You know the saying: Find someone who loves you as much as…designers love other designers. There’s a problem with that. And yes, it’s the reason why you still feel undervalued.

Most companies optimize performance. Few understand what actually expands a market.

Slop. When the world shifts, it shows up in the language. “Spam” appeared when inboxes exploded. “Clickbait” when short-term attention became a business model. Now: slop.

Thought. How we think. Rethinking. Thinking things through. “I’m thinking of you.” We invoke thought far more often than we realise. We try to keep a sober distance from it.
“You are not your thoughts.” Yet we constantly soften feeling and opinion by replacing them with the gentler “I’m thinking that…”. As if thought were a fragile seed of opinion — delicate, unfinished. Always hovering just beyond certainty.

The noise. That word has been around for many years. For a long time, people have tried to stand out from the noise—not drown in it. But very few succeed. And with every attempt, the noise grows louder, ironically. Today, the noise is digital, just like the rest of society. And it has been rebranded under a new name – you probably know it as Content.

Another generative AI tool launches. This one promises “studio-quality results.” It proudly displays how easily brands can now generate glossy, flawless imagery. Perfect humans, perfect lighting, perfect worlds — all for the price of a subscription. That’s when it hit me. That funny feeling. I’m bored.

It’s been 365 days since we blasted off to find ore in faraway place called future design. One of our first posters said it best. Abandon all ego. Because when ego steps aside, hope steps in – and what once felt hopeless becomes a place you can shape. This is what year one with Ebb has been about.

The way it moves, reflects, transforms — and how we’re drawn to it from the very beginning. As children, we play in it without questioning its depth or force. There seems to be an endless amount of learnings to draw from the sea, not just for what it shows us — but for what it reveals when it pulls back.

At Ebb, we love making ideas tangible. Some even make it onto our walls, just check out our Culture Pages. This is not about us being in the business of plastering feel-good slogans everywhere, empty inspiration doesn’t drive change, action does.

In the next two years we will see the equivalent of 50 years of technological progress. Why is that a problem? Because traditional strategy can not keep up with a rapidly changing world. Businesses need to evolve, but they are stuck in an old paradigm.