a nice meditation on workflows - ai has allowed me to create a tool that fits my needs specifically rather than trying to fit me into a pre-existing workflow which is an interesting shift. Big feature sets are great but MY feature sets are better. Once again I'd like to rant about how node workflows aren't exactly what they promise when each node is non-deterministic... they do offer a visual record of the process which is valuable but if nothing is repeatable the graph functionality is greatly undermined... it's not called a dependency graph for nothing. Anyway, within the space of around two or three weeks of after hours noodling I can add models in minutes, I can access multiple API providers, I have LLM rewrites on all prompts, I can segment prompts, all with history, all saved locally with metadata and now I have a simple NLE to assemble a bash edit and export as a video so I can work in context and present quicker. Oh, I also added some annotation tools and cropping. The take away is that I'm not a dev tyring to guess how users work but I'm a user guessing what a dev does. (And yes, I'm sure anyone who codes for a living will tear this code to shreds but it does the job for me!) If you want to try it out have a look here: https://lnkd.in/gmshr3_X but I reckon you should just make your own - that's what it's all about.

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If this is the future of agencies using AI, then all good and experienced creatives and agencies are pretty safe. This even gives AI Slop a bad name. For some reason, six people are lying on the floor of a pub and are cheersing each other in the most awkward and contorted way. The person with the blue jacket has obviously broken their wrist, but hey, gotta push through that pain and clink that bottle with your other drunk friends lying on the floor. How did this get approved? LION This is right up there with the salami stick outdoor incident from a couple of weeks ago. What is going on with OOH advertising in Australia at the moment? #Heineken The HEINEKEN Company ... ®️©️ 🤘 ⚡ ...

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Ivan Mato is Elmwood Brand & Design Consultancy's head of creative technology. He has been leading the way in leveraging AI tools and platforms to do everything from generate stable diffusion models of brand icons, to prompt based brand governance tools. And from AI generated pasta meal photography, to motion graphics and video content. He was approached by the BBC News to talk about the future of AI generated ads take a look at the fascinating article below "AI opens new creative possibilities, but the real strategic question isn't whether brands can personalize everything - it's whether they should, and what they risk losing if they do."

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From research to final frame. This explainer started with listening. We began with research and interviews, shaping a script grounded in real insight. From there, we developed moodboards and storyboards to define the tone, pacing and visual language. We cast and directed the voiceover, composed the music, built the sound design, and then animated it all to bring the story to life. Explainers are short. The craft behind them isn’t. Writing. Design. Performance. Sound. Motion. All working together to make something feel effortless. That’s the work. #Animation #CreativeProcess #ExplainerVideo #MotionDesign #SoundDesign #Storytelling

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Real talk though: I am STAGGERED by the amount of women I know who have had a miscarriage in a work toilet, come back outside… and quietly carried on. Come in the next day, unsure whether or not to explain to their boss, held back tears… and quietly carried on. Or been struggling with the absolute grief of infertility, broken down at the sight of a baby on the tube on the way in… and quietly carried on. Or juggled all the intensity of IVF in between calls and client stress… and quietly carried on. Or been holding down pregnancy nausea in a meeting and, you guessed it… Women are incredible but we shouldn’t actually have to do any of this. Good maternity policies are critical. But policies that support every stage of the process are so, so, so important too. (Also, GIVE DADS/PARTNERS MORE THAN TWO WEEKS OFF!!!)

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Wednesday Thinks: Alignment is underrated in creative studios. Often it’s the first thing teams try to skip. 🙄 Another meeting. 🤯 Another step. But skipping alignment rarely saves time. It usually creates: • rework • confused feedback • ideas that miss the mark The best studios I’ve worked with don’t just move fast. They make sure everyone is moving in the same direction first. Because creative momentum comes from alignment, not urgency. Hustle is great - but only when you know the where you're hustling to. #creativebusiness #studioleadership #designindustry

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If you describe a persona and share it with an LLM. Then ask LLM to 'as [persona], give me the pros and cons of my new campaign idea / product / strategy'. You cannot call this research in any meaningful sense whatsoever. Snake oil salesman have been trying to flog this 'product' as far back as 2023. Please don't buy it. Invest in real, meaningful customer data. Use AI to summarise that data if helpful (I think it is). But do not use AI to effectively create stereotypes of fake audiences you've just imagined!

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We do a lot of brand work in the arts and culture sector and have seen that, increasingly, the requirements of the brand have been changing. Theatres are no longer just stages, they’re cultural hubs grappling with fragmented audiences, squeezed disposable incomes and rising expectations for accessibility and digital experience. In our latest insight piece, we explore how theatre brands must shift from relying on heritage and instinct to being built with their communities. From meaningful audience insight, through mapped personas and consistent experience design, we set out how theatres can become inclusive, dynamic brands that invite participation rather than gatekeep. Whether you’re in-house, in culture strategy or across the charity & arts sector, there’s provocation here for how to translate brand into lived experience. Read more - https://lnkd.in/e-p5z68M

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Bravo, Ed Pettit, such an interesting and insightful read, in a time where confusion and a lack of clarity surrounding the behemoth that is AI is rife.

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Let's talk AI. (shudder) The creative world is buzzing about it, good and bad. Personally I’ve seen firsthand how it can transform projects, streamlining workflows and sparking new ideas. Resisting tools like AI isn’t just delaying the inevitable; it’s holding back personal and team growth. When I started using AI to enhance campaign designs, it opened doors to faster, smarter solutions that helped me help my clients. The key is pivoting to learn and adapt, not fighting the change. It has even pushed me to learn flowgramming and honestly I am having some fun with it ... even if it still makes me shudder! What’s one way you’re embracing (or thinking about embracing) AI to stay ahead in your work?

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We've all seen a lot of rhetoric about AI and how it will affect the creative industry... To be honest, it's all a little scary (and gives me visions of a post-apocalyptic sci-fi film), but as I've said a few times to people, Pandora is out of the box, and she's not going back in! Regardless of how you feel about it. I recently listened to an episode of the DOAC podcast [Linked Below] and found this roundtable discussion of experts really interesting. On the one hand, there are many applications where AI can (and already is) improving the world, by taking menial repetitive admin tasks off busy people. This is awesome for small businesses and solo-preneurs who can really leverage this to their advantage... …but on the other hand, what happens to all those admin people who get pushed out of a job? Like I totally understand this isn't the first example of a worldwide revolution at this scale. Think about the Industrial Revolution and how that changed the world. Yes, some people lost their jobs but working conditions got better. It meant people had more time for education and pleasure. Outputs increased. All of the good stuff Capitalism froths over. I'm finding it fascinating having conversations with people and hearing their different perspectives. It's such a moral dilemma sometimes...using it as a tool to your advantage, rather than seeing it as the enemy, sticking your head in the sand and being left behind 🤷‍♀️ Anyway, getting to the point, I'm curious about how others in the creative industry are thinking about AI; ➡️ How are you using it? ➡️ What tools are you finding best for different scenarios? ➡️ How are you retraining or pivoting to make sure you're not obsolete in the next few years? P.S Guess what! This whole post was written without the help of AI. So old school! 😅 #AI #Creative #GraphicDesign #DesignIndustry

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Tuesday Tech Inspo! Three Tech Ideas that mesh creative for an inspiring Tuesday morning! Some curated and the third one a team collab from us (Helen Hartley Consulting Anna Wanczyk Got Moves) 💡 1. Future Play officially launched at London Tech Week 2025. focusing on technology with enabled interactivity. in collaboration with the UAL Creative Computing Institute, harnessing their creative technology discipline to deliver a series of truly interactive experiences at the centre of the exhibition floor that illustrate the intersection of creativity and technology. https://lnkd.in/eKhJgF6V David Monaghan London Tech Week Drawing from across the diverse cohort of fashion, art, photography, design and media students we saw how computational power became creative energy, revealing new possibilities through human ingenuity and technological capability. Each piece encouraged participation, creating unique moments where viewers become collaborators, their interaction shaping and transforming the work in real-time. It was a space where code enables art, where digital is the norm, and where the next wave of innovation emerged through the power of creativity and experience. 📢 2. https://lnkd.in/ebY_Yi4H Spread beats - D&AD winner for Spotify - really cool use of limited creative freedom as a superpower, thinking outside and inside the boxes of coding! So good wish we had thought of it!! Genius - sometimes your percieved limitations, be it budget, platform, time can make for creative solutions that are so unique! D&AD Spotify 👊 3. Harmblock (one if ours)! short on time, branding to get investors onboard and creating the brand positioning and creative around not the TECH, but the end benefit of helping children thrive and grow. "Brief create a brand that is as powerful visually and iconic as blue tooth please!" Ethical ai to make life safer! Here's how we did it: https://harmblock.com/ case study: https://lnkd.in/eiJpbMnU SafeToNet Tech Crunch Tech Nation WIRED Bloomberg Design Week World Brand Design Society World Vision Lauren Vail Andrea Szell Peter Thompson TELUS Digital Forward Festival Fast Company Idris Elba Channel 4 Prolific North Fiona Ras-Jones

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“WE ARE GOING TO START A MOVEMENT” the amount of times I've seen those words in decks. I’ve seen a lot of briefs looking to tap into culture and build community. Identity based audiences. Strategies centred around belonging. 🫠 LIVE + BREATHE was the first campaign I worked on that actually became a movement. Three years on it is now a proper non-profit company, with people working there, and an active community that not only gets invited into parliament - but also creates and advocates as part of the campaign off their own backs. This summer 180 (mostly poc) young people spent their Saturday together cycling around London on Forest e-bikes with Poetic Unity, creating art as an experience about the right to clean air. The number of attendees has more than doubled since least summer. This is one of the many examples of the community coming together and growing together organically. A few lessons 🎓 : Contrary to the process we did not start with a manifesto in a slides deck - in fact, the manifesto came three years into the campaign. For work to land culturally it’s important that the creative development isn’t thought of as a tactic checkbox - a strong point of view that represents a real community takes a lot of investment in your strategy, and iteration and collaboration in your expression. 🕰️ We first started ideating just out of lockdown. People kept telling us they were hungry for real experiences. As much as I did not want the stress of putting on an an IRL outdoor festival in a post covid rainy summer - we heard. Culture breeds culture and collaborating with the community you’re aiming to serve is the ultimate driver for success. 🤝 The other driver? Trust. When you’re starting a movement or building a community from scratch, it takes time for people to trust you. Being consistent and authentic, showing up with energy. The work wouldn’t have worked if it wasn’t for a partner like Impact on Urban Health that truly put their trust in us. And a team and community only create from their highest expression when you trust them to. 🪄 Attached to this post is the video from 2024's Clean Air For the Ends bike ride organized and produced entirely by the community, the words by Poet Myself Blaize were later performed in Parliament with Asthma + Lung UK. If you want to see more work I’ll share my case study in the comments.

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CONSISTENCY BUILDS VISIBILITY Good campaigns are rarely one design piece — they work because every touchpoint feels connected. Read our latest blog here: https://lnkd.in/e2hT6Me4 Find out more: https://lnkd.in/e6zxfKZt #corporateidentity #branding #brandidentity #leaflets #flyers #design #printdesign #designforprint #exhibition #Chichesterdesign #Portsmouthdesign #summerofculture

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Some will use AI production to cut corners. Others will use it as a tool, whilst also 3D printing a to-scale squirrel to get realistic reflections in their pack shot. Pip & Nut | B Corp The Forge Photographic Services Ltd Scary Robots

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