Hey team,

What a month its already been for the world of art direction!

The Super Bowl is over and Bad Bunny set a new bar for what a live performance can be.

The Grammys celebrated album artwork for the first time. Super exciting.

There's only 2 weeks till my next art direction cohort.

And I'm feeling inspired to push the world of art direction to new heights!

I'm going to break down a powerful concept today about "visual lineage" and associations,

But first...

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March Cohort: Enrollment Now Open

If you've been waiting for the right moment to make the leap into art direction, this is it. NEXT Art Director's March Cohort is officially open for enrollment.

It's 4 weeks of building an actual portfolio-worthy project from an art director's perspective. For designers looking to pivot, you're one month away from fundamentally shifting how you approach creative work and opening doors to a new career. For those at the beginning of their journey, consider this your intensive crash course in thinking like an art director.

We start soon and there are only 40 seats, so grab yours as soon as you're able. I'm excited to work with you.

Learn More & Enroll Here

Now, onto a powerful art direction topic that I will definitely be revisiting in the future...

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Visual Lineage of Texture, Macrophotography & Miniatures.

Let's take a look at a possibly incestuous family tree...

In 2025, Decathlon released a series of print ads that turned athletic gear into macro landscapes.

Pretty clever stuff right? But look at this grocery ad campaign from Colombia:

Yikes. Who copied who? or were they inspired by the same thing? Possibly this 2015 tennis ad from the Rolland Garros tournament?

It's all too close for comfort. But it's not far off from the actual art direction principle you can leverage in a more positive way, and that is understanding "visual lineage".

Essentially, nothing exists in a vacuum. Every visual idea carries baggage/associations, references, predecessors. And as art directors, we have a choice: we can utilize parts of that lineage intentionally, or we can accidentally plagiarize it.

My recommendation is you truly think of the family tree of visual ideas and ask yourself: Where did each of these ingredients come from? Is there a previous inspiration that I'm unaware of? Can I take inspiration from parts of its "DNA" without completely stealing the whole thing? Can I trace back the lineage of inspiration and branch out from a less incestuous generation of inspiration?

Ok I promise I wont take the inbreeding metaphor much further.

But let's look at how some of these same visual ingredients have been used in other ways:

The Texture & Macro Photography Family Tree

Werner Bronkhorst is celebrated for his textural paintings. Thick, sculptural surfaces paired with miniature illustrations that force you to imagine an aerial perspective. Your brain does the work. You see mountains in brushstrokes. Not necessarily macrophotography, but almost triggering that same association in our heads, associating a texture with a larger landscape. This is visual shorthand.

This awesome Lurpak commercial by Wieden + Kennedy uses similar associations but in an entirely different way. Extreme close-ups of cabbage, broccoli, and flour become other-worldly landscapes.

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But who inspired that? Well let's skip a few generations to the work of Edward Weston in the 1930s who was shooting macro photography of peppers and shells that looked like landscapes.

And Weston himself may have been influenced by F. Percy Smith, the father of macro photography, whose early 20th-century work revealed hidden worlds in the mundane.

All Visual Ingredients Have Associations

We all experience this phenomenon. A close-up of fabric intuitively reads as terrain. A zipper becomes a road. Stitching becomes a path. These aren' the most novel discoveries. We've all collectively built these associations over time through repeated exposure to similar visual metaphors.

Smart art directors use these associations. They understand that certain visual ingredients come pre-loaded with meaning. You don't have to explain that a macro shot of orange peel looks like desert terrain. Viewers are smart enough to make that leap on their own, if you present it clearly.

But there's a fine line between leveraging visual shorthand and simply repeating what's been done.

In my opinion, this fantastic student spec work shows that you can be inspired by the same things. It feels a little like Werner Bronkhorst. Maybe a little like the road metaphors of Decathlon and Metro. BUT it's taken in a new direction that doesnt entirely swap out every visual ingredient entirely, but swaps out a few to not feel so incestuous (hah sorry the inbreeding metaphor really nails the point for me.)

Practical Application: Trace Your Lineage

Like I said at the beginning, my advice is this: when you find a visual that inspires you, DONT STOP THERE. Trace it back.

If you see a clever ad using macro textures, dig deeper:

• Who did this concept first?
• What photographer or artist established this visual language?
• How far back can you go before its something unusable?

If you can branch out from further back on that tree (ie you reference Weston instead of the 2025 campaign everyone else saw) you'll arrive at something more unique. You'll be working with the similar ingredients, but from a more original vantage point.

You can't avoid influence. But you can understand where your influences come from, and make conscious choices about how you incorporate them into your work.

P.S. Big shout out to the Social Juice Newsletter for surfacing this to me. If you're not subscribed or following, fix that.

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Art Direction Videos You Can't Miss

If you're catching up or just joined the newsletter, here are a few recent deep-dives worth your time:

​https://www.instagram.com/p/DUWwka5gQWY/​

The "Idea Sizing Chart" and how to differentiate BIG ideas from small ideas.

​https://www.instagram.com/p/DUlJ4ERlYo5/​

My favorite art direction from the Super Bowl and all the analogy and hand-build details you might have missed.

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If you enjoyed this newsletter and breakdown, please let me know. And if you have any topics or questions you want me to cover in a future issue of Modern Art Direction, please reply.

Don't forget to sign up for Next Art Director soon so you can lock in your spot for March.

Until next time, trust your eye out there.

-Jason 🤘

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