After years of being constantly and deeply plugged in, there’s a growing number of people who are starting to crave real-life experiences again.

A realisation that perhaps, constantly being attached to a screen is detrimental to mental and physical health.

Can you relate?

People are craving (myself included)

Getting together
Live events
Making things by hand
Going outside

Doing things that don’t live behind a screen.

These things are neither new or innovative.

But now we’re approaching it from a place of genuine need to get headspace and feel connection.

Before I worked in the creative industry, I spent a lot of time travelling.

I learnt to live off very little money (and food for that matter).
I lived in a van for months chasing warmer weather and surf.
I drank camp stove coffee in car parks with people I met in the water that day.
I explored new places and got lost more times than I can remember.

And yes, I was barefoot for a lot of this!

Not a bar of wifi in sight.

I felt happy and content. Human.

At one point, I became so disconnected from what you call “real life” that coming back to it felt genuinely difficult.

I questioned some of the systems society has in place.

Did we need them?
Aren’t we better off without any of this?

Perhaps that’s a much longer conversation! But those thoughts and experiences developed my point of view.

They’ve inspired my work over the years.
They’ve inspired me. They still do.

Creativity is about being present.
It’s about getting lost.

It’s about paying attention to what’s around you and letting something flow from it.

As more people seek real-life experiences again, they often become more sensitive to texture, imperfection, warmth and presence.

And that changes how they respond to visuals, interfaces and messaging.

Overly polished or system-generated brand worlds can start to create emotional distance.

It adds to the noise we’re getting tired of.

The more people seek out real-life experiences, the more important it becomes for brands to feel human, intentional and grounded in something real.

New ideas
Untapped creativity
Fresh perspectives
Evolved values
New (but old) mediums

Now, I don’t know exactly what any of that looks like from a business sense. That’s far too outside my level of intelligence!

But what I do know, is that if more people are seeking out real-life experiences again, it's likely to influence which brands they connect with and how they respond to products, packaging, UX and visual communication.

In the same way that there has been a rise in demand for story-led cinema. People are becoming fatigued by excessive noise and formulaic content.

As mentalities shift, so does the expectation.

The opportunity.

For brands to evolve
To reconnect
To communicate in ways that feel more grounded and intentional.

Not by changing who they are but by growing in response to what people are beginning to need again.