AI In Animation, Hermès’ Website Goes Hand-Drawn And Waterlight Graffiti

Ten creative links that inspired us this week

Author

Anjali Ramachandran
January 16, 2026

B2B Content Marketing for brands that want to STAY HUMAN

👋🏼 Hi there!

🔔 We’re recruiting a freelance Social Media Manager (one day a week) to work with us on an exciting new social impact-related editorial project. There’s just a week left to apply, so please do share if you know the right people.

💻 The Reuters Institute at the University of Oxford surveyed digital media leaders in 51 countries on their media predictions for 2026, and in the creator sphere, 76% of publisher respondents said they would be getting their journalists to behave more like creators this year. Notably, even The Economist, known for shunning bylines, has decided to place some of their talent front and centre in podcasts and newsletters.


📕 The Short Story

The Recess Creative Playbook 2026 (PDF report, email needed)

Waterlight Graffiti (2-min read with images)

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“Yet the ultimate realization of all that research into random pings, flashing lights and endless interaction isn’t a peacetime pursuit. It’s the war for consumers’ attention that’s being waged on the portable computer in your pocket.”

📚 The Long Story

The Recess Creative Playbook 2026 (PDF report, email needed)
This now-annual report, drawn from the recommendations of 48 creatives in 20 countries, is always a place that you'll find inspiration. From graphic design tools to productivity hacks, books to newsletters, I’d be surprised if you didn’t find something there that you wanted to bookmark for later.

Aardman’s Sarah Cox on AI in animation (5-min read)
Sarah Cox is the chief creative director at animation studio Aardman. Here, she talks about how the studio uses animation in productions like Wallace & Gromit, and what kind of skills the filmmaking talent of the future will need. The good news: analogue skills like animation, art, puppets, lighting and set design will still have a role, alongside the technology that needs to be embedded in learning.

The Multi-Trillion Dollar Battle For Your Attention Is Built On A Lie (13-min read)
Matt shared this New York Times article that is slap bang in the middle of what we work with at Storythings: the attention challenge. The battle for our attention has perhaps never been bigger, but, similar to the animation link above, reinforces the point that human attention can’t be truly measured, and that what we need in the years to come is more ‘attention activism’: ‘parent activism, new legislation and regulation, novel forms of consciousness raising and collective resistance’.

BBC Witness History: Brain - PC Virus (10-min listen)
In the BBC’s Witness History podcast, we are taken back to seminal moments in history with conversations with people who were there when specific events happened. In this episode, learn about the development of the very first computer virus in Pakistan from the very people who made it (spoiler: this story is more about copyright than intentionally creating malware!).

In The Age of AI, Hermès’ Website Goes Hand-Drawn (website)
Thanks to our design lead Darren, I spent several minutes admiring the new Hermès website, which showcases hand-drawn artwork in the place of fashion or product photography. You’ll spot a theme: “Ultimately, the move to hand drawn artwork is not about rejecting technology. It is about defining its role. Hermès is using digital space to reinforce values that have guided the brand for nearly two centuries. Craft, intention, and human involvement remain central, even as the medium evolves.”

LandChad: Turning Internet Peasants Into Internet Landlords (resource)
I’ve had plenty of moments in my internet and creative life when I’ve wished I could just go ahead and create something instead of regretting my lack of skills. Well, maybe I should have known about LandChad all that time: from starting a website, to building a platform, to setting up an email server, this website can teach you all you need to know, if you’re up for it.

The New Creative Means of Production: Creative Systems (2-min read)
I apologise for including a link from X in advance, but as a sort of antithesis to the many links above, worth presenting as an opposing view. In this X post, the founder of creative AI tool FloraFauna.AI talks about the new role of agencies in an AI-dominant creative world: “Every new means of production creates a new industry around it. Creative AI does not replace creativity. It multiplies it.”

The End Of The Network Effect (4-min read)
Joey Janisheck ruminates on LinkedIn on some thoughts arising from Kirsten Green’s blog post ‘From Network Effects To Cognitive Effects’. As he is a product development person, it’s a product-led look at attention, and worth a read.

Waterlight Graffiti (2-min read with images)
A rather beautiful piece of work. I’m rather partial to well-painted graffiti. French artist Antonin Fourneau has created an installation which is as nostalgic (inspired by the Etch-A-Sketch and Lite Brite drawing toys of yore) as it is eco-friendly (you use water to draw, not dials or bulbs) and of course, creative.

📣 Data.org’s Accelerate Report: AI For Everyone (1-min read) 📣
Last year we worked with data.org on pulling out key insights from their Accelerate Report into LinkedIn-friendly formats. The report itself is a must-read for anyone working in social impact and data, but that aside, if you’d like to create content that works for a specific audience (like LinkedIn!), give us a shout.

💌 Humans of LinkedIn

Brand Strategist Edward Cotton writes about The New CMO Mandate on LinkedIn: “Creativity moving upstream to imagine the brand, not in tiny incremental leaps of old, but bold ones that are based on understanding what possibilities are enabled by technology.”

Drop us a line if you have anything you’d like us to share in a future edition of this newsletter, or of course if you have any comments or suggestions for us!

Have a great weekend!

Matt, Anjali, Hugh, and the team

B2B Content Marketing for brands that want to STAY HUMAN

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