Russell also shared a new piece in his brand strategy series, looking at how a brand moves from strategy into building a real relationship with its audience.

It was great to reconnect with Joel, you can check out the Q&A below. And we’ve just recorded a conversation with Miguel Carrillo, which will be dropping next week. All in all, a busy stretch with a few good moments in the mix. See more below.

Unorthodox Blend

UBA140 - The art of connection
How does a brand move from strategy to forming a relationship with its audience? Russell delves into the more human side of Brand Strategy in today’s article - The Art of Connection.

People often relate to Brands in the same way as they would another person they cross paths with - subconsciously gathering information from tone, communication styles and content amongst many other things. So although the ground work is in strategic thinking, without thinking carefully around personality, and bringing a more human element to your brand, you risk a lack of authentic connection with your audience.

Link to Article

Friends

Friends - Joel Marlinarson
We met Joel in Zagreb, whilst we were at the Kiosk Branding conference where we were both speaking. We had some great conversations over dinner about his journey so far, building content for the likes of British Vogue and Chicken Shop Date, and his goal to live and work in NY. Joel breaks down the ‘why’ behind what’s viral and, most importantly, what’s coming next.

His talk was loaded with hot takes and insights, we really enjoyed it. Looking forward to hearing more from Joel and hopefully collaborating in the future.

Link to Q&A

Rosie Lee News

Rosie Lee Creative
Supporting our friends in the Nike North America Brand Creative Team in rolling out the retail toolkit for National Team kits, maintaining alignment with the global directive while elevating executions in key locations ahead of the World Cup.

Building on the core retail direction, we developed and enhanced designs across multiple immersive and shoppable spaces, showcasing six national team kits across seven stores.

Alongside design, we delivered 3D models and print-ready mechanical artwork to support production and build partners in bringing these environments to life.

Inspirations

The World’s First T. Rex Leather Handbag
Shame I was in Amsterdam last week and would like ahve seen this. Enfin Levé, a techwear label, unveiled the world’s first T. rex leather handbag, a one-off teal piece currently on display at the Art Zoo Museum beside a life-sized Tyrannosaurus rex until 11 May, after which it goes to auction with a starting price north of €575,000.

Voice of The AI Doc
The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist is a hand-made documentary from the Academy Award-winning teams behind Everything Everywhere All at Once and Navalny, following a father-to-be trying to make sense of where AI is actually heading. The film lands between doomerism and optimism apocaloptimism, as they frame it and the argument centres less on the technology itself than the infrastructure around it, international coordination on the scale of atomic frameworks, corporate transparency, an independent regulatory body, legal liability for AI products, mandatory disclosure of generative AI use in media.

Women in Print
Women in Print at the William Morris Gallery is the first exhibition to properly credit the people who actually built Liberty’s identity, tracing the contributions of designers like Althea McNish, Susan Collier, Sarah Campbell and Lucienne Day across over 100 works spanning garments, original designs, film and historic photographs

See more inspirations

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News from our friends

Nike Football Boots
Our friends over at Nike and Phaidon have produced a 240-page hardcover charting 55 years of Nike football boot history Tiempo, Mercurial, Total 90 and Phantom, with Nike nearly 500 archival images spanning prototypes, sketches and historic ads. We’ve been lucky enough to work on a few of these boot releases and campaigns over the years, from the early 2000s Premier League ball sponsorship, the Geo Merlin, the Vapor and currently deep in a few World Cup projects.

Total 90 knuckle-ball chaos, Mercurial silhouettes that defined entire eras. As good a nostalgia hit as it is a design reference.

Work with us

Moving into our 27th year its all about looking forward and taking the organisation to new places. If you think you might be a part of that future then get in touch and lets see where it goes!

Our podcast episode with Luca launched this week which we thoroughly enjoyed, reflecting on a career in design, from knocking on doors at iconic studios back in the day through to independent culture, cities and place-making.

Mark’s article on Sunday came from an insight from Wordle, plus it was good to see Jasper’s new book launch. All in all a satisfyingly busy short week. See more below.

Unorthodox Blend

UBA139 - Daily rituals and designed waiting
In a world obsessed with more, the smartest brands are designing less.

From daily rituals we take part in such as Wordle to sold-out product drops, this article explores how waiting and anticipation can create deeper value than constant availability ever could.

Link to Article

Conversations

UBC054 - Luca Ballarini
Luca Ballarini is a designer, editor, publisher and place-maker based in Turin. His career has moved across architecture, magazine publishing, studio practice and urban thinking, but what connects it all is a clear curiosity about how design shapes culture, experience and everyday life.

This was a conversation about how creative lives evolve, and how one discipline often leads unexpectedly into another. Luca reflected on the role magazine publishing played in shaping his thinking, not just visually, but intellectually - as a way of choosing, framing and taking responsibility for ideas.

Luca is warm and thoughtful with a very human way of talking about design, cities and culture which we loved.

Link to Conversation

Inspirations

Imogen Heap performs with herself
Imogen Heap returns to London for her first headline show in six years at the Roundhouse on 17 April, performing alongside her AI alter ego ai.mogen -- built entirely from her own vocal identity and musical footprint, described as a more lifelike Vocaloid, controlled entirely by Heap herself.

Dua Lipa curates the Literature Festival
Dua Lipa has been announced as curator of the Southbank Centre’s 2026 London Literature Festival, running 21 October to 1 November, as part of the venue’s 75th anniversary year -- programming the opening weekend and additional events in partnership with her Service95 Book Club.

The First iPhone Photos from the Moon
The Artemis II crew completed a successful lunar flyby this week, the farthest human spaceflight since Apollo 13, four astronauts travelling further from Earth than any human has ventured since 1972, including the first observation of the moon’s far side in decades. The first photos sent back were taken on an iPhone 17 Pro Max, a device carrying more computing power than the original NASA mission computers attracting millions of social media likes, the Earth and Moon from unusual angles, in high definition.

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News from our friends

The Unimportance of Form and Other Arguments
This new book collects Jasper Morrison's early writings from 1984 to 2002, edited by industrial designer Sina Sohrab and published together for the first time, essays, musings, autobiographical manifestos and notes for a novel that never materialised. Having worked with Jasper on a number of projects over the years, none of this surprises us: the voice in these pages is sharp, sceptical and occasionally very funny.

The central argument, that design relying on gratuitous novelty of form simply isn't enough, runs through everything he has built since.

Work with us

Moving into our 27th year its all about looking forward for us and taking the organisation to new places. We’re beavering away on some exciting plans that you’ll hear about very soon but If you think you might be a part of that future then get in touch and lets see where it goes…

While we’ve been doing that we haven’t slowed down our Unorthodox Blend work - Russell’s article on Brand Position, a Q&A with Ela (Kiosk) and editing our latest podcast with Luca (for next week) have been some of our highlights but you can find out more about what’s happened this week below…

Unorthodox Blend

UBA138 - Choosing Your Brand’s Position
Positioning isn’t about magically finding the answer, it’s about actually choosing your answer.

In our latest article, we explore how brands move from observing the marketplace to making deliberate, strategic choices about where they stand.

Without choosing a position, your brand risks drifting between possibilities - and often ends up shaped more by circumstance than design.

Link to Article

Friends

Friends - Ela Barić
We first met Ela when she reached out to us to talk at KIOSK branding conference earlier this year. After a few calls we were in. Speaking to her more it was clear that she has an abundance of drive, passion and her dedication to celebrate, support and amplify the local creative industry is impressive. We loved spending time with her, hearing her mission and seeing the resilience it takes to make it all come to life, bringing together an amazing mix of speakers, brands and audience.

Link to Q&A

Rosie Lee News

Rosie Lee Creative
It’s our 26th birthday & the team met in Amsterdam to celebrate. To mark the occasion we printed a crewneck for all of our team, which was also an opportunity for James to redesign the Rosie Lee logo.

The new logo keeps what worked from the previous version, adding bespoke letterforms and improved legibility. The line “Often advertised, seldom seen” comes from an old rave flyer, referencing things that were hyped but rarely delivered. We’ve reworked it as a nod to the projects we can’t talk about but are out in the world, experienced by people without our name attached.

The eye, now forming the “O”, started as part of a team merch workshop using abstract letterforms we created at the time.

Cultural Voices
In this episode, Leila invites Mark into an open conversation. They cover his early life growing up in Birmingham and how that shaped his independence, curiosity and sensitivity to culture.

They also explore the evolution of marketing, the role of cultural tribalism in shaping identity, and his approach to leadership, particularly how he navigates team dynamics, communication and different working styles within creative environments.

Inspirations

Mud, Sweat & Tears
Ben Rayner’s Mud, Sweat & Tears is a limited edition 58-page zine documenting the 2025 Nike Cross Nationals in Portland, Oregon, America’s premier high school cross country championship, shot entirely on film and built around a simple but quietly devastating premise: the real story isn’t on the podium. It’s in the several hundred athletes who converge on Portland knowing full well they won’t win.

Voice of the Street
Between 1980 and 1985, Keith Haring drew on blank black advertising panels inside New York City subway stations. Voice of the Street at Moco Museum London gathers those drawings together now, the space itself dressed in subway tiles and brickwork that puts you somewhere close to the right headspace. He could produce a complete image in seconds.

The Antwerp Six
London, 1986. Six unknown graduates from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp cram into a van and drive to the British Designer Show with no money, no infrastructure and no blueprint just the work. Within three days, Ann Demeulemeester, Marina Yee, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Bikkembergs, Dirk Van Saene and Walter Van Beirendonck are stocked at Barneys, Bergdorf and Liberty of London, launched into the media stratosphere as the Antwerp Six.

See more inspirations

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News from our friends

Ghostwrite marks a StockX decade
Ghostwrite marks a StockX decade with a figure by choosing a 400% figure to celebrate StockX's tenth anniversary, because StockX has always been about scale - taking something chaotic and emotionally irrational and making it legible, efficient and eventually enormous. When they launched in February 2016 with the audacious idea of applying stock market bid/ask mechanics to sneaker resale, they didn't just disrupt a market; they rewrote the underlying logic of how collector culture could operate. The rest followed: streetwear, watches, handbags, a catalogue that now makes the Nike Dunk colourway count look restrained.

The StockX "10" Ghost drops Tuesday 4/7 at 9am ET

Work with us

Moving into our 27th year its all about looking forward and taking the organisation to new places. If you think you might be a part of that future then get in touch and lets see where it goes!

As a part of this exercise we’re all heading over to Amsterdam with all our employees next week for a couple of days to connect and discuss Rosie Lee, Against time and Unorthodox Blend together. Last year everyone had a lovely time just being in each other’s presence - we go through such highs and lows together as a remote team that seeing each other in real life feels really meaningful in recent years.

But enough about our mid-20s (company age not our age), see below for more of our latest news.

UBA137 - Drinking from the same Creative Well
In today’s digital world, we can fall into echo chambers - similar opinions, inspiration, resources circulating through the same platforms.

When everyone draws from the same sources, convergence becomes inevitable. The most important part of any creative process sits upstream of the idea itself - in how many inputs you allow in, how varied they are, and how much friction you tolerate before smoothing everything into something presentable.

Originality now is about perspective, building perspective means widening the well before you draw from it.

Link to Article

Friends

Friends - Kish Kash
Kish suggested we jump on a call and we ended up talking for ages about the evolution of culture, the layers within layers that shape it, and how those layers build over time.

We talked about everything from British grit and creativity, to the complexities of modern connection - and then circled back to complete the Q&A, all while he casually unboxed his new AM95s that arrived mid-call, which felt perfectly on brand.

Anything he kindly says about us, we can say the same about him. Back in the day we’d see Kish at events, talks, pop-ups - always present, always supporting, always rooted in the community because he’s genuinely a part of it.

Link to Q&A

Inspirations

Beit Kotn / House of Beit
Beit Kotn is a free creative residence in Shoreditch, created by Egyptian-Canadian brand Kotn as a physical embodiment of its community-driven values. Sitting above Kotn’s London flagship, it offers complimentary stays for creatives from the Middle East and North Africa, rethinking brand hospitality as a form of cultural support and connection instead of a commercial transaction. Designed as a home from home for artists, writers, designers and thinkers passing through the city, it’s a space for rest, connection and conversation, rooted in the spirit of Arab hospitality and generosity - “My house is your house”.

I choose you - Forever
Pokémon has stepped into made-to-order wedding and engagement rings in collaboration with Japanese jeweller U-Treasure. With more than 30 base designs, customisable by metal (including platinum), gemstone and character motif, spanning multiple generations - Pikachu and Eevee alongside Greninja, Diancie and the Generation 9 starters.

SORAYAMA: Light, Transparency, Reflection -TOKYO-
The visionary Hajime Sorayama’s largest exhibition to date opens at Creative Museum Tokyo, a near 50-year survey organised around the three properties that have always defined his chrome bodies: the way light bends across them, the way they disappear into themselves, and the way they reflect what stands in front of them.

See more inspirations

If you have any inspirations that you’ve seen or made that you’d like featured on Unorthodox Blend, then please share them with us.

News from our friends

Mud, Sweat & Tears
Shout out to Ben Rayner for his Mud, Sweat & Tears - a limited edition 58-page zine documenting the 2025 Nike Cross Nationals in Portland, Oregon, America’s premier high school cross country championship. It is shot entirely on film and built around a simple premise: the real story isn’t on the podium. It’s in the several hundred athletes who converge on Portland knowing full well they won’t win.

OPEN CALL: MIDDLESBROUGH ART WEEK 2026
Middlesbrough Art Week runs from 24 September – 3 October 2026, transforming the town with exhibitions, events and artist-led activity across the festival’s ninth edition. Applications are now open for the North East Open Call a key group exhibition within the MAW26 programme, with site-responsive presentations across Middlesbrough for selected work.

The brief is deliberately absent, rather than responding to a curatorial concept, artists are invited to submit work that reflects their current practice. All media and disciplines welcome. Open to artists from or based in the North East.

Born in 2017 as an artist-led festival powered by The Auxiliary Project Space, MAW has grown into the region’s most significant platform for contemporary practice — committed, in its own words, to practising rather than preaching fair work and social justice.

Deadline: 29 Mar 26
Apply and find out more at middlesbroughartweek.co.uk

Talk with us

If you’re based in Amsterdam, reach out, we might have time to say hello next week. If you’re not in Amsterdam, reach out anyway - we’re always excited to talk with new people.

Anyway - more news from UB, RL and our friends below.

Unorthodox Blend

UBA136 - Visualising Your Marketplace
This week’s article from Russell, as part of our ongoing branding series, looks at the practical steps involved with brand strategy - in particular, Marketplace Analysis.

This stepping stone on the path to brand positioning, is crucial to get right. Rather than rely on instinct, marketplace analysis can reveal insights that will provide a much more solid grounding for your brand, when done well.

Link to Article

Conversations

UBC053 - Jo Taylor
Jo Taylor is a strategist and cultural operator working at the intersection of sport, fashion, culture and storytelling. Over a 17-year career at Nike, she helped shape how the brand connects performance with culture - from global campaigns and Olympic moments to pioneering work in women’s sport.

Now leading her own venture, Glow Inc, Jo continues that work by helping brands, institutions, and creatives rethink how sport can expand into new audiences.

There’s a clarity in how Jo approaches ideas: start with the future you want to create, define the space and then find the right partners to build it.

Link to Conversation

Rosie Lee News

Against Time
The Auxiliary is an artist-led cultural organisation that has grown significantly over the past decade, and we are currently working with them on a brand strategy project. Founded around ten years ago, the organisation has developed into one of the key creative platforms in the North East supporting artists and connecting local creative communities with national cultural networks.

The Auxiliary are exactly the kind of organisation we enjoy working with - artist-led, ambitious and deeply connected to their community, with values that strongly resonate with our own.

Inspirations

New Museum x OMA Expansion
One of my regular spots when I lived in New York, and somewhere I’m genuinely looking forward to getting back into later this year. The New Museum opens its OMA-designed expansion on this weekend.

The Museum of Edible Earth
One of the interesting new things on my radar, The Museum of Edible Earth opens at Somerset House on from Wednesday for its first UK showing, bringing over 600 samples of clay, chalk, volcanic rock and limestone from 44 countries organised around geophagy, the practice of eating earth for ritual, medicinal and culinary purposes.

Hockney’s digital Bayeux Tapestry at Serpentine
David Hockney’s first exhibition at Serpentine opens last week at Serpentine North, built around the London debut of A Year in Normandie, a 90-metre frieze stitched together from 100 iPad paintings capturing the changing seasons at his former studio in Normandy, inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry and conceived to open a dialogue with the surrounding nature of Kensington Gardens.

See more inspirations

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Work with us

Spring has definitely spring, which is the perfect time/mood to be getting on with new ideas and projects! Get in touch if you want to talk or could benefit from our help.

At Unorthodox Blend we’ve finished editing our conversation with Jo Taylor, ready for next weeks’ release. It will definitely be worth a listen for anyone working in fashion, sport, culture or any intersection - she has some great experiences and wisdom to share that we can all learn from.

Mark’s article about doubt was released on Sunday and we’ve continued to share a diverse range of inspirations - see below for this week’s summary.

UBA135 - If You Don’t Know Doubt
This week’s article, written by Mark, is all about the doubts, worries, sleepless nights and risks that are scattered throughout everyone’s career, and how they are the things that inch you closer to real success.

Knowing that you might get things wrong - being reactive, reflective and agile - these things are what really count. As Mark says “The ‘oh-shit’ moments still arrive. They always will.” It’s what you do with them that matters.

Link to Article

Friends

Friends - Paul Ricketts
This week’s Friends Q&A is with Designer Paul (Order) Ricketts. Paul worked at Rosie Lee previously on some of our most epic projects, and we’ve been following his journey ever since.

He was always fun and thoughtful to work with, and we have a lot of memorable moments aside from the work - the “studio sessions” - making sure Paul, James and Boyce were playing deep cuts while we jammed, with long conversations running alongside.

Paul brings a great mix of methodical thinking and cultural references which elevates his ideas and means they resonate more deeply, which is key to so much of the work we do.

And yes yes yes, we still continue to listen to his mixes on the @theyesness.

Link to Q&A

Inspirations

“No one can run a marathon for you”
Runner’s World put Harry Styles on its Spring cover, photographed by Laura Jane Coulson and written by Sophie Heawood, and it is one of the more quietly radical editorial decisions a mainstream magazine has made in a while, not because Styles is an unusual choice for a running magazine (he ran Berlin in 2:59:13 and Tokyo in 3:24, which are genuinely serious times) but because they chose to treat the cover story as something other than a celebrity fitness piece. Instead they put him in conversation with Haruki Murakami, author of What I Talk About When I Talk About Running and finisher of more than 25 marathons, and let the two of them talk about discipline, solitude and what sustained physical effort does to the interior life.

Relooted
A 2018 report commissioned by Emmanuel Macron estimated that more than 90% of Africa’s material cultural heritage sits outside the continent, in the glass cases and climate-controlled storage of Western institutions that acquired most of it during the 19th and 20th centuries, when European armies moved through Africa and helped themselves.

Marcel Duchamp Retrospective
The MoMA is staging the first North American Duchamp retrospective in 53 years - Fountain, The Bicycle Wheel, Nude Descending a Staircase, The Box in a Valise, his portable museum of miniature reproductions of his own life’s work.

See more inspirations

If you have any inspirations that you’ve seen or made that you’d like featured on Unorthodox Blend, then please share them with us.

News from our friends

The Thinking Man - 39 Years of Jasper Morrison and Cappellini
We’ve worked with Jasper and his studio on various projects over the years, and having been lucky enough to visit the studio many times (it helps that it was just a few minutes walk from our office). There’s something fascinating about seeing his practice laid out in full that makes the methodology even clearer: the commitment to essentiality, to doing less and meaning more, has never wavered across nearly four decades.

Curated by Jasper and Cappellini together, the installation wraps the furniture in a refined green palette, a dialogue with the beige tones that have always defined his aesthetic language and the effect is less a showcase than an argument: that rigour and restraint, held consistently enough, become their own kind of radicalism.

Talk with us

Come and say hi! Get in touch if you want your work featured in inspirations, or want to feature in our Q&A or Conversations. Also we’re always open to ideas that won’t fit inside our existing structure so hit the button if you have something to talk with us about!

Russell’s article from Sunday discussed the need to win with a few rather than become just another message for the many, and mark has shared a LOT of inspirations this week too.

Lots of other news and inspirations below so dive right in!

Unorthodox Blend

UBA134 - Your Brand is Not for Everyone
“Your Brand is Not for Everyone” is the eighth piece written by Russell, in a season of reflections on branding as part of the ongoing evolution of Against Time and an open share of the thinking behind our work.

This article looks at a common trap Brand’s can fall into - assuming their audience is broad, and their idea has universal appeal. Although there are some positives to thinking in this way, overall it can create a sense of safety that costs you any focus, definition or depth

Link to Article

Conversations

UBC052 - Mike Cherman
Mike Cherman is a New York-born creative who built Chinatown Market (now Market Studios) into one of the most recognisable streetwear brands of the last decade. Known for operating at the speed of culture, he built a reputation on instinct, irreverence and an ability to turn moments into product almost instantly. From bootleg graphics that blurred legal lines to licensed collaborations that followed, his journey has included viral success, cease-and-desists, a $30m investment and rapid scale.

In this honest and open conversation, we explored the mechanics behind that speed and what it costs. Mike reflected on building a brand by reacting in real time, on breaking rules before asking permission, and on how growth can completely change the game.

Link to Conversation

Rosie Lee News

SP26 ACG
As part of the global relaunch of the ACG brand Nike asked Rosie Lee Creative to help with elevate designs beyond their standard retail directive for 11 key US stores.

Adapting brand assets, spatial designs and adding creative flourishes we enhanced the campaigns in-store designs to have real impact at this seminal moment for the outdoor brand. Providing initial sketches for early designs to final polished high fidelity renders for leadership approval across multiple touch points.

As well as pinnacle and elevated designs we delivered artwork files and 3D models for production partners across the country to help expedite the physical build of elements.

News from our friends

The infamous "Swoosh Frank Ocean”
A Frank Ocean bootleg, a cease-and-desist letter, and “ask for forgiveness, not for permission” we sat down with Mike Cherman last week to revisit one of streetwear’s great origin stories.

When Frank Ocean released Blonde in 2016 and buried a track called “Nikes” inside it, Mike noticed something sitting unclaimed: that the cultural weight of that song hadn’t been picked up yet, and that a T-shirt with Frank’s name above and below the Swoosh would say something true about the moment that neither brand was saying themselves.

He made the shirt in a few hours, showed up to ComplexCon with a free booth, watched it sell faster than anything in the room, put swooshfrankocean.com live that night, woke up to $50,000 in sales in under 24 hours and then returned every penny six hours later when Frank Ocean’s legal team arrived with a cease-and-desist.

Devon Turnbull’s Listening Room
with Charlie Dark is bringing the History with him

Devon Turnbull’s Listening Room at 180 Studios is back this year with a programme of intimate, high-fidelity events that treat music not as backdrop or atmosphere but as the entire point and the first two dates, both led by our good friend Charlie Dark, are worth knowing about early, you might have missed the first tho.

On 9 March, Charlie presents Blacktronika Pt. 2, a deep listening session that continues the story of a landmark club night built around Black electronic music, tracing lineage, community and dancefloor culture through the kind of careful, attentive listening that most venues actively discourage. Then on 13 April, Jazz Dance moves through jazz-funk, soul, disco and house, deep cuts alongside dancefloor anthems, all of it heard seated, in a room designed to make you notice things you’d otherwise miss.

Inspirations

Peckham ‘Palais’
The Peckham Palais building has been standing on Peckham High Street since 1867, surviving successive reinventions as a Jones and Higgins department store, a dance hall, a nightclub and finally a long stretch of dereliction that put it on London’s most endangered Victorian structures list. That was until Night Group the team behind Night Tales and Netil360 spent years restoring 11,000 square feet of neo-Renaissance architecture into a 500-capacity basement club powered by a custom five-way Funktion-One system, with a cocktail bar upstairs called The Ballroom.

Ode to The Abstract
All Q-Tip productions mixtape podcast: 42 tracks produced by Q-Tip for other artists + non-album Tribe cuts.

The Sauna is the new night out
Something has been shifting in British nightlife for a while now, and it has nothing to do with clubs or cocktail bars. Research suggests that roughly 43 per cent of 18 to 34-year-olds in the UK have given up drinking entirely, and the spaces filling that gap are not what anyone predicted: railway arches, Hackney car parks, repurposed industrial units, all of them warm, communal and conspicuously alcohol-optional.

See more inspirations

If you have any inspirations that you’d like featured on UB, then please share them with us.

Work with us

We’re always looking to meet new and interesting* people so get in touch (and by interesting people, we pretty much mean all of you). We’re happy to discuss opportunities to appear on our Conversations podcast or to be featured in our Friends Q&A.

We reconnected with Josh in New York for his Q&A, which was lovely, and it has been enjoyable looking back on some of those New York memories.

Oh and happy Pokémon Day everyone!

More highlights below.

Unorthodox Blend

UBA133 - Your feelings don’t care about your facts
In creative reviews and strategy sessions someone might sense that an idea just doesn’t feel right, yet it’s still rare to hear someone admit it without a logical rationale.

Mark (our creative director) is dyslexic and in the creative world it is common to work with neurodiverse teams, so he understands instinct for what it is: fast pattern recognition built from experience, emotional depth and cultural exposure over time, not a vague vibe to apologise for.

What really matters is how we can hold both data and feeling without turning it into a fight, which is exactly what Mark and Russell were digging into in Zagreb a couple of weeks ago, and something mark feels very passionate about.

Read The Article

Friends

Friends - Josh Mock
Josh is super chilled, driven by his love for community and is big-hearted to the core. A photographer with a top eye, he captures the soul and energy of Uptown and beyond - the vibes, the people and the moments that matter. We met through the running crew network and we clicked straight away - he welcomed us at runs, marathons and events.

Josh is a co-founder of We Run Uptown, a community built to support Washington Heights, Inwood and Harlem through running. They’re all about healthier lifestyles, personal goals and bringing brilliant people together through movement in the city.

Grounded, observant, fast and always giving back - check out Josh’s Q&A

Link to Q&A

Inspirations

Boris Acket x Fred Again
Fred Again brought the USB002 tour to the Great Hall and stacked the stage with pillars of UK music: JME, D Double E, Underworld, Mike Skinner, plus Romy, Berwyn and Ezra Collective. One of those nights you could feel standing on the shoulders of what came before.

Trackie McLeod’s Pub at Aviva Studios
Glasgow artist Trackie McLeod has built a fully functioning pub from scratch at Factory International’s Aviva Studios in Manchester last week. UTOPIA is a working boozer where punters can sink a beer, throw darts at Thatcher or Trump and explore mixed-media artworks.

Projecting British Design
A new book catalogues both the grand and inconspicuous icons of British design. Lemon squeezers, prosthetic dentures, beanbags - Projecting British Design makes readers reconsider the origins of objects we know so well.

See more inspirations

If you have any inspirations that you’d like featured on UB, then please share them with us.

News from our friends

LABRUM London Fashion Week
It’s always good to see friends gaining momentum at Foday’s new collection last weekend. LABRUM presented AW26 THREADS OF OSMOSIS at London Fashion Week, the second chapter in the brand’s trilogy - an exploration of textile as a living archive of migration, memory and exchange.

Through textile, culture does not remain pure, it adapts, absorbs and endures. LABRUM rejects cultural purity and instead frames hybridity as historical truth.

Rocky’s Matcha Oscar Tuazon's Circle House

Oscar Tuazon’s Circle House (2026) extends a practice that has consistently tested the thresholds between sculpture, architecture and lived environment. This work recalls the spatial logic of traditional Japanese tea houses, whose architecture is inseparable from ritual, temporality and philosophical orientation. Commissioned by Rocky’s matcha and activated through traditional Japanese tea ceremonies, the installation is both artwork and functional environment. Circle House (2026) debuts Tuesday 24 February 2026 at Morán Morán and will remain on view during regular gallery hours.

Work with us

We’re looking for new people to contribute to Unorthodox Blend by sharing inspirations with us (it can be your own project!) or joining us on our podcast. Get in touch if you feel like you might have something to say.

We have some very exciting conversations lined for the next few weeks with Mike, Jo and Luca, which we’ll share more details on soon. We’re also hoping to reach out to some of our new friends from Kiosk once the dust settles.

From a Rosie Lee perspective, it has been great to finally share some of what we’ve been shaping with Alix on her new Strong Girls & Deadlift Club projects, and behind the scenes we’re deep into a bunch of projects we’l hopefully be able to share with you later in the year!

More of what we’ve been up to below.

Unorthodox Blend

UBA132 - RC - The Role of Storytelling
In our ongoing series of articles on Branding, this week Russell looks at Storytelling - The thread that weaves through a brand, and unites the strategy and logic with real life touchpoints and experiences.

The power of storytelling is something we have always carried into our projects, and when a brand masters this it can take on a life of its own.

“A good brand story isn’t something to protect and control, but something to inhabit and invite others into.”

Link to Article

Conversations

UBC051 - Lars Hemming Jørgensen
Lars is an international entrepreneur and business leader spanning agency, media and investment roles across London, New York and Copenhagen.

He has founded and led companies, held senior global positions at Vice Media, and today works across a portfolio of ventures including Alba Racing, KXNGS amongst others.

Our conversation with Lars moves across decades, cities and industries, but keeps circling the same themes: how culture evolves, how organisations struggle with change and we talk about Vice as a cultural force.

We loved this conversation because Lars embodies something we recognise in many of the people we’re drawn to: a refusal to follow a linear path, paired with a strong internal compass about what matters.

His story is a beautiful blend of ambition and humility - the drive to build things, balanced by intuition and a genuine openness.

Link to Conversation

Rosie Lee News

Strong Girls Branding
Rosie Lee Creative

Revealing a new visual identity for Strong Girls. We have a history of working with Alix on various brands, with Strong Girls being the culmination of lots of work behind-the-scenes.

The visual identity is based around a bold typography choice that will be overlaid on brand photography, with a vibrant colour palette. Always a pleasure to work with Alix and we loved injecting energy and a contemporary style into this new Identity.

News from our friends

GhostWrite Museum
Check out the new ghost installation and some never-seen-before 100%, 400%, and 1000% ghosts. There’s also a dedicated breaker zone for anyone that wants to rip on-site. Shop for new products and limited-edition ghostwrite merchandise in-store.

GhostWrite Museum
Signal Shops, 821 Traction Avenue. Los Angeles, CA 90013
Museum Hours: Thursday–Sunday 11am–6pm

Inspirations

A Scent-Memory Machine
MIT Media Lab has developed a prototype that uses generative AI to interpret and distil the contents of a photograph into a fragrance. The Anemoia Device, described as a “scent-memory machine”, is structured in three vertical parts. You place an analogue photograph at the top. An AI-powered system in the middle analyses the image and lets you shape a prompt using three physical dials.

Lacoste opens its first permanent Café in Paris
Lacoste has opened its first permanent café in Paris, just steps from its flagship, following the Monaco pop-up. Developed with the Giraudi Group, Café Lacoste isn’t just a hospitality play, it’s a new expression of the brand’s art de vivre, sitting at the crossroads of style, sport and hospitality.

Maison Margiela makes archival files public
Maison Margiela just made its archival files public for the first time. Starting this week, the internal Dropbox folder where the maison’s team uploads images, projects, and press releases will be open to the public. Inside, you’ll find images, working documents, press releases, and project timelines tracing the journey from concept to exhibition.

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If you have any inspirations that you’d like featured on UB, then please share them with us.

Work with us

When we started our Conversations podcast, we mostly focussed on our existing network of friends and collaborators but more recently people have been reaching out to get involved. Our default stance is ‘yes’ - so maybe the next person we talk with could be you! Hit the button and get in touch if you think that might be exciting (and maybe scary too but you know that’s the intersection where the magic happens!)

Meanwhile, we’ve enjoyed seeing our Nike ACG work rolling out across Nike North America stores, playing a small part in the global relaunch. This week we released our latest Q&A with Tom who has been shooting some of the best retail, activations and pop-ups globally - the Q&A sessions gave real insight into his process. See below for more of what we’ve been up to this week.

Unorthodox Blend

UBA131 - The Beginners Mind
In Mark’s latest article he reflects on how adopting a beginner’s mindset (one that stays curious, flexible and open to possibility) keeps creative work alive and prevents habitual thinking from taking over. Drawing on Zen philosophy and insights from Rick Rubin, Fleming argues that declaring yourself an expert too soon quietly stops us learning, whereas staying open to new perspectives allows us to listen more closely, take bigger risks and avoid falling into rigid patterns.

He illustrates this through personal experience, from early days at Rosie Lee to mentoring younger creatives, noting that experience matters but can harden thinking if it becomes a shield against uncertainty. The piece ends with a reminder that great work emerges when curiosity is prioritised over certainty, and that remaining willing to change your mind keeps both individuals and brands alert to what’s next.

Link to Article

Friends

Friends - Tom Morgan
We enjoy seeing Tom travelling the world shooting retail, activations and pop-ups, for brands and some of the projects we’ve worked on. Tom and the core team at TDM.Space blend technical precision with design sensibility. With years of experience capturing branded environments, they understand what makes a space worth remembering, capturing the essence of the work - probably whilst the paint is still drying and the space is about to open.

Trust us, it’s not easy capturing these projects on a very tight deadline and sharing them back so they can go to press. Him and the team are calm in the chaos of all this, an amazing collaborator to work with.

Check out this week’s Q&A with Tom, about the industry, his creative process and what being Unorthodox means to him.

Link to Q&A

Rosie Lee News

Kiosk Conference in Zagreb
Rosie Lee Group

We wanted to offer a big thank you to Ela Barić and the Kiosk Conference team.

Daniel Bilić from Yammat FM hosted the conference and the conversations rolled late into the night at Peti Kupe after the day conference was finished. Leslie David shared a line that stuck: “In branding, like dating, the goal is not to impress. It’s to connect.” She has spent fifteen years building identities in Paris for brands like Glossier, and you can see her philosophy in the work.

It was great to catch up with Erik Herrström and Kara Griffin Cushman from STUDIO HERRSTRÖM. From Spotify and Beats by Dre, to Red Bull Music and Sony, their THE ECHO™ process, rooted in cultural insight, clearly drives the work.

Freddie Öst from SNASK brought energy and honesty: “Data is built on numbers. Emotions are not built on numbers. And brands are built on emotions.”

Dinner chats with Joel Marlinarson, aka Coldest Creative, covered building content for British Vogue and Chicken Shop Date and setting his sights on New York. Even a taxi ride with Paul Arregui from CUPRA turned into a conversation about ambition, disruption and brand storytelling.

Kiosk was a strong reminder that the real value of events goes beyond the stage, the conversations around events, and the new friends we make can add so much to a conference experience.

Bring on Kiosk 2027!

Inspirations

Carpenters Workshop Gallery presents Rust Never Sleeps
There is something compelling about designers who push beyond their original discipline and enter new design territories. The results often feel unexpectedly fresh - offering perspectives that traditional interior design rarely reaches. Rick Owens’ furniture practice proves exactly that. Rooted in Brutalist references, his pieces merge animal bones, restrained silhouettes, and refined materiality, blurring the line between sculpture and function.

Korg Phase8
Korg has unveiled their crazy looking Phase8 synthesizer after years of development by legendary engineer Tatsuya Takahashi. Available in April 2026, it’s highly experimental but production-ready.

Tate Britain’s The 90s
One of the exhibitions we’re most looking forward to in 2026 is Tate Britain’s The 90s. The show explores how subculture, rebellion, and experimentation grew in the 1990s, featuring era-defining work spanning art, photography, fashion design, and pop culture.

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News from our friends

Victor Solomon and Nike Celebrate LA
Nike’s latest link-up with LA-based artist Victor Solomon is inspired by his formative time in the trenches of Los Angeles’ Diamond District, learning the craft that moulded his jewellery practice.

Known for designing the NBA’s 75th Anniversary trophies, Solomon approaches sport as sculpture, shaped by growing up in Boston where basketball was the accessible outlet. The Trophies Collection, timed for All-Star Weekend, channels LA’s City of Champions energy across three silhouettes in a tight white, black, and gold palette.

eBay Live x ghostwrite Museum
Also in LA, you can join our friends ghostwrite at their museum with eBay live for an All-Star roster of live shopping, food and drinks celebrating collectors and the best in culture.

Food and drinks are available from 11am-3pm. And from 12-2pm, you can check out some of the most exciting sellers eBay Live has to offer, along with a first-look unboxing of the upcoming ghostwrite x NBA 2025-26 Season Blind Box.

See link.

Work with us

A week on from our talk at Kiosk and we’d be delighted to speak at more events if you’ll have us, so reach out if you’re looking for speakers who actually have something to say. We’ll share more about the Kiosk experience on our platforms over the coming weeks, and hopefully some of the wonderful people we met on the trip will be joining us soon on the podcast to continue conversations.

Our 50th podcast released this week with Drieke, which we are really pleased with. Our expectations were high and Drieke didn‘t disappoint! We also recorded our next podcast, kicked off some branding work with The Auxilliary, while Alix Glow’s Strong Girls platform continues to grow with our evolved branding.
See more below.

Unorthodox Blend

UBA130 - How Beliefs Shape Brands
In his continuing series about Brands and Strategy, Russell’s article today is all about “How beliefs shape brands.”

A brand’s beliefs doesn’t always get looked at during strategy work - people focus on purpose and values - but we find that looking at this element gives us and our client a much deeper, more meaningful understanding of who they are and the decisions they need to make.

Link to Article

Conversations

UBC050 - Drieke Leenknegt
For our 50th conversation, we wanted to speak to someone who embodies much of what our Unorthodox Blend project stands for - honesty, reflection, creativity and courage. It felt a fitting choice to speak with Drieke Leenknegt, one of our most inspirational and respected collaborators.

Drieke is one of those rare leaders - her approach to brands, culture and team building is grounded in a deep commitment to truth. Throughout her career she consistently brings presence, care and conviction to everything she does.

A big thank you goes out to Drieke for joining us on our 50th podcast episode. When we started we weren’t sure we would get this far but hopefully you’ve learned as much as we have over the last two years of conversations, and will continue to join us as we speak to more wonderful people.

Link to Conversation

Inspirations

An outsized, light-up version of the iconic Bic Cristal Pen
Love a clever rework of an icon, Mario Paroli and Italian brand Seletti have unveiled an outsized, light-up version of the iconic Bic Cristal ball-point pen at Maison&Objet.

75 years of the Cristal
It all starts with a pen, and in this case, one that’s been quietly everywhere. So, in 2025, BIC marks 75 years of the Cristal, a piece of industrial design so omnipresent it’s easy to forget how radical it once was. Classrooms, offices, studios, polling stations, hotel rooms, pockets.

London Nightlife Taskforce publishes final Report
As someone inspired by culture, country, community, tribes, scenes been fortunate enough to be in London most of my adult life, bouncing around London, enjoying and experiencing all it had to offer, meeting amazing people, clubs etc, and was the core catalyst to my creative expression working with DJs and club nights leading to forming Rosie Lee.

Just under a year ago, Sadiq Khan appointed an independent Nightlife Taskforce to look at London’s late-night culture. Last week, they published their final report.

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Work with us

We are PUMPED after our talk at Kiosk, we’d be delighted to speak at more events if you’ll have us. We’ll be sharing more about Kiosk on our platforms and hopefully some of the people we met on our trip will be joining us soon on our podcast!

We are very excited to be speaking at Kiosk Conference next week, and so have been preparing for our talk and we caught up Jenny on our Friends Q&A. Mark’s article was released on Sunday about building your future (with or without LEGO) and is linked below. Aside from that our Rosie Lee work continues to be be busy as we move into February and we’re hoping for a strong year over there and over here.

Read more updates below.

Unorthodox Blend

UBA129 - Build What You Believe In
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
Alan Kay

Mark’s latest article is all about building your own path, taking charge of your future, rather than waiting for someone to open the doors for you. Your career, success - it’s an endurance race not a sprint. By staying in your lane, and focusing on the choices that align with your own beliefs and goals, you’ll be building the future that’s right for you.

Link to Article

Friends

Friends - Jenny Scott
We worked with Jenny, back in the day and have loved seeing her go on to become an ambassador for working women, mothers and all things community.

We caught up with her this week to chat about the pivotal moments in her journey, how she overcomes challenges and where she finds inspiration.

Chatting all things creative, culture and connection - check out founder of Mothers Meetings Jenny Scott, on our Q&A below.

Link to Q&A

Rosie Lee News

Kiosk Conference in Zagreb
Rosie Lee Group

Next weekend Russell and Mark are presenting their latest talk on branding at Kiosk Conference in Zagreb.

The talk is entitled “Thriving on Tension: Brand Strategy for a Restless World” and pulls on the years of experience working strategically with global brands that shape culture, tell stories and build communities.

We’re really looking forward to it, and are keen to take in some of the other talks on the lineup too.

Inspirations

Luke Jerram suspends the Sun above Bristol Swimming Pool
HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3 at Cooper Hewitt runs daily and stays active for the full duration of the exhibition. The room shifts between live operation and curated playback, giving it a rhythm rather than a fixed script. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays the system is operated live by Devon Turnbull alongside invited music collectors, archivists, audiophiles and musicians from New York and further afield.

Louis Vuitton Expands into Architecture and Hospitality
Audeum posits that our relationship with sound, rhythm and beats goes back to the foundations of culture, youth culture and community across the world and this museum treats listening as something central, not secondary.

Pharrell Williams unveils Drophaus
Pharrell Williams, creative director of Louis Vuitton’s menswear, revealed a ‘timeless future living concept’ during his A/W 2026 runway show in Paris. Presented at a specially constructed space next to Fondation Louis Vuitton, Drophaus is a collaboration with Shinji Hamauzu’s Tokyo-based Not a Hotel.

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News from our friends

Strong Girls
Where strength meets community.
It’s more than just a lift.
Give them a follow, more to come soon

Work with us

Now that Kiosk is finally here, we are 100% confident that we’ll want to do more talks afterwards and get out there to more people. If you feel like we can add value through a speaking event, interview, commentary articles or internal events then ge in touch.

It feels like the industry is coming alive again - that’s certainly how it feels to us anyway. There are a lot of new and old friends doing interesting things and aligning on new philosophies of work - lots of discussion happening about agility, hunter-gatherer culture and also about passion and drive.

If the rest of 2026 can feel like January has then we could be onto something!
Check out the rest of our highlights below.

Unorthodox Blend

UBA128 - Know Your Context
“Know Your Context” is the next article in our branding series, from Russell, exploring why doing the groundwork to understand a brand’s context is so important.

Russell explains the layered and intentional process he goes through at the beginning of his work with any brand and why that matters.

“Context doesn’t just sit on the sidelines of strategy, it needs to take place at the start of our work and ultimately shapes and colours every part of it.”

Link to Article

Conversations

UBC049 - Wei Kan
Wei Kan is a strategist and brand advisor with a rare ability to bring clarity to complexity. Having spent years working across Asia - particularly within the shifting cultural and commercial landscapes of China - he’s seen firsthand how fast things move and how fragile so many assumptions can be.

We’ve known Wei for some time now. Our first collaboration was over a decade ago, on a project that involved cross-cultural complexity, time zone navigation and more moving parts than we’d care to count. Even then, it was clear he had that rare ability: to stay calm, see clearly and bring order.

Please take a listen to our latest Unorthodox Blend Conversation, with Wei Kan, on Substack, and other podcast platforms, now.

Link to Conversation

Rosie Lee News

Jordan Brand - Coldest in the Game
Rosie Lee Creative
For Coldest in the Game, we partnered with the Jordan Greater China team to develop a spatial retail concept for their Winter collection.

While the Global campaign - fronted by Zeb Powell and anchored by an icy truck visual - was already in motion, our role was to translate the core idea into a locally resonant retail experience rooted in Chinese culture and talent.

Frozen product drawers, iced-out finishes, abstract cooling elements and blue lighting reinforce the idea of cold as both a physical and cultural statement.

In Shanghai an oversized, abstracted fridge acted as the anchor with the hero jacket kept on ice, flanked by a photo gallery of Jackson Wang and supported by key head-to-toe mannequin looks on icy plinths.

Inspirations

Bandit Chicago Flagship
The Bandit Chicago Flagship is designed as a true third space where the local and global running community can connect and cultivate.

Puma Studios
The new PUMA Studio LA as a flexible, culture-focused atelier that houses STUDIO48 with advanced prototyping tools, promoting creative overlap and collaboration, with a sculptural wooden stair links the social and design floors.

Malbon Golf LA Boutique
Los Angeles studio 22RE has designed a store interior for lifestyle brand Malbon Golf on Melrose Place, featuring heavy use of cherry wood and subtle nods to the sport. The 1,800-square-foot flagship draws references from LA’s Art Deco and modernism heritage.

“Retail is actually our origin story,” said Aaron Heiser, CEO of Malbon. “It started as a community, became a brand, and then became a business. Everything we do is about inviting disparate groups into one community.”

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News from our friends

Barbour x Feng Chen Wang
Nice to see two of our friends collaboratin, for the upcoming Lunar New Year, the Year of the Horse, Barbour has joined forces with London-based Chinese designer Feng Chen Wang for a collaborative collection.

The collaboration reimagines Barbour’s iconic silhouettes through the lens of ancient folklore and Feng’s emotionally charged design language. A focused colour palette reflects good fortune and growth, marking a meeting point between British countryside roots and Eastern mysticism.

Anchored in both brands’ mutual appreciation for authenticity, cultural storytelling, and timeless craftsmanship. When heritage meets heritage, the conversation gets interesting.

Work with us

Don’t be a stranger. Get in touch. Especially if you’re based in Croatia… we’re heading out there in a couple of weeks to speak at Kiosk Conference and would be very happy to meet some new people!

We’ve edited our next podcast episode so keep an eye to for that next week, and we also recorded our 50th with someone very special to us! We’ll keep details under wraps but would definitely recommend listening to that one for some words of wisdom for brands of all stages, shapes and sizes.

Behind the scenes while we finish up a few projects from 2025 we’re excited about getting stuck into our 2026 projects and sharing more details with you when the time is right.

Check out below for our latest news on UB.

Unorthodox Blend

UBA127 - Emotional Contagion
Emotional contagion is how brands are felt before they’re understood. Through our senses, environments shape emotion at a subconscious level, long before logic or language kick in.

In Mark’s latest Unorthodox Blend article, he explores how emotional contagion influences brand experience and why it matters.

hit the button to read the whole article.

Link to Article

Friends

Friends - Suzette Tsang
“Whether it’s something lovingly made or brainstorming wild ideas, this process fuels me, it’s all about being creative, curious, imaginative and having fun.”

Suzette Tsang kicks us off with a vibrant and energetic start to our Friends series in 2026. Suzette’s Q&A takes us on her journey across different countries, where she describes her working style as a mix of instinctual responses and a laser focus on the details. She reminds us of the benefits of going outside of our comfort zones, to truly learn about ourselves once we’re thrown into the deep end. With insights into the creative industry and inspirations taken from nature and connection, we think this is a perfect Q&A to kick off the year.

Link to Q&A

Rosie Lee News

PNAQL Branding
Against Time

PNAQL is on a mission to reimagine the connection between artists and fans, redefining value in the creative economy. They asked Against Time to help shape the foundations of a brand that could embody this ambition - bold, collaborative and future facing.

Our design process was collaborative and exploratory, beginning with sketches and visual experiments to capture form, feeling and direction. The resulting identity centres on a flexible symbol that can stand alone or integrate with typography, reflecting the evolving relationship between artists and fans.

Inspirations

HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3,
HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3 at Cooper Hewitt runs daily and stays active for the full duration of the exhibition. The room shifts between live operation and curated playback, giving it a rhythm rather than a fixed script. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays the system is operated live by Devon Turnbull alongside invited music collectors, archivists, audiophiles and musicians from New York and further afield.

Audeum
Audeum posits that our relationship with sound, rhythm and beats goes back to the foundations of culture, youth culture and community across the world and this museum treats listening as something central, not secondary.

NTS In Focus
From Stevie Wonder’s very first hit as barely a teenager – the energetic, improvised “Fingertips (Part. 2)” to his classic run in the mid-70s, winning three Best Album Grammys in almost as many years, to his status today as a living giant of popular music, there is perhaps no better ambassador for the life-changing joy of music alive today.

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News from our friends

Charlie Dark on Blacktronica (at The Listening Room, 180 Studios)
DJ, cultural mentor and resident host Charlie returns to Turnbull’s Listening Room at 180 Studios with Blacktronica, which revives Charlie’s legendary ICA club night - a celebration of Black electronic pioneers connecting past, present and future through sound.

Work with us

We’re busy, its true, but never too busy to meet and chat with like-minded (or not so like-minded) people. If you want to talk, pick our brains, get some advice or be featured on our Substack then hit the green button.

And starting off 2026 we snuck in our first recording of the year with Wei Kan, an OG Air Max Day collaborator who we’ve always enjoyed working with. He is a man with a wealth of experience and insight but also has a calm presence which is a joy to be around.

It has been great to see Colosso launch in Brighton (Melbourne). We’ve supported them for some time now and this time they asked us to design one of their new padel court sites…and in 2026 we’re continuing our campaign to get Cale to join us on our podcast so watch this space!

It feels like this year could be a big one for us and a lot of our friends - we’ll share all we can along the way while we’re getting back onto writing articles, recording conversations and sharing inspirations throughout 2026.

Unorthodox Blend

UBA126 - Our 25th Year of Making Things Up
As the year came to a close, it’s a common time for reflection. But this happens to be our 25th year, making this moment feel even more important.

This year, on Unorthodox Blend, we have produced 24 conversations, 50 articles, 25 Q&As, 375 (and counting) inspirations and 50 newsletters - that feels quite an achievement given it sits alongside the actual running of Rosie Lee Group, Rosie Lee Creative and Against Time

Common themes have run throughout our content on Substack this year and in today’s article, Russell looks at these in more depth and reflects on what 2025 has offered up for us at Rosie Lee Group.

Link to Article

Conversations

UBC048 - Jacquill G. Basdew
In this week’s Unorthodox Blend Conversation, we speak with Jacquill G. Basdew is a creative director, researcher and brand thinker whose work sits at the intersection of identity, memory and self-authorship.

This conversation was a quiet and thoughtful one, and well timed at the end of a pivotal year for all of us, as Jacquill was fresh from launching Living+

Some people create for attention, while others create to understand. Jacquill’s work feels much more like the latter - less about the show and more about the process, and if you’re prepared to join him for the journey you’ll learn and grow along the way.

Link to Conversation

Rosie Lee News

Colosso - Melbourne Brighton Padel Club
Rosie Lee Creative
Colosso asked us to design their new padel court site in Brighton, Melbourne, Australia. Our role included space zoning, consumer flow, signage and interior design, shaping the space into a cohesive and characterful environment.

The aim was to create an environment that felt easy to navigate and welcoming from the moment you stepped inside, ensuring there was a seamless flow between the spaces.

This project builds on our ongoing partnership with the team. Our spatial design succeeded in producing multi-functional and practical concepts, incorporating the essence of the Colosso brand, whilst building a sense of community.

Inspirations

Escaping Babylon
Escaping Babylon sounds less like a music book and more like a long careful act of documentation. It’s clearly Jessie Bernard’s (@marginaleras) life’s work, but it also holds the stories of countless people who built, lived and sustained Black British culture over decades.

Patta Foundation
De La Soul’s press tour to promote new album ‘Cabin In The Sky’, comes with a steady stream of clips from the many many radio shows Pos and Maseo have guested on to talk about the process of making the album, Dave’s spiritual presence and stories from early in their career.

VS-01 Bluetooth Vertical Turntable
The VS-01 Vertical Turntable rethinks how music lives in space, especially at a moment when vinyl releases are becoming more considered and collectible again. By turning the record upright, it shifts the turntable from background equipment to a visual centrepiece, treating sound as something you see as well as hear.

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Work with us

In our first week back in 2026 we’re already looking forward to new conversations, new projects and whatever life, culture and clients throw our way.

If you’ve never spoken with us and feel like we could share a part of our journey then please do get in touch. We’re always happy to hear new voices and meet new people.

If you’ve listened to any of our podcast episodes, or met with us you’ll know we are open about some of the tough times our company has faced over the last 7-8 years. At the start of the year we knuckled down, set our intentions for the year and have been fortunate enough to see much of what we wanted to achieve come true. Some as a result of hard work, some as a result of luck and some as a way of the universe looking out for us.

Unorthodox Blend has been one of our favourite things to be working on this year - we’ve met so many amazing people and been able to enjoy a variety of different thoughts and conversations. Sunday’s upcoming article reflects on some of the themes we’ve noticed in 2025 so you can shortcut if you don’t have so much time!

Our final weekly highlights email of the year…if we don’t see you before 2026 have a good one. Otherwise, back to business…

This week we enjoyed a timely, thoughtful conversation with Jacquill G. Basdew (Living+) where we all slowed down for a bit and reminded each other of some life truths.

Mark’s article from last Sunday was full of optimism and discussed some strategies for securing your own future in this crazy world. Andre featured in our Q&A and we posted the usual array of inspirations. Take a read below.

Unorthodox Blend

UBA125 - This Will Be the Worst It’ll Ever Be
Creative tools are getting faster, smarter and easier to use, but the key isn’t how well you operate them, it’s all about the perspective you can bring. Retaining authorship, clarity and making intentional choices mean we keep evolving our work alongside the tools we use.

“This is the worst it’ll ever be” is this week’s Unorthodox Blend article, written by Mark.

Link to. Article

Friends

Andre Coggins
Andre Coggins is a mentor and community leader, motivated to connect young people with movement, to build welcoming spaces and communities, and always brings positive energy and good vibes to all he does.

This week’s Q&A is with Andre, the Founder of Mafia Moves - Go take a read of Andre’s gentle wisdom over on Substack.

Link to Q&A

Rosie Lee News

PNAQL Branding
Against Time

PNAQL is on a mission to reimagine the connection between artists and fans, redefining value in the creative economy. They asked Against Time to help shape the foundations of a brand that could embody this ambition - bold, collaborative and future facing.

Our design process was collaborative and exploratory, beginning with sketches and visual experiments to capture form, feeling and direction. The resulting identity centres on a flexible symbol that can stand alone or integrate with typography, reflecting the evolving relationship between artists and fans.

Inspirations

Mass Appeal’s “Legends Only” Exhibit NYC
Mass Appeal’s “Legends Only” is an immersive hip-hop shop and retail experience now running in New York City through 3 January 2026.

Ori
MIT engineers and origami innovators have reimagined the umbrella. Called Ori, it features a frameless design that compresses a 1-metre canopy into a pocket-sized 3.5 × 23 centimetre cylinder using NASA-grade folding principles. The canopy becomes the structure itself - no ribs, no typical failure points.

Holy Carp
Australian studio Heliograf has worked with Vert Design to produce Holy Carp—a plastic-free, compostable alternative to the fish-shaped soy sauce packaging immortalised in their Light Soy lamp.

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News from our friends

Charlie’s Theo Parrish Listening Session at 180 Studios
For anyone looking for musical inspiration or a deeper dive into how a DJ’s mind works when planning a set, this may be the video for you.

Over the last year, Charlie has been delivering monthly listening sessions at 180 Studios in the Devon Ojas listening room. This month, he dipped into part 2 of his Theo Parrish exploration. What he’s realised from watching it back are the similarities between running a marathon and delivering an extended DJ set, especially when playing vinyl.

Work with us

Get in touch. We might not get back to you quickly since we’ll generally be getting some well earned rest, hiding in the kitchen and reflecting on the year. But do get in touch anyway, it would be nice to come back to 2026 with some messages to respond to.

Peace out.

Take a read below of our penultimate weekly update of the year, and if today is your last day before the holidays then have a good one.

Unorthodox Blend

UBA124 - Meet The Archetypes
In this week’s article, Russell shares “a primer on the twelve core archetypes and how they can help brands feel clearer, more consistent and more human in the way they express themselves over time.”

As part of his ongoing series of articles focused on brand strategy, Meet The Archetypes takes a deep dive into the qualities of each of the twelve familiar faces that form our collective subconscious, laying the groundwork for future articles on how the archetypes can inform the purpose and story of a brand.

Link to Article

Conversations

UBC047 - Mitch Paone
This week’s Podcast episode features Mitch Paone the Co-Founder and Creative Director of DIA Studios, the studio behind some of the most rigorous and rhythmically expressive identity work in the last decade.

In our conversation, Mitch talks about the overlap between music and design, not just as a light metaphor, but something much deeper. We really enjoyed his discussions about the parallels between disciplines - his experience ranging from jazz pianist to type designer and educator as well as Creative Director.

Link to Conversation

Rosie Lee News

Visual identity for new cultural platform Living+
Rosie Lee Creative
We were recently tasked with creating an identity for Living+, a cultural initiative founded by socio-cultural initiator Jacquill G. Basdew.

Living+ makes use of arts, culture and intergenerational dialogue to bridge the gap between complex public health themes and younger audiences, making these subjects more engaging and accessible.

Its first season, Memories in Motion (2025), centres on the lived realities and emotional legacies of HIV/AIDS with a curated month of performances, exhibitions, youth-led interventions, rituals and storytelling programmed across Amsterdam.

The scheduled events for Memories in Motion are running through until the 21st December.

Inspirations

A_A promo clip
An innovative way to promote a new record release with this envy-inducing setup with a perfect aesthetic…The EP is fire too. (By Satoshi Tomiie and Opeus in analogue dub techno mode) (Check track two).

De La Soul press tour
De La Soul’s press tour to promote new album ‘Cabin In The Sky’, comes with a steady stream of clips from the many many radio shows Pos and Maseo have guested on to talk about the process of making the album, Dave’s spirtual presence and stories from early in their career.

New video by Speelburg for The Roots
For the 30th anniversary of The Roots’ debut album ‘Do You Want More?!!?!!’ they’ve released a live recording of them performing the album in full in NYC in March this year.

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News from our friends

Big Boi & André 3000
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Stankonia, a limited “Big Boi & André 3000” ghostwrite 400% set has been released. Dr. Kevin Kosanovich describes the album as prescient: drum machines, electric guitars, an overstuffed tracklist of bangers, and god-MC level rapping that welcomed the world to post-millennium dread.

For the full story, go see our friends over on ghostwrite.

THE OG x Library Street Collective Celebrate Miami Art Week
Last week during Miami Art Week, The Online Gallery and Library Street Collective gathered at The Standard Miami Beach for a brunch celebrating Kennedy Yanko, Elliot and Erick Jiménez, and the launch of THE OG Edition 15.

The sunset dock was filled with warmth, community and the creative voices who continue to shape the culture. It was a moment to gather in celebration and reflection during an inspiring week.

Work with us

Only one more week left to get in touch with us before 2025 leaves us. But don’t worry, if you don’t have time there is another year coming along straight afterwards when you can still find us on the other side of this green button.

Get in touch to share ideas, pick our brains or for anything else you fancy really.

This week we recorded a conversation with (founder of DIA), talking about the clash between creativity and commerce, and how thinking patterns from other disciplines can be drawn on to create uniqueness. Mark’s article below (The Productivity Trap) follows on from his previous article about intentionality and agency.

The rest of what we’ve been up to is below....

Unorthodox Blend

Following on from a recent article entitled “Don’t be a Tool” that discussed taking ownership of your creative direction, this week’s post looks at what can happen when you fall into “The Productivity Trap.”

Tools and hacks that we use to help us be more efficient have their place, but if you’re not careful they can also just clear the decks for even more work and longer to-do lists. The time you are saving, does it come back to you, or does it get used for more and more demands?

Link to Article

Friends

Stijn Druyts
We first met Stijn through our work in China on a few Converse & Timberland and have stayed in touch ever since.

We have given a guest lecture about the Rosie Lee philosophy and our Retail & Experience Design to Stijn’s students at AP Hogeschool for the last three years, and we’re delighted that our relationship continues in this way, sharing our insights and experiences with the next generation.

Link to Q&A

Rosie Lee News

The Online Gallery: Issue 15
Rosie Lee Creative

Our long standing relationship as design patterns for The OG continues, with Edition 15 dropping soon. Launching at Miami Art Basel 2026, this issue is a reflective look at what it means to begin again.

The cover features an original commissioned artwork, “Nature, Nature, I Am Your Bride,” created with Kennedy Yanko by the Jiménez brothers, Elliot and Erick. Our team designed the magazine, which moves through the cities of Miami and Los Angeles.

Artists featured include: Anthony Spinello, Ferrari Sheppard, Mashonda Tifrere, David Salle, Kennedy Yanko, Elliot & Erick Jiménez, Tavares Strachan, Woody De Othello, KidSuper and Hebru Brantley.

More on the design work behind this Edition, soon.

Inspirations

Slawn and Opake at The Art of Hip Hop
Slawn and Opake are bringing an immersive new showcase to Miami Art Week. Fresh after their TABOO drop, the London duo opens Heroes, Villains and Violence at The Art of Hip Hop in Wynwood from 3 to 31 December.

AIAIAI x Brain Dead
AIAIAI x Brain Dead has partnered on a limited-edition release of award-winning Tracks headphones and UNIT-4 portable speakers, bringing their creative vision to modular audio design.

Plastic Box
Nestled in Port of Pollensa, Mallorca, The Plastic Box commissioned by Voramor Store, designed by Minimal Studio that uses raw concrete, monolithic forms, and modular elements to critique consumer culture through architectural restraint.

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News from our friends

Saucony Paris 10K
Best of luck to everyone training and running the Saucony 10K from the Eiffel Tower, easily one of the fastest courses in France. Runners tear through the 7th arrondissement, flying past Les Invalides and finishing under the shadow of the world’s most famous landmark.

Work with us

If you feel like jumping on the reflection bandwagon with us then get in touch. We’re in the mood for talking about the year gone by and about what future culture might hold.

Unorthodox Blend

UBA121 - The Four Dimensions of Brand Soul
In this week’s article, Russell continues his exploration of what makes a Brand. We have previously mentioned our “Brands with Soul” framework, and this week Russell delves into this in much more detail, looking at “The Four Dimensions of Brand Soul”

As he puts it:
“These four dimensions don’t operate in isolation. Each one influences the others creating a system that only feels complete when all parts are in dialogue. And when one of these dimensions is missing, or under-developed, the brand starts to feel off-kilter - too polished, too vague or simply inauthentic.”

Link to Article

Conversations

UBC046 John & James Makanjuola
John & James Makanjuola aren’t typical business founders. They’re cleaners and they’re building a company (The Maka Group) rooted in care, pride and a powerful sense of purpose. What started as a small cleaning business has grown into something much larger - not just a service, but a statement about pride, resilience and about how we see and value one another.

In this conversation, they speak with warmth and clarity about their journey - from growing up in South London to running a business that challenges perceptions and puts people first. Their story is one of self-belief, wisdom and the quiet power of doing things properly.

Link to Conversation

Rosie Lee News

Vans FA25 Meets the Vans
Rosie Lee Creative

Vans asked us to build the full toolkit for Meets the Vans - featuring their merry bunch of misfits shot as if returning home for the holidays We provided Vans with a toolkit containing guidelines and activation ideas keepingculture and creativity at the core of our design concepts.

Thanks to Tom Webb for capturing the project across NY, Paris, London and Shanghai and sharing the moments.

Inspirations

China Vs Japan 2026 World Cup Poster
A FIFA 2026 World Cup qualifier poster pitting China against Japan has captured imaginations with a clever mythological matchup - China’s Sun Wukong facing off against Japan’s Goku from Dragon Ball.

Is creativity alive or dead?
Our industry is changing: new tools, new talent, new business models emerge every day. But change doesn’t mean death. Human creativity is bigger than any software, and thinking it isn’t is just an excuse. If you believe creativity is dead, you’re right. And if you believe it’s alive, you’re right. The challenge is on every one of us. To get up and make something, at all costs.

Bigger Than Fashion
Bigger Than Fashion traces streetwear’s rise from underground American counterculture to global fashion dominance. Starting in the 1980s with roots in graffiti, hip-hop, surf, skate, and punk, the movement built something entirely outside the traditional fashion system.

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News from our friends

Remember the Love
On Sunday, 30 November, the evening of World AIDS Day, Remember the Love brings an intimate evening of remembrance and art to the Upper Room of Paradiso.

The evening opens with the world premiere of ‘Only You’, performed by Yazija the long-durational performance vehicle within the artistic and social practice of J.G. Basdew. Yazija will be accompanied by pianist Sabiá, who arranged the evening based on Basdew’s original compositions.

Following the premiere, IHLIA LGBT Heritage hosts a ‘Solidarity Gathering’ with a soft DJ-set by slimfit. Throughout the evening, funds are raised for RUIS Collective, Europe’s largest LGBT archive.

The event is part of Living+, an initiative exploring how art and stories connect generations. It’s remembrance through sound, through gathering, through community care.

Paradiso, Upper Room
Sunday, 30 November
Tickets and information

50 Years of British Arrows
Nice to see our friend and collaborator Dom Leung from Marsheen join an incredible group of people who’ve shaped UK advertising, stepping onto the 2026 Craft Post Production Jury in a landmark year as the British Arrows celebrates its 50th anniversary.

Work with us

After an inspiring conversation with the Maka Twins, we’re on the lookout for more people we can talk with either in our Conversations or through our Q&As. Traditionally we’ve kept out invites pretty tight - only asking friends, collaborators, colleagues and people we know. But now we’re ready to go further and so we’re inviting you, or people you find inspiring to contact us to be featured on Unorthodox Blend.

We’re continuing to share more details of the branding projects we’ve carried out this year with Against Time, and are heads down working through various projects big and small, with various collaborators.

Mark’s latest article (see below) starts with provocation but ultimately dishes out some sound advice around intentionality. See more of what we’ve been up to and what’s inspiring us below…

Unorthodox Blend

UBA121 - Don’t be a Tool

In this week’s article, Mark takes a look at the ways in which we can maximise the use of AI, and other efficiency tools, whilst retaining authenticity, our distinct creative voices and ultimately stay in control.

Following on from recent conversations, most notably with Jo Taylor from Glow, this week’s article “Don’t Be A Tool” is all about how imperative it is to aim for credibility and originality, but that doesn’t mean you have to shun away from using tools such as AI. As Jo puts it, “AI is simply a jet pack, a way to accelerate context, verify research, and support frameworks.”

Link to Article

Friends

Manni Ovola
We met Manni through Run Dem Crew, one of those deep individuals who brings his whole self to running. He blends wellness, community and personal development into everything he does and we’ve had many great conversations about the running scene and how the movement keeps evolving.

He’s deeply committed to supporting London’s running communities and inspiring more people to move, connect, and find purpose through running. Hopefully, we’ll collaborate on something soon.

Link to Q&A

Rosie Lee News

SPT
Against Time
SPT supports long-term athlete health using advanced blood biomarker testing at the core of its service. The team asked Against Time to create a clear, athlete-first brand that communicates evidence-led insight with humanity and calm authority - credible for elite environments and trusted by players and performance staff.

The result was a clean logotype and modular layout grid that prioritise legibility under pressure; a minimal palette and exacting typographic hierarchy convey clinical clarity without feeling cold.

For the full details of our Brand strategy work, please head to the website.

Barbour AW25: The Original & Authentic Barbour Tartans
Rosie Lee Creative
We recently developed pop-up retail executions for Barbour as part of their AW25 campaign The Original & Authentic Barbour Tartans.

This global retail concept returns to where Barbour’s story began, honing in on the landscapes, materials and people that define the brand’s spirit.

Our design concept turns the tartan sett into a space - a grid you can walk through, entwined with a structure built from craft, nature and storytelling.

Inspirations

Carl Craig / Planet E on Carhartt WIP Radio
November’s episode focuses on Detroit techno/house/broken beat innovator Carl Craig, with a mix featuring 8 essential tracks (which really isn’t anywhere near enough to cover his influence) paired with a written interview.

Mo’Wax
Lab.zip have released mini feature on Mo’Wax, a pivotal label in the 90s that pioneered an alternative hip-hop culture spotlighting the music of DJ Shadow and DJ Krush and visuals of Futura 2000 and Swifty.

Supaform
Supaform is a creative studio founded by artist and designer Maxim Shcherbakov. The studio makes furniture and interior spaces, using paint and 3D graphics as design methods. They mix nostalgic references to architectural and design history with avant-garde ideas and unconventional solutions.

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News from our friends

ASVOFF 17: Fashion Film Festival Returns to Dover Street Market Paris
Last weekend, Diane Pernet’s ASVOFF Film Festival proved again why it’s one of the most important spaces in fashion and film, a rare place where legacy and new voices genuinely sit side by side. The vent featured Rick Owens in the same room as first-time filmmakers, Steven Klein screening work next to students and a crowd that cared less about who made something and more about whether it mattered.

Opening night kicked off with Carine Roitfeld presenting Mademoiselle C., while Michèle Lamy and Matières Fécales watched from the audience. Over the next three days, student films shared space with Glen Luchford, under-18 Climate Warriors debated sustainability with Balenciaga, Chloé and IFM; and work from Demna, Alessandro Michele and Grace Wales Bonner featured throughout.

Work with us

Amongst trying to figure out how you’re going to get your 2025 task list finished before a some ‘refreshing’ family time off, why not take a break and get in touch for a chat. We’re happy to hear form you, and to talk about work, brands or British weather.