Jagg Petty

Running forgettable ads is a very expensive way to teach people to ignore your brand.

Prada tells a story that will be repeated. Proving a human hand was involved is becoming a luxury in itself.

When everything is fast and chaotic, something slow will make them look up. When they do, make sure they see something extraordinary.

These two posts showed up next to each other in my feed. One is physical, considered, and has a story behind its creation. The other is technically impressive, but leaves me feeling nothing. This isn’t a criticism of the tools. It’s a reminder that what we choose to make matters as much as what we’re capable of making.

Apple made an app icon worth making a film about. Handmade, captured in camera, with a provenance worth telling. Even the simplest design can carry a remarkable story.

You can charge whatever you want. Convincing someone you’re worth it is another matter. Brand is the reputation that precedes the price. Design is how that reputation becomes visible. When both are right, the conversation changes. People stop asking why you’re so expensive and start understanding why everyone else is cheaper.

Midcentury modern design is cringey now. At least according to the Wall Street Journal. The interesting thing about good design is that it doesn’t need the approval of popular opinion. The original designers were solving problems. Their decisions had purpose. The imitations that followed borrowed the appearance, often without understanding what made the originals worth reproducing. An Eames lounge chair hasn’t become less beautiful because a million people bought a cheap imitation. We’ve been surrounded by imitations for so long that we’ve started questioning the originals. Timelessness doesn’t have an expiration date. It is, by nature, timeless.

Imagine having a perfectly good sandwich and deciding it needs to be fictional.

Revenue is always late to the story. Long before someone buys, story has given them meaning, brand has given them something to recognize, and design has made it worth remembering. It can feel like the longer road to the sale. It is. But you’re building something far more valuable than a transaction. You’re building people who come back and bring others with them.

In ancient Japan, wabi-sabi grew out of a rejection of flawless porcelain used for tea and the status attached to it. A handmade bowl could be uneven, even crude by comparison, and still be more beautiful because you could see the hand in it. Wabi-sabi belongs in this age. AI has removed every rough, handmade edge and every origin story, replacing them with endless amounts of so-called perfection. This perfection has become the least interesting part. It has become repulsive. We will use AI, the tool, but we should refuse to sterilize the craft for the sake of sloppy convenience. There is something to learn from wabi-sabi and its revolt against “perfect” porcelain. Enjoy your tea. I hope it’s in a handmade cup.

The Cartier Tank didn’t force the details to agree. It made them belong. Those Roman numerals were drawn for the dial. Some stretch. Some tighten. Some lean into the geometry. Nothing arbitrary. Everything considered. A hundred years later it still looks right. Because it is.

Returning to heritage when others can’t Google is a skill.

Knowing what to make when making is no longer the obstacle is the skill. The people who know how and when to deploy these Ai tools will succeed. So will the craftsmen who can make something unmistakably human by hand. Wabi-sabi will have value. So will taste executed with impossible precision and gloss. With Ai the middle is what gets uncomfortable. The ceiling gets higher. The floor gets lower.

Wholeheartedly agree. I’ve spent a career removing things other people thought needed to be there. Restraint is the talent.

Most household names spent years creating for rooms that were nearly empty. Then suddenly everyone was watching.

Let the result make the announcement.

Your company will be perceived at the level you choose to present it. People experience the brand before they experience the company.

If you don’t present your own company with conviction, why should the market assign it greater value?

I can co confidently tell most they don’t work hard enough. But for the few I can confidently say you don’t rest enough.

Film grain. Texture. Imperfection. For decades, some chased cleaner images. Now grain is being put back. Considered texture gives an image character.