Andreas Markdalen: creativity in an age of impermanence
In an exclusive interview, Andreas Markdalen tackled the pressing concern of how design and creativity are currently intersecting with AI. Discover more!
With over two decades of experience, Andreas Markdalen has been a pioneer in forging connections with leading global consumer and enterprise brands across diverse industries and domains. As CCO at frog, he is responsible for shaping and advancing the frog brand strategy in the market, advocating for human-centric, empathy-driven, outcomes-oriented design processes.
“The era of impermanence is shaping up, and creatives and designers need to think about how to enter this new space”.
Undergoing a transformative journey to remain ahead in a dynamic world, frog is reshaping its value proposition as a creative consultancy. The company seeks enchantment in the crossroads of diverse capabilities to creatively address intricate systemic challenges for clients, placing innovation centred around humanity at its core. Emphasising narratives and storytelling, Frog leverages these elements to contextualise information and facilitate fresh perspectives for enhanced understanding.
The scrutiny on creativity and design prompts questions about their direction in the current landscape, described as exceptionally volatile and distinct from preceding eras. Initially focused on physical objects and artifacts, design has undergone a significant evolution, becoming more intricate and abstract. Its journey has seen different phases, including product design, product ecosystems, service ecosystems, design thinking, and planet-centric design. Frog’s portfolio mirrors this evolution, transitioning from tangible products in its early days to envisioning regenerative futures today.
Design, for frog, revolves around achieving high-quality outcomes and societal impact, perpetually pushing the boundaries of what is achievable.
The narrative of design faces challenges, and designers eagerly anticipate the next chapter in the realms of design and creativity. Generative AI is viewed as a catalyst for numerous trends in the design and creativity landscape. The democratisation, commoditisation, and industrialisation of design work are expected to gain momentum using generative AI. The introduction of OpenAI’s chat GPT a year ago sparked a surge in generative AI, linking diverse questions in the realms of future work, productivity, relationships, brand, and communities—both big and small.
Frog plays a pivotal role in assisting clients in navigating the emerging landscape of technology and societal trends, helping them shape a vision for the future.
The dichotomy between synthetic and authentic becomes a point of concern with generative AI, as it relies on probabilistic calculations and draws from past data. In the last decade, humans have increasingly embraced a process-driven, data-centric, and efficiency-focused approach, providing an ideal opening for AI to outperform human capabilities. The future of design and creativity with AI envisions a revival of human intuition, embracing real-time, swift, and unforeseen exploration of ideas. Designers and innovators face the task of crafting something that transcends the confines of synthetic experiences and evokes authentic human emotion.
Andreas Markdalen participated as a guest speaker in Domus Academy’s ‘Disrupting Patterns Talks’ series – a dynamic, interdisciplinary lecture series that explores innovation across various design-related topics. During the talk, Andreas aimed to tackle the pressing concern of how design and creativity are currently intersecting with AI, delving into how frog is navigating and responding to this challenge. Watch the full video and relive the interview!