Finding inspiration in art and books
A great series to ease you into the year
Welcome back, and welcome to 2025.
This New Year I noticed a real shift in what I’ve been seeing online. Gone were the big nights out, glittery parties and hungover TV days we’ve long associated with New Year’s. Instead, there’s been a deluge of end of year planning, GOALS, staying in, early nights and hard challenges to kick off the year. The pressure to hit the ground running and achieve is everywhere, even before we’d officially finished the year.
I like to start the year with a month of exploration and creativity. I want to feel inspired and excited by the year ahead, not exhausted before it’s even really started. Let me introduce you to a little series of books that can help you with that: The Do Books.
I was reminded of this series on a Friday wander around Saatchi Gallery in London where I had the loveliest, aimless time taking in beauty. I particularly loved this exhibition by Deborah Segun, entitled A Moment to Myself (couldn’t have planned it better!).
I loved the titles of these works, from ‘Sometimes it feels like a puff of smoke in a windstorm’ to ‘The sweetness of doing nothing’ and ‘Can I just stay here a little longer’. Words + art: exactly what I’d been looking for.
Galleries are great at curation, and this extends to their gift shops. My go-to treat of choice after an exhibition is a paper bookmark (I have them from all over the world, and they’re the nicest low cost way to remind you of trips and visits you’ve made). This time, I was tempted by their book selection.
It was full of some of my favourite creativity reads - from Ikigai to The Creative Act. It also had a fairly good selection of the Do Books which are my favourite books to stumble across.
Have you read any of these before? They’re a short, pithy read about a particular topic by (often) more under-the-radar but excellent authors. I’m such a fan of these books, for a number of reasons:
They are super short, you can race through them in an hour or so
The writing is accessible and tangible, you will get some pragmatic tips and actions that can be applied to your life immediately
Because of how accessible they are, I think these could work at any age. I love the variety and backgrounds of the different authors and my mind would have been blown by the many different career paths you could follow if I’d read these as a teenager
There are so many different topics to explore, you can just grab one that speaks to you at the time
Each place stocks a different selection, so you never know quite what you’ll find
Here’s what I went for:
Do/ Fly by Gavin Strange. How to do work you love, by a designer at Aardman Animations.
Do/ Story by Bobette Buster. How to tell a compelling story, by a consultant who’s worked across Pixar, Disney and Sony.
I think these are the perfect January read. Pick a topic of interest, and spend an hour in the company of an expert talking to you.
I hope this year brings you everything you are dreaming of. You deserve it all.
Explore our reading lists 📖
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