Seán

I help growing companies clarify their brand and website so they can scale. Agency-level thinking and execution without the overhead.

[Seán @SeanFinlay_]

Branding done for Thursdays, the best day of the week.

[Seán @SeanFinlay_]

@senyil @aaruHQ Would be happy to help out if you’re open to folks based outside of NYC 🙋‍♂️

https://t.co/Gqpb0OQpjx

[Seán @SeanFinlay_]

Branding done for Thursdays, the best day of the week.

[Seán @SeanFinlay_]

@jameygannon Brand looks great, I’d be happy to help if they reckon im a good fit for the job.

https://t.co/Gqpb0OQpjx

[Seán @SeanFinlay_]

Branding done for Thursdays, the best day of the week.

[Seán @SeanFinlay_]

Progress.

[Seán @SeanFinlay_]

TIME: 46hrs 23mins 40secs

First & last one of the year done, an A1 hand cut robin and mare portrait on 180gsm.

A lot more detail in this one than the last few but the idea is still the same, flipping how we usually see things on its head. The smaller it is or the further you are away from it, the more detailed it gets.

The shades of grey are an optical illusion as well, it’s just solid black & white but the further you are away, the more your eye blends the space together and fills in the gaps for you.

[Seán @SeanFinlay_]

@dariusdan 🙋‍♂️

https://t.co/Gqpb0OQpjx

[Seán @SeanFinlay_]

Branding done for Thursdays, the best day of the week.

[Seán @SeanFinlay_]

@socoloffalex I’m always happy to help 👌🏼

[Seán @SeanFinlay_]

@AlexAperios First one in particular 😍

[Seán @SeanFinlay_]

Sneak peak at some recent explorations for a client. Really looking forward to seeing where this one ends up.

[Seán @SeanFinlay_]

@adrianinmotion @Medium @jasonsbmoc Insanely good

[Seán @SeanFinlay_]

@ethansuero_ Yeh exactly, I'm pretty much the same. I've no real interest in just prompting at my laptop for the next 40 years, there's no fun in that.

[Seán @SeanFinlay_]

I’m going out on a limb here and say that for me anyway, Ai might have tipped over the point where it was fun and now it’s just all consuming and a bit shite.

There was a point there a while back where Ai could replace lorem ipsum with nice copy on a website design and we could generate our own images with Midjourney and honestly, that was enough. It was perfect.

It gave you completely freedom in a way us designers never had before. We all remember the hours spent trawling through stock image archives looking for the right image to use.

Now the goal seems to be to try and do as much as possible by doing as little as possible. Stealing people’s work and feeding it to Ai as a reference to rip off. It’s all a bit hollow and has left people incapable of seeing past the hunt for the “perfect one shot prompt”.

I think (and hope) the whole thing might follow the same trajectory as the resurgence in popularity of vinyl records which has been so welcome to see.

At the end of the day, people appreciate the craft and soul of something.

Have a look at @AlexAperios & @socoloffalex pages for example. They’ve surely implemented Ai into their workflows BUT, it hasn’t replaced their process, they both still focus so heavily on the craft of what they design and that will always win out in my eyes.

Hopefully I’m right about what’s to come. I’m mostly just writing this so I can refer back to it in a year and see where the world is at.

[Seán @SeanFinlay_]

Yeh I get what you mean and I agree for sure, I think what I was getting at more so is the willingness by what seems like the majority of people (I'm aware we're in a bit of a bubble here on Twitter) to completely pivot the way they do things by essentially downing tools and go for the easier, lazier way instead of sticking with the process (enhanced by Ai).

Bit rambling there but I think that makes sense 😅

[Seán @SeanFinlay_]

@socoloffalex Feels like the design world is healing when I hear people like you say things like that haha.

Good for you man, keep up the great work. You've got a lot of people who look towards you for inspo in the branding scene so it's really nice to see where you're heads at with it.

[Seán @SeanFinlay_]

@AlexAperios And it shows, it's great to see. Keep up the good work man, it's always a breath of fresh air on here when you post some work or some concepts.

[Seán @SeanFinlay_]

Now a change of pace to something a lot more analog. Coming in at 53hrs 59mins 12secs makes this the most detailed one yet.

Despite being a Meath man, it was an honour to be asked to do this one for Conor.

A1 all hand cut on 180gsm.

[Seán @SeanFinlay_]

@BillSKenney Here are a few really strong ones @BillSKenney

https://t.co/2X4nkowJA0

https://t.co/P2WbRUHBvM

https://t.co/4ppuTsorrs

https://t.co/OB8iEr2dRk

https://t.co/eeJoKRDblo

https://t.co/AKPkTbgkhv

https://t.co/NxTzsbfAe6

[Marv Naka @marvrnaka]

🟢 I’m now available for brand identity projects. DM me to find out if we’re a good fit!

Motion: @sachabolteau

[Seán @SeanFinlay_]

@0xCharlota I finished up this one this week, the logo itself is the founder’s actual handwriting

[Seán @SeanFinlay_]

Branding done for Thursdays, the best day of the week.

[Seán @SeanFinlay_]

@tejashinduja Really nice. Love the text masks on the GIF.

[Seán @SeanFinlay_]

@kelligart There was another concept that had a galloping horse as the hero image, we then made it into a GIF and the client absolutely loved it so I leaned into that direction for a bit and they weren’t ask keen with it so we pulled back in the final one.

[Seán @SeanFinlay_]

So grittier we went, but it still wasn't 100% right. You can definitely see a clear progression from here to how we ended up with the final branding.

[Seán @SeanFinlay_]

An early concept for Thursdays. Feedback from the client was that it was a bit too playful, they wanted something a bit grittier.