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👉 Affinity Brand Launch

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In October, we saw the launch of Canva and Affinity’s new suite of creative pro tools.

Our Head of Partnerships, Jimmy Gordon, was lucky enough to get a sneak peek at the tools earlier this month when he was invited to a secret launch event for industry heads alongside Canva and Affinity (coming away with some dope.af merch).

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Their new platform cleverly combines a suite of vector, photo, and layout-based creative tools, all neatly under one roof. A game-changer for workflows, saving designers time switching between file types and applications to work on projects.

Probably the biggest deal about this launch was the price tag.

Which is, incredibly, nothing.

Yep, the new platform is completely free of charge to use; users will only pay for certain AI-based features. 

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Affinity positions these tools for pro creators a contrast to Canva’s suite, which is more aimed at increasing accessibility to design, this one is for those used to the Adobe suite.

Another thing that stood out is that they’ve really listened to the users. Canva enlisted a board of renowned designers, including James Martin, Lisa Smith, Veronica Fuerte, and Jessica Hische.

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It’s great to see platforms like Affinity and Cavalry jumping on the scene and challenging Adobe’s long-held creative throne, and we hope to see this push for more innovation on design tools moving forward. 

Speaking to that challenger mindset, the revamped brand identity has an edge to it.

Tom Carey, Canva’s Creative Director, states, “The brands I respect the most are the ones that have something to say, a point of view, something they actually stand for.” He explains that starting with writing words allowed them to find their tone and attitude. Once you have this, “‘design’... becomes finding the body to house the spirit.”

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The team also worked with ManVsMachine and DesignByTwist on the bold and very cool new brand identity. To build extra hype, they paired it with a motion graphics launch film. 

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It’s cool.af

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👉 Vivo Barefoot - Free Your Feet

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Another striking mixed media film this month, and this time from Thingy Thingy and NERDO Studio for Vivobarefoot, a British-founded barefoot shoe company focused on helping connect people to the planet through their range of footwear.

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The film cleverly uses a range of collage-style animation, traditional character, and frame-by-frame featuring 3D and live assets, allowing the film to be expressive and dynamic.

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👉 Studio Updates

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October was a really busy month for our team, wrapping up exciting projects for LEGO and The Beverage Forum, where our work was used across big screens at the O2.

Jack and Jimmy also wrapped the week at the We Are Playgrounds In Motion event, soaking up some incredible talks and chatting with a ton of exciting new talent.

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The team has also been busy experimenting with some new workflows, expect to see some cool content very soon.

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We were also honoured to have been invited to The One Club for Creativity’s portfolio night, hosted by our friends at Taxi Studio.

We also headed into Bristol for a few days to review work from budding design students. It was great to share advice and insights with the next wave of designers, and they were blown away by the level of craft shown.

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Looking ahead, the two will be back in London at the end of this month to deliver a number of Lunch and Learn presentations to some of the world’s biggest agencies. 

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As part of this, the team is creating some incredible assets which we’ll be sharing in the near future.

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👉 Sunny Bonnell on Brand Vision, AI, and 20 Years of Building Motto

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This month, we were joined by Sunny Bonnell, co-founder of Motto, best-selling author, and a force behind transformative branding for the likes of Google, Disney, and Mastercard.

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In this episode, Sunny shares how to scale visionary leadership, embed values into remote-first teams, and embrace AI as a creative catalyst - all while celebrating Motto’s 20-year milestone. 

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From culture-building to future-facing motion design, this is a must-watch for anyone shaping the brands of tomorrow.

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