I deeply love artistry and stories…and I’m going to risk offending you with my unfiltered pov, but fuck it:….you SUCK at “branding” and creative stories because you’re NOT an artist due to your lack of being truly civilized and learned. PAUSE before you jump at my throat for a crass, ad-lib position I recently had reinforced.

The “marketers” and “brand experts” out there; are you at all actually EXPRESSING anything through your campaigns, designs, or sharing the unique perspective in and of yourself through the human condition? Or are you muzzled because of outcome-oriented shit you’ve convinced yourself makes the most sense for you to use to stitch together for your campaigns? Your handicap: Soulless, cost effective, aggregation ai models told you it checks all the boxes of what might resonate with people “in your ICP”. Is your brand actually able to put the audience through the ringer of a compelling expressive piece that can logically delight with confusion, pathologically move, or ethically compel?

Rebels that use their lifelong craft, despite how limiting each sense or medium is in a vacuum, to convey more than what is felt, seen, heard, or read, are at least actively pursuing the expression with CONVICTION of your pov, even at the most amateur level.

Art is inherently mastery of craft first. The chisel, the paintbrush, the camera, the screenplay/script (I cringe inside every time I hear someone say “copy” in media and marketing.) And yet communities and people, by and large, tend to be largely uncultured (esp here in the West) and uncivilized. How? Simple, when’s the last time you picked up painting, poetry, philosophy, art history, humanities, screenplays, literature, drama, comedy, mythology, music, theology, performing arts, the list goes on and on? Anything as a craft you humbly lost yourself in, without regards for the sacrifice needed to get down into the science, history, and potential of it. Those things are the bedrock of CULTURE and human povs, rather than your business tools. Often, I see that that mastery of a specific craft like storytelling through films, acting, music, etc is commoditized and turned into this business tool/spectacle. It’s pure expression more than it is your tactic for persuasion to buy your service or product.

How is it that in the most technologically and informationally democratized and globalized time, creative stories/marketing still feels lackluster even with the best tools at your fingertips?

Stories and marketing ought be truly creative in intent and essence, rather than a victim of the capitalist outcome. Your audience IS your brand. Your brand IS you. Why? Because when you create, provide, or do something expressive with a unique solution for a problem, you’re actually providing a PERSPECTIVE to it. Master your craft and the expressive arts to become a more enriched, civilized creator. The more you’ll be able to capture the 1-of-1 magic pov needed for your audience to be moved THROUGH your expression creatives.

The more I’ve been talking about and practicing my crafts again, and connecting it to branded work and people, the more I’m reminded why real creatives gravitate away from social platforms like this:

These fake ass social norms of fitting into some corporate and professional environment are detrimental to what makes artists and storytellers, or really any other label y’all give them, actually themselves.

Master your freakin craft and learn to use it as an expressive extension of yourself, your brands, your stories, and the lived-in experience you want your audience to lean into, beyond just a formulaic framework and linear approach.

Artistic expression and interpretation is no place to suck with conviction, unless you’re a creative who has something to say.

Craft + Community + Culture

By: Alexander Intchovski

“but i’m not a creative director” – literature lover, amateur writer, artist, dogmatic rebel, HUMAN POV-haver.

For collabs & creative direction, email: info@mindbeyondstudios.com or alexander.i@mindbeyondstudios.com