Brand New: In-House In-Focus 2026

Steward what exists. Build what's next. We had an amazing time at In-house In-focus this year. That thread ran through the entire event, and with it the same underlying tension: how do you move a brand forward… without breaking what made it matter in the first place? 

David Rager of NASA spoke about navigating decades of cultural weight and institutional history, and what it looks like to make a considered decision inside all of that. What to bring forward. What to leave untouched. 

And he wasn't alone in that thinking. Zack McCune at Wikimedia: we don't own the brand, we're responsible for it. Tim Lapetino at Atari: nostalgia looks back, heritage is the alloy. Different brands, same responsibility. Protect what's been built while still moving it forward. And Lyanne at Etsy spoke to the reality of it: change is constant. The system has to evolve, even when a brand like Etsy carries years and decades of meaning behind it. Change doesn't wait for a comfortable moment.

Doing that well looks like what Cathy Kwon at Zip and Terence Hobson at EA described. Iteration. Feedback loops. Zooming out to define the system, then back in to refine it at the granular level. A lot of making and a lot of testing. And motion sits inside all of it. 

If type, color, and form build legacy through repetition, motion belongs in that same system. Not as output, but as behavior that carries meaning forward over time. Hold what matters. Build what's next. Make sure it can carry forward.