Posts

There are few things stronger than the human urge to understand other people by finding their context. A title. A role. A category. There is, of course, a logical explanation for this. Not that long ago, it was useful to know whether the person in front of you belonged to your group, your village, your side of the road. Whether they were safe or not. The instinct to feel, sort and categorise people makes sense as a survival mechanism. But, it becomes less useful when brought

Hello, I’m Anna Thompson and I’m a graphic designer/painter/letterpress printer (shall we say creator?) based on the east coast of the US. My creative identity has always been with me, but it took on a new balance when I started working for myself back in 2017. After I got my BFA in graphic design/printmaking, I lived in the Hudson Valley at Women’s Studio Workshop. I lived in a shared cabin, never saw a key, and walked down a gravel road to my job every day. Life moved slowl

The source of my frustration: this idea that there’s a formula for creativity that can be repeated endlessly and tapped for all its monetary value. It almost works that way, but in another, more important and real way, it doesn’t work that way at all. Let me try to untangle my brain in words.

As a strategist there is no end to the reports and forecasts that are sweeping over me like an avalanche. Do I want to know that creativity really is the key( as it has been announced since 2016)? Or how AI can best serve my burning wish to optimise workflows and take a creative team to the next level? I know I should say yes. But that would be a lie. The more reports that are shoved down my throat, the more I feel that creativity is still in the back seat. Don't get me wrong

I’m thinking that since I will be writing with an Amsterdam perspective, at least to some degree, I’d like to start by sharing my quick thoughts on being a creative in this city. For context, some background is needed, methinks. I have a B.F.A in Graphic Design from the Corcoran (at George Washington University) in Washington, D.C. This means I learned design in a US setting, with a US mindset on work, and a technical approach to design. It means I studied MORE design than ma

It was 2019. I’d just had my first child, and as I paced from room to room in our flat, a thought kept coming back to me: life as a performance had never been more obvious. Entering parenthood opened up a stage where I found myself being an observer of behaviours and a routine that often seemed mechanical and somewhat impersonal. The set was well designed, the lighting carefully arranged, and, above all, the script was polished through repetition. I came across this performan