Talks, writing, mentoring, awards, and everything else.
2026 · Talking · Under Consideration
The latest. Took the stage in Chicago to talk about the role of weird the normal — and normaling the weird — sharing the poem at the spine of my book. A room full of in-house creative leaders who get it.
2026 · Talking
Panel discussion at AirOps Next on building brands for the AI era — exploring how craft, culture, systems, and storytelling evolve when both humans and machines are part of the audience.
2026 · Talking
Digging into something not so quietly reshaping our work: how AI is evolving brand, redefining who our audiences are, and what it means for our teams, our craft, and the bar for quality with Jessica Rosenberg, Paul Jun & Leland Maschmeyer.
2026 · Writing · Rogue School
One book. Two front covers. One side breaks the pattern, the other makes it stick.
Question everything. Break patterns. Make the familiar strange again.
A manifesto for pattern-breakers — for spotting invisible assumptions, using AI as friction not shortcut, and finding the edge cases where original ideas live.
Transform chaos into clarity. Make the impossible tangible.
The companion side — for turning visionary thinking into structure, language, and systems people can actually trust, build, and adopt.
2026 · Podcast · Believe In Brand
What an honour to be interviewed by Ari for the Believe In Brand podcast.
This is a podcast that explores the massive and often misunderstood role that brand plays.
Relevance is rented. Meaning is owned.
Don't find your audience. Deserve them.
Every time you play it safe, a competitor plays it brave.
2026 · Talking
Out The Box is a speaker series I run at HelloFresh — bringing in brilliant, unconventional voices to inspire the team and help us think differently about how we build brands. We've been joined by founders, designers, and storytellers including James Vincent (FNDR), Emmi Salonen, Matz Horsch (HOLY), and Horst Bente (AD Legacy).
2026 · Awards
Judged the 2026 Cresta Awards, where analogue slapped back.
2026 · Press
No agenda agenda. You don’t need to prepare anything. You don’t need a “reason” to come. You just need to show up. If you’re in either city and want to join us — RSVP on First Things.
2026 · Writing · Rogue School
The book on design as a force for meaningful change — the spine of the AI to AI course, the talks and the podcast conversations.
2026 · Mentoring · Rogue School
When we were still in the early throes of what AI could do, this is the training set of context that we used to underpin the Future Cards knowledge base — to ensure it could be a tool that helps people build their brands with purpose.
2026 · Talking · Superside
AI is a tool — what matters is when in the process you use it. As execution gets easier, strategic thinking becomes the real competitive advantage. Creativity isn't changing; how we work is.
2026 · Press · Podcast
A run of conversations recorded around the publication of Use Design to Design Change — the book on design as a force for meaningful change. Each episode pulls a different thread from the book and stretches it into a longer, looser conversation.
01 Launch with Intention · 02 Scaling Sustainably · 03 The Learning Loop
2026 · Talking · GBBS
Speaking later this year alongside Dragons' Den heavyweights, the founder of The Big Issue, Mike Soutar (The Apprentice) and the co-founder of Shazam. Design has carved out a slot on a very traditional business stage — proof that creative thinking is the unfair advantage. Free to attend.
2026 · Talking · NeueHaus
Twenty slides on creativity, AI, design, making, oscillation, risk, craft, weirdness and the responsibility of building culture — to a room of generous, wildly talented humans curated by Lena Pia Hammerstingl and Alessandro Amato. The reminder: making matters. Not talking about making. Making.
2026 · Talking · St Bride Foundation
Shared a panel with Emmi Salonen, Emily Forgot and Laura Hunter on building sustainable creative lives. Four reminders worth keeping: wonder isn't a luxury, it's a practice; time poverty is real, not a personal failure; perfection is often just fear in a tuxedo; creative wellbeing is built in tiny, repeatable ways. Special nod to Emmi's Creative Wellbeing Handbook — and to the hand-written thank-you notes that quietly model the world the book argues for.
Read more · The Creative Wellbeing Handbook
2026 · Talking · Rogue School
The Future Cards methodology, taught as a programme on Rogue School. While building the knowledge base we asked AI to reflect on its own becoming — three short artifacts from along the way. Open the notebook to dig through everything we fed it.
2026 · Writing · Google · NotebookLM
Google's NotebookLM was fed the source material from the AI to AI course and asked to make sense of it — synthesising lectures, references and conversations into a long-form audio briefing. Open the notebook to listen, read the auto-generated outline, or interrogate the sources directly.
2025 · Talking · Shack 15
Using my book Use Design To Design Change I led a series of workshops helping founding teams unpack how to launch, grow, and adapt their brand. Built around the idea that you should use your product to sell your brand — not use your brand to sell your product.
2025 · Events · Book Passage
Taking part in the book event Turning The Page with a fireside chat with friend and collaborator George Philip LeBourdais (aka GP). Honoured to be featured amongst such inspiring authors.
2025 · Press · The Drum
Fourth year as a jury member helping distill the work that works.
2025 · Talking · Rogue School
The third large cohort of conversations where we unpack the role of Artificial Intelligence and how it relates to Aesthetic Intelligence.
2025 · Talking · Rogue School
Honoured to have a full schedule of packed classes debating the changing nature of creativity in light of AI. Deeply honoured to be doing it with friend and collaborator George Philip LeBourdais (aka GP).
2025 · Events · Lw3
It was such an honour to join the Lw3 and Creative Capital crowd for one of the most inspiring evenings I've been lucky enough to experience. To meet so many people channeling real energy and creativity toward solving enormous problems was both thrilling and deeply inspiring. A huge thank you to Farid Haque, John Darling, and Sophia Horowitz for being such generous hosts. The evening was a powerful reminder of the strength of community — when you find people whose values align, you really can move mountains. And this room was moving.
2025 · Events · First Things Club
Community matters. Now more than ever we need to ensure we nurture our creative community — and London came out in force. Sign up at firstthings.club.
2025 · Press · The Drum
Always humbling to be asked to define what work, works. To be surrounded by such wonderful judges who all stepped up to ensure we were intentional about how we unpack and define that word 'work' is an absolute honour.
2025 · Events · First Things Club
First Things Club travels well. Started as a small experiment — what happens when creative people gather with no agenda, no hierarchy, no pressure, just curiosity and care? It's now landing in cities around the world, shaped by the people who host it. Renee Pierog took the spark and ran with it for the Chicago pop-up at Longman & Eagle — beautifully timed alongside the In-House In-Focus conference for an informal moment too.
2025 · Events · First Things Club
First Things is a series I run — small gatherings without an agenda, where people are safe enough to simply be human together. The Chicago edition was hosted with such care and intention by Renee Pierog. Honest conversations about the city, the creative community, and the way Chicago shows up for one another. The signal — generosity, presence — is the whole thing.
2025 · Press · Design Week
Such an honour to sit down with Rob Alderson for Design Week and share a little of my story — what I've learned, what I've unlearned, and why I'm so excited to be back in the UK.
2025 · Talking · SF Design Week
Too normal? No one notices. Too weird? No one understands. The sweet spot? That's where culture shifts. A talk about the creative framework that's shaped much of my work over the past two decades.
2025 · Talking · Creative Boom
It happened! 4AM and fully caffeinated with the brilliant Creative Boom crew, talking about how to Weird the Normal & Normal the Weird. Big thanks to Katy Cowan for the invite — we covered everything from AI to aesthetic intelligence to how creative thinking can reframe what culture calls "normal."
2025 · Talking · How&How
We talked resilience, creative conviction, and the simple filter I use on every project: are we weirding the normal, or normalising the weird?
2025 · Press · Under Consideration
"After looking at this identity for five days, I feel like this is how supercross is meant to look, how it always should have looked and how it will continue to look for quite some time. Nice work, Zag." Thank you for the great review Jeff!
2023 · Writing · Rogue School
The book I'd kept saying I'd write 'one day'. A practical, personal take on design as a force for meaningful change — built from two decades of work across studios, startups, and global brands.
2023 · Talking · Nicki Trott's Going Conscious
Sharing why Punk Works exists and the importance of People & Planet thinking in building Profitable brands.
2023 · Press · New York Times
Alex Poots, the Shed's artistic director, talked about the Kugelauditorium and about "centering the auditory experience."
2023 · Press · Designboom
A luminous, spherical concert hall will float inside the shed in new york.
2023 · Press · Creative Boom
Punk Works results from Hurst's career-long mission to empower companies to live out their values and build their own brands.
2022 · Press · Creative Boom
Creative Boom asked if they could do a profile piece on me. I obviously assumed they'd got me mixed up with someone worth profiling, but took the call to be sure.
2022 · Writing · Rogue School
A six-week program designed to guide leaders in building a robust and enduring brand.
2022 · Writing · Rogue School
The foundation of a six-week program crafted to expand a brand and amplify its impact.
2022 · Writing · Rogue School
A six-week program tailored to help realign a brand and maintain its relevance in the ever-evolving market landscape.
2022 · Awards · The Drum
Thrilled it got picked as a nomination for Editorial Design & Art Direction, and humbled it has been highly commended for Design Impact.
2018 · Press · Where They Create
Paul Barbera shoots DesignStudio's San Francisco studio for his long-running photo essay on the spaces creative people make to do their work.
2017 · News · DesignStudio
The day we cut the ribbon on the New York studio. Myself, Ben Wright, Paul Stafford and Andrea Trabucco-Campos — four laptops, one brick wall, and a screen letting the neighbourhood know we'd arrived.
2012 · Press · Design Week
Cure Studio is set to close next month, with consultancy founder James Hurst joining Figtree as a senior creative.
2011 · Press · Design Week
We wanted to create something beautiful each time with nice print processes, but when we knew the first eight were mapped out we wanted to tie them all together.
2010 · News · Press
Being called a 'brand consultant' to legitimise the point of view shared around Rhianna's image being stolen.
2010 · Art · Group Show
I was asked to be part of a group show, using ordinary objects, to make something extraordinary. Stitching together hundreds of yellow dusters, I made fun about how long the stitching was taking.
2010 · Press · Creative Review
Giving a guide to screen-printing.
2010 · Press · Creative Review
Giving a guide to Pick Me Up an art fair at Somerset House where we launched HigginsonHurst, our illustration agency.
2010 · Press · The Independent
"The argument about what is public space and where work can be created is always rife in the art scene. It's easy for companies to come in and reinforce their brand, but what's clever and brave is that here they gave an incredibly open brief."
2010 · Press · Design Week
Illustration agencies are beating the downturn by looking outside their traditional client base and taking their artists to the people, using everything from social media to exhibitions and murals.
2010 · Press · Design Week
"There's a vibrant creative community in SE16 but the artists have to travel to east London if they're starting out, or west London if they are more established. The gallery will be a reason to come down to the area."
2010 · Awards · Webby Awards
Our (much copied) website for Antony is given a B.J Novak era award.
2009 · Exhibition · Exhibition
Exhibition piece.
2009 · Print · Post
Print Club post.
2009 · Art · Print Club
With my dear friend Fred Higginson from Print Club, I curated, produced and promoted a show with 50 artists, each with an edition of 50 prints.
2009 · Press · Design Week
"The quality of the artist is the measure of a good screen-printing exhibition, and we have the most dedicated, persistent and thought-provoking artists working today."
