The most disruptive thing a brand can do is be human

In her first opinion piece for Design Observer, Kim Devall, the creative director at Bindery, cites the rise of automation and new technology as a fundamental threat to doing good work. She encourages creatives of all stripes to slow down, embrace the struggle, and really make the work. She knows it’s not easy. “There’s no shortcut for acquiring good taste, it’s something you have to build over time,” she said via email.

“For me, it came from two decades of long nights, torn-up scripts, and mentors who demanded better. In the early days, I’d fill walls with ideas only to watch them come down in minutes. I once wrote fifteen scripts a day for a week, but hey, two of them got made. You learn what’s good by making a lot that isn’t. There’s no tool to get you there faster—just time, humility, and surrounding yourself with people who raise the bar.”

The most disruptive thing a brand can do is be human

The marketing industry is racing toward automation.
An instant visual. A faster edit. A smarter tool.

And yet, somewhere in that ease, the work is starting to lose its warmth, its why.
The thing that makes you stop and notice.
Not because it’s perfect, but because it’s true.

Audiences can feel it, too.
They can smell a formula.
They can tell when a story has been calculated instead of crafted.

That’s why the most disruptive thing a brand can do right now is slow down. 
Take notes from real life.
Touch the work.
And leave fingerprints.

Because people don’t crave perfection.
They crave texture.
The unscripted laugh, the off-center layout, the headline that breaks the rule and still works.
The tiny, beautiful flaws that make something human.

AI can generate content, but it can’t generate feeling.
It can replicate patterns, but it can’t make meaning.
And meaning is what makes us stay.

To make work that moves people, we have to remember what moves us.
That’s craft.  
The hundreds of tiny decisions we make each day that make the work feel alive.
Like there’s a person behind it, someone whose taste was built over years of trying, failing, refining, and learning what feels right.
All of it earned, not engineered.

That’s the advantage we’ll always have.
The one thing no tool can teach.

And that’s how brands, and the people behind them, will keep winning.

Because the stories that stay with us are built with care, not convenience.

Craft cuts through.
Always has.
Always will.

About Bindery

Founded in 2012 in New York City, Bindery has been at the forefront of helping brands craft campaigns and content with cultural and commercial resonance. Informed by founder Greg Beauchamp’s experience as an independent filmmaker, Bindery’s success comes from its script to screen studio model, where strategy, storytelling, and production all create together under one roof – bringing big ideas to life for the likes of Apple, Nike, Walmart, and Land Rover.