Lo Martin

I wasn’t going to say anything about the Philadelphia Art Museum's rebrand — honestly, what could I add? As a native New Yorker who’s called Philly home for the past four years, I’ve been watching the conversation unfold with real curiosity. The pushback from Philly creatives and agencies isn’t just about one project. It’s about something deeper — a long history that two elders in this community reminded me of this past Saturday. They shared how, for decades, certain creative mediums in this city have been gatekept or underfunded, even as talent has thrived in our neighborhoods. So when another big opportunity goes outside the city, it stings. Not just because “we could’ve done that,” but because it echoes a larger question: 👉 How are we showcasing and connecting Philadelphia’s creative talent to opportunities at home? Councilmember Isaiah Thomas said Philly is more than “eds, meds, and beds.” I believe that too. Philadelphia is a city of makers, designers, photographers, technologists, musicians, and storytellers — and we have the power to define that narrative together. If you’re a creative or an agency, consider pouring into the local ecosystem — collaborate, mentor, volunteer, or even just show up. Organizations like DesignPhiladelphia, AIGA Philadelphia, REC Philly, Philadelphia Advertising Club, PhillyCHI, and Crane Arts have been doing the work to elevate this community. Many are already collaborating across disciplines, and there’s still so much room for cross-pollination between industries. And timing matters. 2026 will be a milestone year — the World Cup will be hosted here, Philadelphia will celebrate 250 years since the nation’s founding, the Unrivaled League will make its tour stop (marking the first professional women’s basketball event here since 1998), and countless conferences will put global eyes on this city. Let’s make sure the creative community is part of that story — not on the sidelines of it. And to be clear — this isn’t directed at the agencies already pouring into the community. You’re seen, appreciated, and setting the example. This is for the rest of us — a reminder to keep building bridges, together. As a Philly transplant from New York who loves this city deeply, I just want to make sure that the next time an opportunity like this arises, no one can say, “We didn’t know there was talent here.” Because there is. Everywhere.

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How do you get your product into the Oscars gift bags and the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)? You don't buy your way there. You design your way in. On the latest Agency Podcast, Memobottle co-founder Jesse Leeworthy revealed how design, not ad spend, was their ultimate marketing weapon. While other brands competed on features (like insulation), Memobottle competed on design, creating an iconic, flat bottle that solved a problem no one else addressed. The result? - Urban Outfitters placed a purchase order before the first product was even shipped. - The Oscars and design galleries like MoMA stocked them. Jesse's journey is a masterclass in how to "weaponize superior design". He proved that if your design is truly iconic, it stops being a product and becomes a story. It becomes the "Trojan Horse" that carries your mission into the mainstream, giving you cultural relevance that no marketing budget can buy. Is your brand's product design just a "skin," or is it your core strategic advantage? Stream now on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Link in comments.

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Tried this recently while working with a founder whose product has extremely complex design logic at its core. My team and I experimented with converting AI-generated code into editable design layers, and I have to say, the results were genuinely impressive. What really stood out to me was how quickly we were able to iterate on structure, layouts, and design decisions without having to rebuild everything from scratch. It made me realize how much this could shorten the loop between idea → code → design → product. Really curious to see how tools like this start reshaping the way designers and developers collaborate going forward. #AI #Product #Intelligence #Figma #Claude

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Hot take from the design world: A lot of companies think they’re hiring senior expertise. In reality, they’re often buying a logo on a pitch deck while the actual work gets passed down internally. It’s That’s not necessarily wrong — it’s just how many agencies operate. But there’s a big difference between selling expertise and working directly with the person who’s actually thinking, deciding, and designing. Both models exist for a reason. The problem starts when no one is clear about who’s really doing the work. Have you ever experienced this?

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Does the brand still live in the owner’s head while the team guesses the script? 🧐 If onboarding stalls, approvals stack up, and every department sounds a little different, this is the read you do not skip. In a Brainz Magazine Q&A, Brand Studio Creative’s Katie Smetherman Holmes shows how coaching emerging leaders becomes real strategy. She builds a shared language so the team speaks with one voice, grows confident decision makers who keep momentum, and turns values into everyday actions clients can feel. Want fewer rewrites, faster yeses, and a brand that runs strong even when you are not in the room? Continue the story in the full article. Click the link in the comment section to keep reading. ✨ #brandconsulting #brandstrategist #brandpositioning #corporatedesign #businessbranding #womenentrepreneur

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For most of my career at RKS Design, I’ve been focused on a single question: why people choose what they choose. That question has followed me for more than forty years, across thousands of projects, industries, and conversations. It is what led me, thirty-three years ago, to develop Psycho-Aesthetics®, a human-centered methodology built to understand the emotional, symbolic, and cognitive forces that shape behavior. Over time, it found its way into classrooms, boardrooms, and products around the world, not because it was theoretical, but because it worked. Again and again, the work revealed the same thing. People do not decide based on logic alone. They decide based on meaning. On identity. On what something says about who they are, what they value, and where they see themselves going. That has been true whether we were designing medical devices, consumer products, brands, or systems meant to earn trust under pressure. As artificial intelligence accelerated, I kept coming back to this gap. AI can process information at extraordinary speed. It can generate language that sounds fluent and confident. It can surface patterns no human could track alone. But it does not understand why something matters to a person. It does not recognize symbolism, emotional risk, aspiration, or resistance. It does not know when something feels right, or when it quietly fails. That limitation has consequences. So we decided to address it. Today, I’m introducing Psycho-Aesthetics AI. It is an emotional-cognitive intelligence layer designed to work alongside large language models, not to replace them, but to give them access to something they have always lacked: an understanding of human meaning. This work is grounded in decades of applied practice. We have filed patents. We have built early systems. And what we are seeing confirms what the methodology has shown for years. When you account for perception, trust, symbolism, and emotional context, decision-making becomes clearer and outcomes become more predictable. Psycho-Aesthetics AI is designed to model why people respond the way they do and how those responses change over time. It reads cultural signals. It anticipates adoption and resistance. It adapts as conditions shift, whether those shifts are economic, competitive, or social. Most importantly, it keeps the human frame intact. AI has learned how to speak. Psycho-Aesthetics AI is focused on helping it understand. This is the beginning of a new category, one centered on humanizing AI rather than accelerating past humanity. I’m looking forward to what this enables, the research it opens up, the partnerships it invites, and the responsibility that comes with building technology meant to engage people, not just process them. More soon. #AgenticAI #HumanCenteredAI #DecisionIntelligence #CognitiveEmotionalAI #AIInnovation #AutonomousAgents #MultiAgentSystems #AIOrchestration #AIMemory #AIWorkflows https://lnkd.in/gn3AHN-e

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