When creating content for brands, you need to have systems in place to keep things in order. Without systems, you’re going to run out of ideas – especially if it’s an industry you’re not experienced with. When I begin working with a new client, there are three systems I set up immediately. Content Buckets Sitting down to make content is difficult, especially when you don’t have an idea already. When you sit down to work on content, you should already have an idea ready to go.

Doing challenging things is essential. And there’s actually psychology-backed data to prove it. Every time you avoid doing something hard because you don't want to face the challenge, you're telling your brain that comfort means safety, and discomfort means danger. But that discomfort is essential for progression. When you avoid doing something because it’s difficult, your brain begins to see that avoidance as the default approach to tasks. This then makes it even harder to d

A few of months ago, we were in the process of updating the Giraffe Social brand, and part of that was hunting around for new fonts. We dove into the various resources at our disposal – namely Freepik and Envato – and found some we liked. Another colleague (unrelated to the font sourcing) asked about the usage rights for something on Canva, which prompted me to look at the usage rights on the two platforms I mentioned. And I discovered something interesting. We couldn’t use t

One of the biggest mistakes that people make when they start creating content is trying to speak about too many ideas at once. It can be tempting to fit as many things as possible into a single carousel (or a single article, LinkedIn post, atomic essay, or whatever else), but that’s a very quick way to both overwhelm yourself and your readers. We want to show that we know what we’re talking about, but we often bite off more than we can chew. Posts claiming to be “The ULTIMATE

Social media is entirely shifting our relationships with celebrities, and as such is transforming our feelings of envy. Let me explain why. Feeling jealous of your friend is common. You see them having something you want, and you feel envious of them; it’s a simple situation. Before social media, those feelings of envy were limited to just the people around you. This, however, has been flipped on its head. Having worked in the world of social media for nearly a decade, I’ve s

I get asked about graphic design quite a lot. Most days I’m asked to look over some content or ads to see if they’re good to go. And I almost always end up speaking about the same four things. The same four things those who haven’t spent a scary amount of time learning about design get wrong. They’re simple, but when you keep them in mind, your designs can be hugely elevated. Limit Your Colours Designs live or die on clarity. Simple colour schemes keep designs consistent acro

The first draft is just thinking out loud. It’s a place to get your ideas down on the page, to figure out what direction you want to take. With the first draft, you don’t need to worry about grammar or punctuation or anything like that. Purely focus on getting the backbone of whatever you’re working on sorted. The real writing – the polished stuff – comes after. Editing is the Good Stuff Most people think that the writing is the hard part, but it’s really not. As Chuck Palahn

Self-belief isn't something you either have or don't. That’s the reassuring truth. All those people who seem to be super confident likely weren’t born that way. Self-belief is built through evidence. Every time you do something hard, something that you didn’t think you could achieve, you give yourself proof that you're capable of more than you thought. For example, consider someone who's convinced they could never run. That single belief (“I’m not a runner”) doesn't just live

The last film I watched in 2025 was Edgar Wright’s remake of The Running Man. The way I tend to watch films now is in about 20/30-minute chunks, so when I sat down to watch it with my breakfast one Saturday, I expected to finish my beans on toast, drink my coffee, then go about my day. But for the first time, probably in years, I watched a film the whole way through, excluding when I’m in the cinema and British politeness forbids me from leaving. I bloody loved it! Dystopian

What does a sleep paralysis demon have in common with an Amazonian spirit ritual and the theories of a Swiss psychiatrist? More than you might think.