24/02/2026
In 1988, the Apple Mac arrived at art college. It felt like the future, clean screens, perfect shapes, faster, sharper and more controlled. Like everyone else, I was captivated. Around that same time, I was lucky enough to know Ralph Steadman - yes, that Ralph Steadman. My dad was friends with him and whenever we met he’d ask about college. I’d talk about the Mac. How quickly you could create something and make it look finished.
He’d ask one question: “How’s the drawing?” Not the software, not the polish, but the drawing.
At sixteen, I didn’t fully understand it. Now I do. Looking finished and being resolved are two very different things. Technology makes things look complete and craft makes them meaningful and today, that distinction matters more than ever.
Brands don’t struggle to produce content anymore. They struggle to produce work that people remember the next day. When everything can be generated in seconds the output starts to flatten, same structures, same rhythms, same safe conclusions. Speed becomes the priority and somewhere in the acceleration, the actual idea gets lost.
The best creative doesn’t come from moving faster. It comes from staying longer, redrawing, pushing past the obvious answer, sitting with the idea until it says something only you could say.
That principle shaped how I work and how I built Tallulah. We use AI. We use emerging technologies. Of course we do, they remove friction and buy us time. But we don’t use that time to produce more. We use it to demand more to think harder, refine deeper and hold the work to a higher standard. Because good creative can be generated. Great creative is crafted. Ralph once gave me a print and on it, he wrote: “Get back to the drawing board.” It hangs at home as a reminder of the standard.
