A 12 months in overview: how 2025 modified who we’re and the way we work

Howdy, I am Katy, the editor of Artistic Increase, and each personally and professionally, I’ve had a improbable 12 months. Which goes to make this text summing up 2025 fairly a troublesome one to put in writing. As a result of I am not daft: I do know what is going on on. I hear it every day from creatives everywhere in the world.

Freelancers are struggling to search out work. Jobs really feel tougher to return by. Studio budgets stay tight. Confidence has taken a knock. Some illustrators, particularly, have described experiencing months of nothing; the worst dry spells in years.

On this gentle, the tip of the 12 months brings a second to pause, take inventory and share what we have realized, whereas attempting to remain human in a really un-human time.

Should you’ll permit me, I will be open about my very own 2025 story; not due to my ego, however as a result of I imagine that if we are able to all be clear about what is going on on in our lives and careers, the extra we are able to study from one another and transfer ahead collectively.

Time for reflection

For me, this 12 months adopted one of many hardest of my life. A critical again damage in 2024 meant I actually might solely work mendacity down on the ground.

As you may count on, this pressured me to decelerate. And when that occurs, it offers you the area to reassess. I began asking myself some uncomfortable questions on what Artistic Increase wanted to do subsequent, simply as algorithmic adjustments on social media and the rise of generative AI had been rattling our occupation.

The reply, it seems, wasn’t extra noise. It was extra presence.

After I was lastly in a position to begin sitting, then standing, then (thank God) strolling, I began displaying up once more. Placing my very own face again on Artistic Increase. Talking extra overtly. Listening tougher. In hindsight, it was one of many wisest selections I’ve made. As a result of what folks appear to be craving within the mid-2020s is not perfection or polish; it is connection.

The Studio: a group that grew itself

In February, we launched The Studio, Artistic Increase’s personal group. I might spent months listening to about how creatives had been now not getting any traction on social media as a result of altering algorithms that favoured clickbait, ragebait and short-form video. I assumed: why are we counting on platforms constructed by billionaires in California once we might simply make our personal? So, we did simply that.

I wasn’t positive what to anticipate. Would folks flip up? Would they stick round? Would it not really feel pressured? Inside 4 days of going dwell, a thousand folks had joined. In the present day, that quantity sits at practically 7,000. However extra importantly, what really occurs inside The Studio has genuinely stunned me.

Every morning, folks greet one another. Classes with inventive leaders are packed. Assets are shared freely. The environment is heat, supportive and actual in a approach I am unsure I’ve seen anyplace else on-line.

It is turn into the sort of place the place somebody can ask a query about pricing their work at 9am and have 5 considerate responses by lunchtime. It is a area the place folks have fun one another’s wins with out a trace of jealousy, and the place creatives who’ve been working in isolation for years instantly really feel a part of one thing greater.

I feel what makes it work is the shortage of a tough promote. There is not any efficiency; simply individuals who perceive what it is love to do inventive work, on this financial system, proper now.

From digital to IRL

The Studio additionally gave beginning to one thing we did not fairly plan for: Artistic Increase IRL.

It seems that if you create a protected area on-line, folks begin wanting to satisfy face-to-face. We did one thing barely mad and launched a sequence of grassroots networking occasions throughout the UK, all run by volunteer hosts from inside the group.

We now have eight areas, from Belfast to Brighton, with extra within the works for 2026. However these aren’t polished trade occasions. There are not any talks, no panels, and no keynote audio system droning on for 45 minutes.

Why? As a result of we surveyed the group earlier than we began, the suggestions was clear. Individuals had been fed up with being talked at. They needed dialog, connection, and a pint with somebody who “will get it”. And that’s exactly what we have constructed.

Low-key, high-value, no pretence. Simply creatives displaying up for one another.

YouTube and opening up

We additionally launched our YouTube channel this 12 months, and I am so glad we did.

The concept was easy: meet creatives the place they work, journey to cities and festivals, take away the mist and pretension that may cling to this trade, and get into the minds of some sensible creatives. We have shared studio excursions, metropolis adventures and inventive festivals galore. It has been about assembly folks in actual life and having precise conversations.

I will be frank: that is precisely the sort of content material I want I might had entry to after I was beginning out. When the trade felt impenetrable, and everybody appeared to know one thing I did not.

Now we’re producing that content material at Artistic Increase. Placing faces and voices to the work, and demonstrating that even essentially the most revered creatives are merely folks attempting to determine it out, identical to the remainder of us.

Podcast insights

The Artistic Increase podcast saved rolling this 12 months too, with one other two seasons underneath our belt. Our visitors have included Pentagram’s Ashley Johnson, Hollywood legend Kenny Gravillis, and Brian Collins, co-founder of COLLINS. Large names, sure, however extra importantly, beneficiant people who find themselves keen to share what they’ve realized alongside the best way.

Someplace in the midst of all this, we surpassed a million downloads. It felt unusual to shout about this when so many individuals are struggling, but it surely’s a milestone price noting. 1,000,000 instances, somebody pressed play and determined our conversations had been price their time. That is not nothing.

Social technique and design that also works

Regardless of The Studio’s success, we did not wish to abandon social media completely; it is nonetheless the place lots of you like to work together with us. However to be brutally trustworthy, algorithmic adjustments meant our social attain dropped. And whereas we did a good bit of moaning about that, we could not simply maintain moaning without end.

As an alternative, we labored with Love & Logic in Manchester to overtake our social technique. And guess what? It labored. Seems that high quality design nonetheless issues. Good content material, thoughtfully offered, nonetheless cuts via the noise. Who knew? It was a reminder that typically you simply must step again, work with good folks, and belief the method.

AI and staying human

Clearly, I can not write a year-in-review with out mentioning AI. It is dominated each dialog, convention and anxious message in my inbox. At this level, illustrators have been hit the toughest. I’ve watched gifted folks query whether or not their abilities nonetheless matter, or if there is a future for them in any respect. It is brutal and unfair. I will not faux in any other case.

However this is what I feel: AI is not going away, any greater than analogue-based creatives might want away digital media or the web again within the Nineteen Nineties. Similar to the online was then, AI is quickly turning into the infrastructure on which every little thing will finally be constructed. Denial will not assist anybody.

What is going to assistance is adaptation, honesty and assist. So we have tried to take a balanced method at Artistic Increase, acknowledging the challenges whereas exploring how creatives may work alongside these instruments, relatively than get replaced by them.

I haven’t got all of the solutions; no one does but. However I do know that the human intuition for creativity, connection and which means is not going anyplace. That is what we’re defending.

Partnerships that maintain us going

Ever observed how Artistic Increase simply appears to “occur” with out anybody attempting to get you to subscribe or asking for donations? None of that is attainable, although, with out assist. Fortunately, we have had the privilege of working with some sensible manufacturers this 12 months, who genuinely care in regards to the inventive group.

Adobe. Thames & Hudson. Stills. James Cropper. These aren’t simply logos on a web page. They’re companions who perceive that sustaining Artistic Increase means protecting an area open for creatives to study, join and develop.

I am really grateful for that. It implies that, together with the group work, occasions, podcasts, and movies, we have printed over 800 articles this 12 months. Our journalists have spoken with folks throughout the trade and attended occasions right here and overseas, overlaying tales that matter and amplifying voices that should be heard.

We additionally ran 10 Below 10K on Instagram, once more spotlighting rising creatives who’re doing unbelievable work however haven’t got huge followings. It is about creating actual, measurable affect for individuals who want it most.

A private observe

On a smaller degree, I’ve additionally began sharing my outfits and writing about private fashion on my new Substack, The Minimize Dispatch. This may appear trivial, however for me, it feels symbolic. I am rising from the ashes as I method 50, giving myself permission to take up a little bit area.

We had been all the time taught as journalists that it is “not about us”; it is in regards to the folks we interview and the tales we inform. However I’ve come to grasp that typically, it is okay to step into the sunshine and say: “I am right here too. I exist. I’ve one thing to supply past the platform I’ve constructed.” And if that offers only one different particular person permission to do the identical, it is price it.

Trying forward

In the end, Artistic Increase has simply loved its strongest 12 months but as a media platform, and I say that fastidiously. Not everyone seems to be feeling hopeful proper now, and I by no means wish to gloss over that. However I do imagine there’s one thing quietly highly effective occurring beneath the floor.
Individuals need “actual” once more. Actual folks, actual conversations, and actual connections; each on-line and off. That intuition I had initially of 2025, that pull in direction of group and displaying up as my true self, feels extra proper with each passing month.

Trying forward, there’s rather a lot to be enthusiastic about. Subsequent 12 months, we’ll be supporting festivals like Movement North, the Northern Design Pageant and All Flows, bringing you tales from Mexico, Abu Dhabi, Miami, New York, and Barcelona. Lots extra possibilities to satisfy creatives, wherever they’re.

If 2025 has taught me something, it is that survival is not about standing nonetheless. It is about adapting. Staying curious. Being open to alter with out dropping your values. That is how Artistic Increase has endured, and it is precisely what’s going to carry us into 2026 and past.

We’re not out of the woods but, however we’re strolling ahead collectively. And that seems like one thing price holding on to.