curiosity over fear, always
I saw a post today that made my stomach turn. A Creative Director ranting about AI like it's the apocalypse, and the comments section turned into a bloodbath. People tearing each other down instead of building anything up. If you're leading with that kind of fear, I genuinely feel for your team. Fear doesn't guide—it suffocates. It's also highly contagious and dangerous to spread.
So let me add to the noise, but hopefully turn it into something else. A rhythm. A song. More connection, less destruction.
when I was eight, we got our first computer.
Six kids, one machine. I claimed it like territory.
I'd spend hours in MS Paint, building pixel cities with a mouse that barely worked. Click by click, dot by dot, creating worlds that existed nowhere else. It was clunky and weird and absolutely magical. I couldn't stop.
That same energy is still in me. The same curiosity that made me choose the computer over Saturday morning cartoons. And yes, AI is strange. But it's also an ally—a tool helping me move faster, learn quicker, stretch further than I ever could before.
I can't help but feel excited about it all. Like that eight-year-old glued to a screen, drawing with clicks instead of pencils. (Even though I'll always be painting and drawing with
what AI actually does in my studio...
Here's the unglamorous truth: AI is my intern. A really smart intern who never gets tired and doesn't need coffee breaks.
I use it to build mockups from my own product shots. To animate still images here and there in ways that would take me hours by hand. To test UX flows in Figma before I commit to the real work. To pull color palettes from photos I take while biking around the city.
It helps me name colors so they feel emotional, real, brand-aligned for my clients. It manipulates textures I've already created. It turns my sketches and paintings into new styles in Photoshop I never would have discovered alone.
It's simple. Sometimes really dumb. But it gives me something more valuable than efficiency—it gives me time back to sketch, to think, to feel. Time to mess around with weirdness, like turning a cactus into an ice cream cone just because I can.
AI is giving us back our time
Maybe the most powerful thing about AI isn't what it does. It's what it frees us up to do.
As someone who thinks deeply and writes passionately, I use it to process notes. To find patterns I didn't know were there. To uncover threads that connect ideas in ways my brain alone might miss. It's made me a sharper, more intentional communicator.
But here's what it can't do, and this is everything:
It can't read your client's tone shift when they talk about what matters most. It can't feel what lights them up. It can't say, "That—that's where we go deeper."
It doesn't care. We do. And that's the entire point.
it doesn't care like we care.
I'm not afraid because I know what I bring to the table. I know that the real work—the work that connects, that moves, that matters—happens in the spaces between heartbeats. In the pause before someone says what they really mean. In the moment when a client's eyes light up because you've seen something they couldn't see themselves.
AI can generate a thousand logos in a second. But it can't hold space for someone's vision. It can't feel the weight of what they're trying to build. It can't sense the exact moment to push deeper or step back.
That's human work. That's our work. And it's irreplaceable.
To anyone feeling overwhelmed
You're not alone. The world is changing faster than we can keep up with, and that's terrifying. But here's what I know: every tool that's ever scared artists has also set some of them free.
The printing press didn't kill storytelling. Photography didn't kill painting. Digital design didn't kill craftsmanship. They just changed the game.
So keep creating. Keep evolving. Let's build together. Let's keep it beautifully, messily, perfectly human.
Because at the end of the day, that's all we've got. And it's everything.
