📬 Newsletter 147

There’s something fitting about writing this issue right now, because the place I’ve spent the last couple of years has just changed its name.

Freepik started in 2010 as a search engine for graphic resources. From there it became one of the most widely used creative platforms in the world — and then, quietly and without outside investment, it pivoted hard into AI. The rebrand to Magnific isn’t cosmetic: it reflects the consolidation of what had been, from the outside, a confusing portfolio — Freepik as a stock asset library, Magnific as an AI image upscaler acquired in May 2024, and several other AI tools operating under separate brands. Today the business is at $230 million in annual recurring revenue, with video generation accounting for roughly half of it.

CEO Joaquín Cuenca put it well: “The problem was never the product. People saw fragments: Freepik as stock, Magnific as an upscaler. This is the first time the full system is visible as one platform.” That’s a sentence I’ve been thinking about a lot. It applies to a lot of things beyond brand names.

It’s also been a week of endings in another sense. I just wrapped up my classes for this term at IE University — two groups, the Dual Degree in Design and Business and the Design Bachelor’s program. Every time I finish a semester I tell myself I already know what to expect, and every time I leave the classroom having learned something I didn’t walk in with. I genuinely love teaching. And I genuinely love what the new generations are thinking about — the questions they ask are different from the ones we were asking, and that’s exactly as it should be.

Anyway. I’m proud of what we’ve built at Magnific, and excited about what comes next. Now let’s get into what else has been living in my tabs.

⌚ Seiko Prospex SPB515 Speedtimer

A few months ago I stopped wearing my Apple Watch. No dramatic reason — I just got tired of being tapped on the wrist every five minutes. Since then I’ve gone back to mechanical watches full time, and I’ve noticed I look at them differently now. With more affection, maybe. More patience.

Which brings me to this. The SPB515 draws on Seiko’s history in motorsport — by 1971, the Seiko logo was on the hood of a Datsun 240Z racing through the East African Safari Rally — with a 39.5mm case modeled on the 1972 Speedtimer silhouette, and at 12mm, the slimmest profile Seiko has ever produced for its 6R caliber family. A dedicated crown at 4 o’clock operates an inner rotating countdown bezel for tracking intervals — originally designed for motorsport pit stops, but genuinely useful for anything with a fixed endpoint. The orange-tipped second hand is the right kind of detail: purposeful, not decorative. Under $1,000, automatic with manual winding, 72 hours of power reserve. It’s the kind of watch that doesn’t announce itself.

🚗 MINI × Vagabund

MINI and Austrian design studio Vagabund have built two one-off versions of the MINI Countryman that make a statement for adventure spirit, community culture, and festival lifestyle. The rear windows are gone, replaced by a custom outdoor audio system with polymer granite speaker housings, integrated tweeters, and subwoofers that come alive when the tailgate drops. Together, they’re essentially a rolling DJ booth. The detail that kills me: a built-in Sony Walkman on one side. Analog, personal, quiet — set against a car designed to project sound outward. Conversation starters about what a car can be beyond transportation.

While we’re on MINI doing interesting things with designers — there’s a collaboration from last year I find even harder to get out of my head. Matt Willey, Pentagram partner and former art director of the New York Times Magazine, designed the graphics for two one-off John Cooper Works cars in collaboration with Deus Ex Machina. His background in editorial and graphic design shows up in the way these cars use typography and color: bold, functional, and deeply tied to storytelling. The project’s graphic language, including three custom typefaces, was rooted in the revolutionary Formula One achievements of 1959–1960. For me, this is one of those rare projects where graphic design and automotive design actually talk to each other rather than one just dressing up the other.

🥁 Nate Smith — Live-Action Live in London: KOKO

I first caught Nate Smith live with Vulfpeck in Madrid — one of those shows where you spend half the time watching the drummer instead of whoever’s supposed to be the main attraction. Then I saw him again with his own band in Chicago, and that was a different thing entirely: more room, more space, his music on his own terms. A virtuoso with three Grammy nominations and a career built alongside artists like Brittany Howard and Michael Jackson, for whom he co-wrote “Heaven Can Wait.”

This is the full live recording of his November 2025 show at KOKO in London, with James Francies on keys, Josh Johnson on saxophone, and Michael League on bass. Seventy-five minutes. Put it on a big screen if you can. There’s a moment around the 20-minute mark where he drops into something that sounds like it shouldn’t work and then absolutely does. The kind of live recording that makes you want to book a flight.

🌿 Wild — Building Wild Week Athens

Wild is a digital studio I keep a close eye on — they make the kind of work that’s almost annoyingly good in its craft and attention to detail. This thread on X is worth reading slowly. They built the Wild Week Athens site in 1.5 weeks using mainly AI and no-code tools, and their takeaway wasn’t “AI is replacing designers” — it was the opposite: AI shifts the weight toward taste, creative instinct, and understanding craft. The site itself — built to bring their remote team together, celebrate their work, and create space for connection beyond the day-to-day — won Site of the Day on Awwwards. The thread breaks down how the experiment came together tool by tool, decision by decision. It’s one of the more honest and useful things I’ve read on the AI-and-design conversation, which tends to be full of people who are either terrified or naively celebratory. Wild is neither.

📍 Brandays! — 8 y 9 de mayo, La Nave Madrid

If you work in branding, design, or brand strategy and you’re anywhere near Madrid next week — this one’s for you. Brandays! is the Blanc! universe’s extension in Madrid, a space built by and for the creative community where branding and brand strategy are the sole protagonists. Two days at La Nave with talks, masterclasses, and workshops, guided by professionals from the branding and design world. La Nave is not just a venue — it’s a former factory in Villaverde where industrial heritage meets innovation, with 13,000 square meters of open-plan space that manages to feel both solid and flexible. I’ll be around.
I'll be there — though specifically at Brut!, a parallel free event running alongside Brandays! aimed at design students. Brut! brings together the best final-degree projects from leading design schools, explained by the students themselves — pure emerging talent in design and creativity. It's the kind of event I find genuinely energizing, for the same reason I love teaching: the work is unfiltered and the conversations are honest. Come find me there if you're a student or just curious about what the next generation is making.

🎙️ The Big Brand Club — Podcast

Yes, this one is me. I was a guest on The Big Brand Club podcast a few weeks ago and we talked for almost an hour about events as brand perception tools, my time at Domestika and what that chapter taught me about community building, and the role of the curator in the age of AI. I don’t love listening to myself talk, but I think it came out well. If you’re interested in any of those topics — brand experience, creative community, how events actually work — it might be worth your hour.

That’s it for this one. More soon.

— Wences