We used to have hobbies, interests and subcultures. Now we have aesthetics you can buy overnight.

Find something you like and an algorithm will happily serve you another hundred versions of it.

Before you know it, your taste, interests and even your identity are being shaped by what a machine thinks you’ll like next.

And I wonder what that’s doing to our ability to think for ourselves.

To be curious. To stumble across something unexpected. To wrestle with an idea instead of reaching for the nearest reference.

Because developing your own taste takes time. It takes experiences, bad decisions, weird interests and occasionally liking things that nobody else gives a shit about.

I grew up around BMX and punk rock.

Being different meant something. Not necessarily for the sake of it but because you genuinely believed in the things you were into.

The music, the people, the culture. It all shaped who I became.

And I’m proud of that.

Here’s a ridiculous example of how deeply that stubbornness runs.

I’ve never watched Breaking Bad.

Not because I think it’s rubbish. I’m sure it’s great!

But when it first aired, EVERYONE kept telling me I absolutely had to watch it.

And something in my brain just went, nope!

Still haven’t watched it.

I’m not claiming to be some sort of trailblazer. Clearly I’m just a stubborn bastard.

But there’s something in that instinct I don’t want to lose.

That desire to find things for myself rather than have them handed to me.

Recently I’ve been making a conscious effort to get some of that back.

I deleted Instagram from my phone six weeks ago.

I’ve started listening to music I loved as a teenager. Music that reminded me how little I used to care about fitting in.

And without the constant scrolling I’m finding myself looking elsewhere for things to entertain and inspire me.

Small changes, but they’ve made me realise how easily we can become comfortable inside our own little algorithmic worlds.

And comfort isn’t always a great place for creativity.

The things that shaped my taste weren’t neatly packaged or recommended to me.

They came from being curious, following interests, finding my people and occasionally going against the grain.

Those experiences still influence the decisions I make as an illustrator today.

The judgement, the humour, the ideas I gravitate towards. They’re all connected to a lifetime of experiences that are uniquely mine.

And that’s what I bring to the brands I work with.

Not just an illustration style, but a perspective.

Because if we all look at the same references, follow the same trends and take the same shortcuts, how can we expect to create anything that feels genuinely different?

Maybe protecting our curiosity is one of the most important things we can do as creatives.