Debbie Millman draws a line between ugliness and vulgarity. A short essay on sameness, vulgarity, and beauty as consideration for the other.
Author Archives: Beatriz
The beauty of the process
About shortcuts and long roads and what comes out when you let the exploration be the goal. We have lost the fear of the void. Of the white page, the blank, that blue-Monday feeling when you try to put the pieces of yourself back together to start again, in front of a project, a goal,Continue reading “The beauty of the process”
The vocabulary arrives before the tax
Meta settled for $17.1 billion. The historians say the tobacco moment never happened. I’ve seen this from the other side of the table. Brussels, September 9th 2026. In 2010 I was a strategist in a Paris consultancy that did, among other things, what is politely called public affairs. One of its clients made the world’sContinue reading “The vocabulary arrives before the tax”
You don’t have an identity crisis. You have a brand architecture problem.
When a portfolio needs more than a logo You grow. You acquire. And suddenly you realise you no longer have a brand — you have a portfolio. That’s usually the moment most groups call an agency and ask for a corporate logo. It’s often a mistake — or at least, it’s solving the wrong problemContinue reading “You don’t have an identity crisis. You have a brand architecture problem.”
What happens when the unicorn-makers want to become a unicorn themselves?
Raoul is 12 years old. In the French startup world, that makes them an institution. They built the reputation of some of Europe’s most ambitious tech companies — the ones that went from garage idea to TechCrunch front page, from accelerator pitch to Series B. Their reputation: the partner who knows how to tell anContinue reading “What happens when the unicorn-makers want to become a unicorn themselves?”
Three ways to miss the collaboration that would have mattered
In 25 years of consulting, some collaborations never quite happened. Some for good reasons — budget, timing, wrong fit. But others left a different taste. Not bitter. Puzzled. Looking more closely, I found three patterns. And what struck me is that every time, responsibility was shared. On both sides of the table, someone hadn’t doneContinue reading “Three ways to miss the collaboration that would have mattered”