The Journal of Josh Pears

Most brands compete in categories they will never win. Category creators capture 74% of market growth. Here is how to stop competing and start creating a category you own.

Once, maybe a brand could just have a name, make a good product, and let the product do the talking. Then came the logo. Then the website. Then the social media presence. Then the content strategy. Then the refresh. Then the purpose statement. Then the AI strategy. Then the rebrand. Somewhere in all of that, the brand forgot what it was supposed to mean.

Every brand has a shadow self, the version of itself it refuses to acknowledge. Carl Jung called it the shadow. Most brand crises are just the shadow finally showing up uninvited.

I have been a photographer for most of my life and a brand strategist for most of my career. For a long time I treated those two things as separate practices that occasionally shared a shoot day. Years of doing both passed before I understood that they are not just different jobs. Fundamentally, they are []

Since the beginning of society, art has been influential in the growth and destruction of it. It defines culture and is the basis of all knowledge we know today, since the days we started painting on the walls of caves. There is no denial of art's influence. But today, we believe in the segregation and discrimination of art. Every artist has to pigeonhole their creativity into one category, into a single classification, because of society and the restrictions that different platforms have put upon us.

As we switch our calendars and enter a new year, Josh Pears Pear's Studio has rebranded ourselves to reflect our vision and voice. Not much has changed with josh pears, except for the logo, but pear's studio has been reinvented from the ground up. There is a whole article about the new branding of Pear's Studio on the new site. Please visit the site and have a little tour. There are a bunch of fun visual extras that you might enjoy. This article is just a synopsis and a viewing of Josh Pears and Pear's Studio beside each other.

Art is a deeply human expression of creativity, intention, and emotion. It is a reflection of our experiences, perspectives, and the struggles we face in the world. While so-called AI-generated images may be visually stunning and technologically impressive, it falls short of being considered real art.

This is just my view and my opinion, it might be a hot take but I see issues within the current art culture web3. You don't have to agree but NFTs and PFPs are part of the reason why true art is being misunderstood and watered down. It is conditioning us to undervalue the true artists out there.

Being a graphic designer and photographer, I notice many parallels between these two art forms. I’ve come to realize that mastering the principles of design and photography is not just about aesthetics; it’s about understanding the fundamental dynamics that govern our perception. These principles guide what I do in every creative process. Balance, contrast, proportion, []

As automation and template-driven platforms dominate the industry, psychology-driven design is fading. Canva, Squarespace, and Fiverr have made design more accessible but at the cost of originality and emotional resonance. The result? A market oversaturated with generic, uninspired branding that fails to engage users on a psychological level.