Paul Leon
Creative Director, Designer, Creative Director Consultant
About
Designer working as U037, with a practice spanning creative direction, brand design and physical environments.
SourceIn their own words
There's rebranding and there's rebranding. You don't have to rebuild the house when you get antsy: you could redecorate the interior, buy some new furniture, change up your art, or move things around to get them in the best places.
Are we against machine learning to supplement a tool set, say within image editing, to cut something out accurately and speed up the drudgery? No.
It's so important to set this all out in documentation.
If you design a new concept, do it for a brand, then pitch it to that brand.
If you design a new concept, do it for a brand, then pitch it to that brand.
If both you and your client have agreed on a project brief—scope, terms and conditions, back out, resolution and termination clauses and delivery schedule—and everything inside and outside of that is clear, there's no reason that you cannot ask to be paid in advance.
HMRC aren't actually the monsters the press makes of them.
The first step is learning to trust yourself and push back professionally. Accept there'll be friction, and own it.
If managing your flow means working between 10 pm and 2am, do that.
Take the 24/7 hustle culture and put it firmly in the bin.
Articles & interviews17
- When to rebrand yourself or hold your nerve
Creative Boom's Dear Boom column examines whether the autumnal urge to reinvent a creative practice calls for a genuine rebrand or a more cautious response. Contributors advise creatives to examine whether they are moving toward an evolved direction or avoiding difficult business-development work, and to test changes gradually through refreshes, parallel work, or a secondary pseudonymous brand.
- Have your views on AI changed? Here's what our creative community had to say
Creative Boom’s Tom May surveys members of its private community, The Studio, to explore how creative professionals’ attitudes toward AI have evolved by May 2026. The article reveals a nuanced mix of skepticism, cautious experimentation, and pragmatic adoption across designers, illustrators, and copywriters. While some creatives reject generative AI on ethical or quality grounds, others find value in using it for repetitive or administrative tasks.
- Why pricing your creative work is mostly a battle with yourself