The courage to embrace the unfinished.

What happens if we just give it a go?

Motion Design Munich brings together people who are passionate about motion design. The community creates a space for exchange, inspiration and new connections within Munich’s motion design scene. With the MDMF – Summit for Design in Motion – the group has now also organised its own event, featuring insights into creative projects, fascinating talks and plenty of motion design.

Amidst impressive animations, new tools and personal stories, one question in particular has stuck in my mind (Sarah Berenbrinker, motion designer at BRANDCODE):

“Are we so obsessed with the outcome that we’re forgetting to enjoy the process?”

Hanna from MOIN MOTION posed this question during her talk. She told the story of a child’s drawing: a horse that was anything but perfect, but which had simply been created for the sheer joy of drawing. The memory of it was so special that, years later, her friend even had the image tattooed on herself. Wow!

A lovely reminder of how natural creativity once was. Without a briefing, without a deadline and without wondering whether the effort was actually worth it.

Creativity needs freedom. Even in day-to-day agency life.

In our day-to-day creative work, things often look quite different. We work to schedules, budgets and clear expectations. Of course, we must deliver results in the end. After all, design is not just a passion, but also our profession. Yet it is precisely when we allow ourselves to experiment that the most exciting ideas often emerge.

This idea ran through several talks at the MDMF. Creatives who test new techniques, experiment with unusual styles and consciously venture into uncharted territory. Not always with a specific goal in mind, but out of curiosity about what might emerge.

At the same time, it became clear that there isn’t always room for this in day-to-day work.

At BRANDCODE, too, we recognise this balancing act. We develop ideas, design digital experiences and implement complex projects. Experience, structure and efficiency are important in this work. But we also know that good ideas don’t always emerge in a straightforward way.

That’s why we make a conscious effort to create space for experimentation. To get to know new technologies, question creative approaches, or simply try something out without already knowing the outcome.

Not every experiment leads to a finished solution. But it often leads to new perspectives, exciting insights or an approach we might otherwise never have thought of. Sometimes, what appears to be a detour is exactly what helps us move forward creatively.

And then there’s AI.

As if the day-to-day creative process weren’t complex enough already, new tools are constantly being introduced. Artificial intelligence, in particular, promises to simplify processes and deliver results more quickly. And yes, it can be enormously helpful – whether it’s for brainstorming, developing reference material or individual production steps. There were some interesting examples of this at the MDMF too.

But that much-vaunted button that delivers perfect design at the touch of a button? It doesn’t exist in that form.

Good design still requires experience, a trained eye and people to make decisions. AI changes what we’re capable of, but it doesn’t relieve us of responsibility for the outcome.

At the same time, it takes time to familiarise ourselves with new technologies, explore their limitations and integrate them meaningfully into our work. It’s an interesting paradox: we’re expected to become ever more efficient, yet to do so we must first invest time, the benefits of which cannot always be measured immediately.

For us as an agency, this is no longer merely a theoretical discussion. It’s about not simply making use of new possibilities just because they’re available, but about finding out where they actually create added value – for our ideas, our processes and, ultimately, for our clients’ projects.

Perhaps this is precisely where an important task lies for us creatives: to remain curious, to question the status quo and to develop a keen sense of which opportunities truly enrich our work.

Curiosity needs space.

From the MDMF, I’m taking away new ideas, fascinating insights and, above all, one key realisation: it’s worth consciously making space for experimentation.

It’s an approach we put into practice in our day-to-day work at the agency, and one that has convinced me once again following this day.

After all, creativity thrives not only on the end result, but also on everything that happens along the way.

A text by Sarah Berenbrinker