The hardest brief in identity work is "make us look serious without making us look corporate." Serious comes from consistency. Corporate comes from removing anything a person chose.

"Corporate comes from removing anything a person chose" is going straight in my notes. I'd push it further though, I think a lot of that removal happens in legal and stakeholder review, not the initial design pass. Do you find the fight is more with the client's own instincts or with whoever signs off after them?

There's a shop in Barcelona that sells vintage prints from artists long gone.

On one of my visits, I found myself completely drawn to the way they used to illustrate flowers, fruits, objects, animals. A real exercise in consistent observation, one that's been lost in a generation that has normalised looking for inspiration in pins.

I do it too. But I believe creativity and art direction deserve more than that.

I once used these archives as references to illustrate natural ingredients for a beverage series with a completely different style, but studying them helped me understand the anatomy of each element.

Where else do you look for inspiration?

Sources europeana.eu archive.org rijksmuseum.nl

That is so beautiful for inspiration!