A collection of short essays

A catalyst is closer to a muse than a template — something to interpret rather than replicate.

Research doesn’t become strategy by moving into a nicer deck — it becomes strategy when gathering, judging and making stay separate.

The same idea doesn’t sit at the same coordinates in every culture, so it has to be in the work from discovery onward.

Every extra thing an audience has to decode is a cost, and reducing it doesn’t mean making the work bland.

One person on the client side, with enough trust to move decisions, can halve the work for everyone.

A deliverable is always easier to name than a problem, which is why the request and the need can quietly drift apart.

The next iteration of the studio asks me to wear a different hat, with an EA, a project manager and a designer behind the work.

If I’m working out my answer while someone is still speaking, I’m preparing rather than listening, and a good story is what lowers that guard.

I stopped presenting them once I realised they did more for me than for the client, and started building the direction one slide at a time.

Mastery is one outcome done exceptionally well, which is the part the specialist and generalist debate keeps missing.

Being nice and being kind aren’t the same thing, and only one of them will tell a client this isn’t the real problem.

Solve only what was asked and you can deliver something polished, beautiful and completely misaligned with what the business needed.

Good storytelling reduces the distance between what a brand wants to say and what someone can actually hold on to.

An hour, a notebook or a weekend away does more for the work than another day inside it.

In Wolof it means hospitality, though it’s closer to care and attention — and it’s where my whole approach to design comes from.