INVITED TO THE TABLE

There’s a moment after taking the first bite of a meal when our taste receptors begin their run of show. Salt punches in at the tip of the tongue and acidity kicks in on the sides of the mouth as the bitter notes rush to the throat. As the flavors start to take hold, our reaction can often be emotional: recognition, a surprise, a sense of delight, a savory satisfaction. This is food’s universal facility, a promise that exists before function or form.

Food is a great unifier. We are born asking to eat, and throughout our lives this essential function brings us together. We arrive at table or window or counter for a first whiff of smells strange and familiar, impatient for the satisfaction ahead. In its provision, preparation and anticipation, people have eagerly converged through the ages, creating time and space for community and kinship.

These days, the pace of life often leads us to reach for our food — from restaurants and premade services to markets and grocery shelves. Whether through a comforting readymade recipe, a new eatery featuring less traveled cuisine, or a global ingredient found locally, these offerings provide exciting opportunity. The branding of food is a powerful force when it speaks to an individual so deeply that it is possible to see a reflection of themselves; an extension of their identity, personality, or needs. A new taste or recommendation becomes an invitation to understand who someone is and where they come from.

In many of its favored forms, food is steeped with nostalgia. From the salt or sugar overload of a childhood treat to the improvised meals of adolescent living, we gather a treasure trove of timeless flavors as we move through life. Recreating a memorable dish is a way to travel across time and place, often finding form as the traditions and heirloom recipes a family or community passes down.

Yet the meaning of food can evolve, especially at the personal level. For first-generation Americans, individuals born to one or more parent coming to the US from abroad, a unique existence between cultures is exemplified in the convergence of traditions and flavors. Fragrant lunch boxes full of ingredients found beyond the typical grocery store shelves can be isolating, while American childhood food traditions might feel foreign growing up in a multicultural home.

One such example is Kolkata Chai, founded and run on New York City’s Lower East Side by two first-generation Indian American brothers. Across South Asia, sipping chai is a ritual found routinely in family homes, but also in tea shops and along bustling streets. It’s a cultural mainstay familiar across the diaspora, often paired with shared company and snacks. Inspired by this awareness, Ayan and Ani Sanyal began the café with a simple idea: “How do we extend the authenticity, respect and tradition behind a cup of masala chai to NYC?”

With bold, colorful branding and innovative offerings like seasonal soft serve and oat milk variations, Kolkata Chai is not inauthentic but rather expansively inspired. Creating a brand experience true to a multicultural lived experience has brought a timeless drink to new tastebuds. What remains consistent is what draws crowds of caffeine and culture lovers alike — the warm welcome of ginger, cardamom, black tea and milk.

In brick and mortar and beyond, food brands are embracing this fusion of cultures and cuisines with growing momentum. In 2023, Food Business News predicts the rise of ‘mosaic’ cooking, the continued convergence of regional and global flavors. Autobiographical diaspora cooking, another approach in focus, refers to chefs bringing together American foods with heritage recipes.

The diversity and adaptation embodied by first-generation and multicultural American identity is inspiring new ways to expand our palettes. Brands like Omsom, which offers a full spectrum of pantry starters for Asian dishes, and Diaspora Co., a fair-trade spice company, create ethical access for consumers to make beloved or discovered dishes their own. Both also pair iconic flavors with equally bold brand expression and visual representation across platforms, embracing their positioning by challenging stereotypes around food and its origins.

Food is a way to show appreciation for the culture and traditions of others. When we are invited to such a meal, we step beyond our own experience with an innate curiosity that’s often obscured. Eating together lets us experience stories that extend far beyond one place or person. Being offered a seat at the table, a phrase today imbued with contended meaning, is remembered around a meal as a humanizing gesture of acceptance and good will. There is something immeasurable to value in the everyday actions we engage in ritually and often choose to share. Through food we celebrate the beauty of living together while embracing our differences, and the expansive possibility of continuing to open the door.

A META-FREE YEAR IN REVIEW

HOW AN EXPERIMENT IN CUTTING TIES CONTRIBUTED TO OUR STRONGEST YEAR YET

Why are we here? When we asked ourselves that question, it wasn’t out of existential pandemic-induced dread but out of plain, old-fashioned curiosity.

Facebook and Instagram, the “here” in this scenario, were platforms we’d participated on since the inception of our studio because, well, weren’t we supposed to?

As a business, especially a creative one, it’s where we were meant to showcase our design chops, grow our brand, connect with our community, generate new business, and show people who we really are. Right?

Throughout the years, as a small independent studio we spent valuable hours creating for and experimenting with these platforms. We learned a lot, developing content we certainly were proud of. But at what cost? Or perhaps more interestingly, for what value?

Yes, to a degree you can measure how much impact your social game has on your business with the same KPIs that it seems everyone uses, but how can you really measure success without a good old A/B test. We’ve had years of A’s, in 2022 it was time for a B.

“We’re going on a learning journey,” we wrote, “and you are all invited.” With that, we stepped back from Instagram and Facebook with an invitation: Not to join our pause on participating with these platforms, but to follow us as we shifted our attention elsewhere.

We value community and have dedicated ourselves to working with organizations who do the same. We wanted to take a year to explore how we could better prioritize community building over content creation, while having the clarity and time to objectively observe how these platforms continued to grow and evolve. And that’s exactly what we did.

January 11th, 2022 was the last time we posted anything on Instagram or Facebook. And what a year it’s been.

HERE’S WHAT DIDN’T HAPPEN:

· We didn’t lose business (in fact, quite the opposite)

· We didn’t lose client trust (we heard zero criticism about the decision from our wonderful client roster and, better yet, worked on several social strategies for them)

· We didn’t lose followers (we gained them)

HERE’S WHAT DID:

· We explored Web3 and created identities for two of the biggest brands in that space

WORLD OF WOMEN

· we found community, a bountiful source of prospective work and meaningful engagement on LinkedIn

· we gave our team room to breathe and focus on client work and other internal projects (like commissioning Ukranian designers to create posters about the war that ended up at the Met, and designing our own poster as a call to action and ode to our hometown, New York City.)

UKRAINE POSTERS AT THE MET

“AN ODE TO NYC” POSTER

· we invested in making noise for music education, working with S’Cool Sounds and Mama Foundation to ensure young people had access to all that music has to offer

S’COOL SOUNDS

MAMA FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS

· we created our own new platform AfterThought as means of investing in a consequential future for creativity through gatherings that explore the issues impacting creative life and work

THOUGHT MATTER MANAGING PARTNER JESSIE MCGUIRE AT OUR FIRST AFTERTHOUGHT EVENT

As the year comes to a close, we took a step back and asked ourselves, what should 2023 look like? Do we continue doing what we’ve been doing this past year? Was our Meta sabbatical just long enough for us to contribute to the platform again? And if so, for what purpose?

Here’s what we decided:

We’re jumping back into content creation for social media, but on our own terms. In the spirit of AfterThought, we’re reimagining how these platforms are traditionally used, and instead of leveraging them to generate awareness and clout, we’ll be using Instagram as a tool for contribution.

How? We’re busy building out a new content studio where, with the young design community in mind, the focus will be developing knowledge-sharing resources, inspiration and more. We won’t be on the ‘gram bragging about our latest work (for that, go to our website; it’s terrific), but rather sharing our knowledge and perspective to hopefully influence the future of design for the better. We’re in an industry controlled by long-established gatekeepers who for years have shaped and held the keys to the pathways into design. We plan to change that by continuing to open our doors, both IRL and virtually, to help young creative people better understand how and why they can and should design their careers in their own unique ways.

We’re ready for another experiment. Hope you’ll join us once more. See you in 2023!

CREATING CONNECTION ACROSS DIFFERENCE

Looking for images of resistance and resilience? Open any digital screen of your choosing these days and you’re likely to find a full spectrum of opinions being fiercely shared. Whether interacting online or in person, we are met with the sights and sounds of opposition so incessantly they begin to blur into white noise. This is a time of passion and polarization, with global events and tragedies to national ideological trends raising alarm daily as each side tries to make their points as loudly as possible. Tuning out the conflict is appealing yet unrealistic and turning away is a futile pursuit.

Meanwhile, diversity is on an upwards trajectory. In America, the rising force of Gen Z will be majority non-white by 2026, the most racially and ethnically represented generation yet. According to the US Censure Bureau, more than 42% percent of the American population is now represented by groups other than non-Hispanic whites, a 12% increase over just the past two decades.

Surrounded by differences of thought and image, hurtling forward at the speed of technology, we are witnessing an inevitable evolution towards digital and physical interconnectivity. Yet at the same time we are coming up for air to face the most critical issues of survival the world has ever seen. The challenge is timeless, making our need to embrace the opportunity for collective impact more critical than ever.

Ultimately, the impact of this cultural transformation won’t be as much about the numbers as it will be about the broader extent of our experience — our stories and ability to share and engage them. Whether it’s within the workplace or through creative collaboration, we are seeing the first ripples of this shift in greater efforts to consider inclusivity and representation. Thought leaders and change makers in every industry are coming forward to emphasize the important of bringing new perspectives into play. Meanwhile, intersectional brands and organizations, especially across creativity and social impact, are building new foundations based on the convergence of diverse points of view. While not without challenge, the resonance of these projects is drawing visible traction. Hike Clerb, an LA-based organization, was formed as a radical solution to the lack of POC representation in the outdoors and as a way for people to heal together in nature. Similarly, queer and South Asian female-founded cookware brand Our Place was built around the “transformative power in uplifting the differences in how people cook and eat together.”

As the next wave approaching adulthood, Gen Z is proving it is up for the challenge of bringing together the seemingly disparate. From social media to city streets, Gen Zers are pushing the limits of current frameworks with unapologetic authenticity. Unrelenting in their pursuit of the truth, there is little they are not willing to upend to create space for their identities and ideas.

Within and beyond this demographic is the growing presence of first-generation Americans. Most commonly defined as the children born to at least one parent who came to the United States from abroad, these are citizens of change with deep ties to both the immigrant experience and American legacy. First-generation Americans often live under the radar, a demographic most often without visible or cultural identifiers to fully reveal their unique positioning. Instead, they are united through a connection to two places (or more) at a time, and a recognition of this liminality in each other.

Having grown up in a world that came without a cultural handbook, first-generation Americans are experts at navigating the nuances of social behavior. Forming their understanding between the cultures of their residence and origins, these individuals have an inherent capacity for empathy. From a young age they learn to consider the context and viewpoints of others, and though they recognize the value of tradition and sacrifice, they are driven to surpass their parents’ achievements by redefining success in their own words. Resoundingly, they move through life with a worldly conscience, extending the benefit of doubt, a contextual imagination, and a bridge of understanding even when the experience of others does not ascribe to their own. When you know the feeling of standing alone, you offer belonging wherever you go.

America continues to see more immigrants arrive each year than any other country in the world. Accordingly, first-generation Americans are growing in both social presence and numbers. The Migrant Policy Institute recorded more than 18 million people under age 18 living with at least one immigrant parent as of 2021, an increase of 120% since 1990. The diversity of their experience is finding representation from standup comedy and film to brand identity and politics.

At a time of significant divisiveness in America, there is deep value in looking to the knowledge these perspectives hold. Empathy and understanding are the litmus tests of civilizations old and new, and looking outwards with an open mind empowers us to see ourselves with greater clarity.

First-generation American identity is not monolithic. In the flavors of a simple heritage recipe or the steadfast values of a family standing strong beyond familiarity lies an incredible capacity for bridging barriers, a desire to seek belonging in new forms, and a deep resilience for finding a way forward.

As we inevitably find ourselves working and coexisting increasing proximity to people who live and think differently than us, we can look to those who forge awareness into empathetic connection daily to find the frameworks of our future. While our differences may define us, creating new meaning by connecting to understand is essential to our individual and collective success as cohabitants of many moving worlds.

MOST PEOPLE HAVE NOT HAD A BOSS WHO LOOKS LIKE ME

I look like the woman at the laundromat. I look like the waitstaff at your corporate function. You might look at your home or office cleaning staff and see my reflection. I look like the front cover of the New York Times. A mother squeezed into a photo of migrants crossing the border.

When I started at ThoughtMatter full-time in 2018 after years of being a contractor, I looked like a young woman from what former president Donald Trump called a “shithole country”. While I was learning how to use my keycard and finding the best lunch spots in my new work neighborhood, my birth country was thrust into the cultural conversation. The reality of being born in El Salvador, a small, historically poor, Central American country, is that I look like many things — an executive or leader typically not being one of them.

JESSIE MCGUIRE, THOUGHT MATTER MANAGING PARTNER

As the newly-named Managing Partner of an award-winning, New York City design studio, why would I lead with what I look like? I’ve achieved this accomplishment through hard work, resilience, talent, education and dedication, yet I’m stuck with the label of being “exceptional” based on how I look. It’s more comfortable that way. More comfortable for everyone but me.

Being “exceptional” minimizes the roadblocks, racist comments and unconscious bias that the circumstances of my birth and the way I look have forced me to tackle. Being “exceptional” means people asking why it matters that I am a five-foot (on a good day), Salvadoran-American with a husky, opinionated voice? The answer, storytelling.

Many years ago, I saw a video of a prominent graphic designer taking the piss out of storytelling. I watched as a designer said that now everyone thinks they are a storyteller, even roller coaster designers. He was having fun at the expense of the design industry. His message: “Don’t take yourself so seriously.”

I bought into it. I vowed to never call myself a storyteller again. I was wrong.

Stories matter. The people telling these stories matter even more. Stories celebrate, inspire and clarify. Stories are affirming to those outside the dominant narrative and help turn condemnation for otherness into celebration.

Over the years at ThoughtMatter, stories like mine have helped inform our brand-building work with THINX, orgs like NKG Pace and communities in Downtown Staten Island. They are reflected in everything from our redesign of the Constitution for a new generation to protest posters we created for the Women’s March. I have also carved out a leadership role for myself amid our Founder’s assurances, “Jessie this is your studio. You are running it every day, do it your way.” To make those words official, I put together a proposal to be a partner. I searched every inch of the internet. The young, brown, adopted girl inside me, conditioned to question what’s real and what’s temporary, wondered if it was possible. Could I really be a partner? Imposter syndrome reared its ugly head. Why did I want to be a partner in a business I was already running?

I was raised in white spaces, but I am not white. In fact, I wrote an entire essay about it to get into grad school. It was fun and flirty, involved colorful brand references and got me into the MPS of Branding program at SVA. That was over a decade ago. Since that cute little essay, I have seen this country fracture along race lines, I’ve seen folks finally opening their eyes to what has been here since our founding. A bias, unconscious or conscious, against anyone who is not white. I realize it is important to name what is many times uncomfortable to discuss.

I have never had a boss who looks like me.

I’ve had a number of female mentors and leaders, but I have never had a mentor, boss or CEO who was not white or white-presenting. This matters because we become the stories we tell ourselves, as well as the stories we are told. Stories like mine can help empower a startup, organization or global corporation by ensuring such experiences are embodied in its brand.

As Managing Partner of ThoughtMatter, I am committed to telling a new story. An ever-evolving story where having a boss that looks like me is exceptionally unexceptional. I will do this with a narrative centered around the values below.

Be uncomfortable, do better.

Talented creatives need someone who is responsible for day-to-day decisions, and at ThoughtMatter that person is now me. I’m finding and defining my leadership style and voice, but I’m not the only one who has work to do. That means an end to interviews where prospects stand up when someone else enters the room but stay seated for me. No more new hires asking when they can have face time with the boss during our one-on-ones. No more vendors and clients assuming someone else has the final word. Together, we’re working to change these perceptions. We’re getting uncomfortable to get better.

Center impact and accountability.

When I attend an industry conference at a banquet hall, I go to great lengths to avoid wearing all black and having to tell people, “Sorry, I don’t work here.” Which has happened more times than I can count. What this exchange makes clear is that I’m not supposed to be at the table, in the room or at the event unless I am serving them. The truth is I am where I am today because I have always prioritized other people’s comfort at my own expense. I now have the platform, power and influence to be honest about impact and discuss accountability. This is ongoing work at ThoughtMatter and as partner, I am using my power and influence to keep us moving forward.

Making a difference is measurable.

Years of disappointments in championing diversity has taught me that making a difference is measurable. Good intentions are not. If someone says they want to hire a diverse team or support diverse voices, but everyone on their team or in power looks the same, then what they are saying is just words. I will continue to work every day at ThoughtMatter to make measurable progress. We believe in the power of design to make a positive difference in people’s lives and use our impact to hold ourselves to it.

I love being part of the design industry, graphic design specifically. My bookshelves are adorned with what feels like every Steven Heller book out there. I have Milton Glaser posters, stickers, buttons and I should admit I have posters and ephemera by most of the AIGA medalists over the last 20 years. I fangirl over the Design Matters and Clever podcasts. I go into the Rizzoli bookstore monthly to flip through Swiss and European design books. I know the late 90s and early aughts have shaped my aesthetic, like my love for platform shoes, and a piece of me will always be in awe of design’s power, influence and ability to shape the world around us.

But for all my love and adoration, the graphic design industry has not given many reflections of my lived experience in return. I now realize, like the clip clap of my chunky, decades-old platform sandals, it’s time to move forward and look for stronger support for my story (and my ankles).

With my new title of Managing Partner, I plan to honor design’s past, while adamantly and relentlessly pushing for progress.

The next time you see me at an industry event or come in for a visit, remember that I don’t look like what society has told us a boss looks like, but I am an equal partner. I am on a mission to show the industry and beyond that the top of the org chart should and can look like the world we live in. Full of people in all shapes, sizes, ages, colors, abilities, economic statuses and lived experiences, no matter how short, brown and loud.

POWER PLAY: GAMING’S ROLE IN SUBVERTING EDUCATION

Standing before the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his legendary “I Have Dream” speech to 250,000 people gathered on the National Mall. Now, almost sixty years later, 350 million people worldwide can experience a recreation of that moment thanks to Fortnite, one of the world’s most popular video games.

Fortnite, through a partnership with Time Magazine, is giving its players the opportunity to virtually watch the speech together, explore parts of 1963 Washington D.C., visit digital museums, and participate in activism mini-games inspired by the Civil Rights movement.

It’s early days yet, but so far the game, dubbed “March Through Time”, has been nothing if not controversial. Many, for instance, complained about players being able to use Fortnite’s “emote” function, which lets their avatars gesture and do dance moves. In short, hardly appropriate for such serious subject matter. Credit Fortnite, then, for quickly addressing that by disabling many of these questionable functions in the game mode. Still, there’s no easy fix for the concern that children will now associate Dr. King more with the game than activism. Nor is there a way for Fortnite to fully replicate the context, experience and impact of the original “I Have a Dream” speech. Fair comment. Nevertheless, argue the game’s advocates, after all we’ve been through in 2021 and all the technology now available, does it really need to?

Time was we’d generally turn to museums, libraries, schools and other institutions of learning to fill in the civic education blanks. But the plain fact is, depending on where you live and who’s doing the teaching, we’re not all on equal footing. Moreover, in the U.S., states have significant say over what children learn, and it is common for history to be revised and facts left out to serve individuals’ or communities’ ideas of morals and ethics. For the most part, that sort of curriculum has never painted a complete picture of history, often favoring exciting or romanticized narratives while hiding painful, ugly truths.

Enter gaming. Because gaming exists outside the bubble of cultural institutions and educational platforms, it is immune to many of their faults. In an opinion piece for Bloomberg.com on the distinctions between gaming and the greater world of culture, George Mason University economics professor Tyler Cowen writes that due to the insular nature of gaming: “It is easy to become a world-class performer in a game without knowing much about the broader culture. By the same token, most of today’s cultural experts know very little about gaming, and they get on just fine.”

That autonomy, free from personal or geographic biases, positions gaming as an option and resource for users who lack or don’t have access to the wider knowledge traditional learning institutions offer. For those school-age gamers, this sense of escape offers them new paths to explore and, even more, the prospect of new online communities with whom to do it. Such prospects give gaming platforms an effectiveness, scale and reach that mainstream educators can only dream about. As Cowen puts it, “gaming is more like participating in an event than watching an event.”

Fortnite’s MLK experience has so much value precisely because it works as an educational first step and conversation starter for many who otherwise may never have been exposed to or creatively engaged with the civil rights movement and its importance in our nation’s history. While users aren’t participating in the actual event that inspired the platform, they are sharing and participating in an interactive experience hard to replicate in the real world. For all the social media brickbats that have been hurled at “March Through Time”, many parents have chimed in that their children, after playing the game, wanted to talk to them and learn more about Dr. King.

Mission accomplished

Gaming’s foray into positive social impact isn’t necessarily new. In the summer of 2020 Fortnite itself hosted a roundtable discussion on race. Minecraft, another popular game, hosts “The Uncensored Library” — a safekeep built by Reporters without Borders that houses news and articles banned in countries without freedom of the press. Another important point Professor Cowen raises is the capacity of games to fight back against government regulation. In games, rules are set and enforced by creators and players, essentially allowing for innovation and new ways of thinking that government oversight might prevent. That’s a valuable resource to have, indeed, when tackling how to shake up a system as large and essential as education.

For years, gaming has been put down as a negative contributor to a plethora of social and health issues. But it turns out many of those who complain the loudest about it really understand it the least. While gaming may exist on the fringes of culture, it commands massive audiences equal to or greater than traditional media’s top performers. What Fortnite and others in effect are doing is exploring the capacity of gaming’s greatest asset, its power.

Malcolm X, the Civil Rights leader and contemporary of Dr. King, once said: “Power never takes a back step — only in the face of more power.” In the spirit of that sentiment, then, rather than critique Fortnite for exploring new territory with “March Through Time”, let’s instead applaud its creators for seeking how to use gaming’s power as a tool for progress — leveraging its reach to challenge, knock down and hopefully evolve traditional educational systems that all too often use their power to hold us back.

CONTRARIAN VIEWPOINTS NO LONGER CUT IT

As a studio that prides itself on embodying a contrarian spirit unafraid to question it all, we constantly challenge and explore the many angles of our approach to design, strategy, the clients we choose to work with, and staffing. Our non-traditional team is made up of folks of all ages and backgrounds — from both inside and outside the industry — who have taken unique paths to join us and bring unique points of view to the table.

But lately, as so much continues to rapidly move in seemingly wrong directions, it’s become clear that our contrarian viewpoint no longer cuts it. While it was a fresh new take when our studio was founded, these days that’s no longer the case. Contrarianism is now the consensus. It’s gone mainstream. So it doesn’t matter that we were early adopters. Nor does it set us or our thinking apart anymore. Time, then, to shift to subversion in order to keep evolving and stay ahead of the pack.

While being contrarian means rejecting what is popular and going against the norm, subversion takes things a step further. It shines the spotlight on established or existing systems, and utilizes tools, skills and resources to overthrow, undermine, weaken or destroy them.

The last few years have opened our eyes to the fact that many of the pressing issues and injustices we face are consequences of flawed systems. Social shortcomings like racism and other inequities are byproducts of their design. Most people would see this as a failure. We, however, look at it a bit differently.

As strategists and designers, there are many systems we have the power and obligation to undermine in our daily work. In a recent piece, our design director Wednesday Krus discussed the vital role that UI/UX designers have in making the internet less dark by weakening common practices that let brands deceive consumers for profit and power. That is just one example of our studio’s actions centered around activism, awareness and engagement, the principles we constantly strive to build upon.

We are, of course, realists. Entities like social media and the healthcare, justice and food systems are simply operating the way they were designed to. Twitter was designed to be a place of connection and free conversation, regardless of who was connecting and over what subject matter. Health insurance, meanwhile, was designed to give people access to care; that is, if they have the means to pay for it. And so on.

Looking back, it’s clear these systems were bound to fail before they even launched. They were created, intentionally or not, to suppress and weaken the many for the benefit of the few. They were made to be strong and last long without considering that the world would always be changing around them.

The rub is, it takes design to destroy design. That’s where subversion comes into play. Creators have long tapped into subversive practices to play their part in upending unjust systems. For the Brighton Museum’s 2013 exhibition titled Subversive Design, the institution explored “how designers, makers and manufacturers react to the world around them, playing with form, function and materials to create objects that provoke and amuse.” It explained that “for over 200 years craft and design have been used to engage and challenge political and social issues in both obvious and more hidden ways.”

While one person can make a difference, real subversion takes a collective effort. In the New York Public Library’s description of its exhibit Subversion & The Art of Slavery Abolition, the organization wrote that it took a collective of abolitionist writers, poets, illustrators, photographers and more to generate the knowledge, awareness and emotion necessary for “the formation of one of the movement’s most subversive projects: The Underground Railroad.”

To inspire and establish subversive initiatives, what’s needed is a community of creative, forward-thinking people. Writers, to encourage and bring clarity. Visual artists, to paint realities and make people aware. Poets and musicians, to create combinations of words and rhythms that make sure people never forget. The list goes on and on; the possibilities endless.

The poet Philip Larkin once said, “I think we got much better poetry when it was all regarded as sinful or subversive, and you had to hide it under the cushion when somebody came in.” Consensus flattens an idea. Subversion sets it free. When you don’t look for a mold to fill or rules to follow, opportunities abound. True, it might take more work to get noticed, but working outside an established system is where the magic happens. That’s where we as a studio thrive; where real change is possible.

So now we ask: Who is ready to move forward? Who has the guts to shift, not just to join us in taking a stand but in tearing systems down?