Another Imperfect Year

This might not come as a surprise for those who follow us, but as the tail end of another year has arrived, it is safe to say that twelve months have passed in which we didn’t ‘optimise for distribution’s purposes’. We didn’t scale, streamline, or tried to make things operate more frictionless. Or at least not intentionally. As a result, few people actually asked us to make things faster, they mostly want us to make things better. But everything around us seemingly sped up any way. Causing the same effect, as would’ve been the case if the question would have actually been posed to us. This year, culture might have flattened some more. And like every year since Web 2.0 was coined, even more content was produced and shared (of course we are also part of the problem). Still, ‘the algorithm’ kept promising more efficiency. As it pushed more sameness, chronic boredom repackaged as engagement and the ever-growing fear of missing out (of things we wouldn’t have appreciated to begin with). A stagnant state disguised as ‘growth’.

In these circumstances, we continued to hold on to our ambition to slow things down where we can. Always searching to make things intentional, at least for ourselves. If necessary (it always is), present our creative point of view in the projects that we instigate ourselves. With the people that need little explanation of what we have in mind, because they share the perspective. And as a result, the first full year of Another Everything felt less like sprinting and more like what Hugo Hoppmann calls the Bamboo Rule: five years of invisible growth before six weeks of visible transformation. Most people want the 25-meter bamboo shoot, nobody wants the five years underground. What sometimes feels like waiting or boredom obviously can get frustrating and confusing at times (it was), but as we take this moment to reflect, we can only conclude that there’s always some reward in this state when you continue to nurture ‘the soil’ and keep things growing. Even on the bad days.

In our work for clients, we have always expressed our refusal to play the short-game, in some way or form. Aiming for distinction rather than sameness. And where possible, always try to get to a point of otherness. It is what we do best, and if this year taught us anything, it might very well be the new (old) way to durably stand out again. We worked with brands like Ikea, Zenology, Tenue., HEMA, FPM Milano, Atelier Munro, and more, all circling the same question: how to (re)connect with people in a world where everything feels predetermined and manipulated. Our answer always focusses on finding connection in the things that are messier, more unexpected or slower over time, than the usual. And as a result making those clients nervous and the ROI more ‘insecure’. Still, it feels hopeful that in the current world, brands without real roots seem less and less capable to mask this through short-term methods, as we will see more and more business models implode as the (venture) capital will dry up and/or get restructured into market that are less ‘creative’.

As mentioned earlier, our side projects are our way to uncompromisingly show how we see the world. Create what we want to create and truly show what we are capable of. ‘DE POLDER’ project with de dam foundation and Lennard Kok, LMNOP’s magazine Absolute Zeitgeist, the Theo Schokker’s exhibition project and our first project of 2025; ‘ANOTHER CANVAS’ with Sergei Sviatchenko. We basically ended the year as we started it. Celebrating a side project that no one asked for, but we wanted to create ourselves, with people we want to work with. Projects that don’t really fit into individual case studies, but eventually compound over years into a collection of ANOTHER projects that we felt needed to exist. Creating our own reference points.

This was also another year full of travel (enjoy fav images and moments of this year at the bottom of this post). Both together and individually, Italy to Sweden, India to China. Learning about the state of culture, meeting makers with long and short heritages, fabric mills, a lot of people who still believe how something is made matters more than how efficiently it can be produced. With a lot of different conversations underlining a refusal of the idea that faster equals better. And a lot of these business (maybe all?) built on relationships. The part of the human condition that will forever be idiosyncratic (and will never be replaced by AI). There are no real shortcuts there. Even money can’t really mask a lack of trust and understanding in the long term. In many ways giving us direction in our way forward.

So, it really feels that 2025 was a year of nurturing. Between the two of us, and in a more general sense to keep growing our systems necessary to navigate the world that we work and live in. Always showing up, in some way or form, even when nothing seemed to move. Choosing the five-year foundation over the six-week sprint. Always trying to build our own slow foundations, in an environment that seemingly only rewards what it can see immediately. As there’s always something to be found inside and out that will make it worthwhile.

Here’s to many more years of doing things the ‘inefficient’, but impactful way. The way that doesn’t make a lot of immediate sense in a quarterly meeting, but makes perfect sense when you’re building something meant to last. A way that doesn’t scale an awful lot short-term, but somehow keeps opening doors we didn’t know we were looking for. Because sameness moves fast, in the footsteps of what came before. Difference takes time to figure out its path. And we’re playing the long game, to the end.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Also a final word to all readers and followers of Another Something and the newsletter: thank you for 2025! For reaching out and showing your appreciation and sharing your own views, stimulating us to share more of what we believe in, and continue the dialogue and find other ‘ways in’. Which is more important than ever, for us at least!

Because this year, you helped us find another way in.
Or perhaps another way out,
depending on how you see it.
Out of the sameness.
Into something more compelling.
You opened doors we didn’t know existed.
Unlocked others we thought were closed for good.
Whatever the case, thank you.
For the collaborations,
the conversations and the new combinations.
For refusing to settle for the easy answer.
For helping make 2025 anything but predictable.
Here’s to opening more doors in 2026.