We’re firing our motion design team

We could automate our motion design services today and fire half our creative team tomorrow. But that would be short-sighted. Instead, we’re doubling down on talent and tripling our output. I’ll explain how and why.

For the first time ever, teams can whip up basic motion graphics in seconds. So we should fire our motion design team, right? Let’s just use software and hit the “automate” button instead of over-paying talent.

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It’s tempting to believe the machines are coming for our jobs. But they’re not. They’re coming for mediocrity. As a creative studio owner, I’m not worried about cutting costs on talent. I’m worried about retaining top talent.

The future belongs to brands and studios that embrace new creative technology without losing their creative soul. Today's market is toxically competitive.

Faster processes help you stand out faster with templates, automation, tools like:

• GPT for organizing creative direction / filling blank pages
• Luma Labs AI for instant storyboarding
• Adobe Firefly (Generative Fill) for rapid retouching
• Jitter for quick turn motion design templates
• Claude MCP <> Blender for automating 3D asset generation
• Motion Array for limitless stock footage and asset libraries

Creative technology simplifies MVPs. Basic sites. Low-lift tasks. It expedites iteration and lowers the barrier to entry. What it doesn’t do: replace original thinking, strategy, or taste.

Templates, tools, and shortcuts serve a purpose. But there will always be brands (and customers) who demand the bespoke, the personal, the distinctive. The human.

Let’s unravel how to be human, a successful creative human, in the AI age of brand marketing & advertising.

Creative tools are everywhere (that’s a good thing)

Ok we get it, technology raises the bar.

Basic motion, basic skills aren’t enough anymore. If you want to compete, you have to know what you’re doing. Where is the creative industry today and where are we going? Leaning on creative tools is now mainstream. 7-figure agencies are using Canva decks to win $100K+ deals.

Canva has 170 million monthly users and is used by 85% of Fortune 500 companies as of 2024. Major corporations are streamlining design processes, empowering non-designers to produce content faster with tools like Canva, Jitter etc.

The result: more content, at more scale, in less time. But also, more sameness. That’s the opportunity. In a world of "good enough," distinctive creative strategy becomes the true differentiator.

Humans make brands unstoppable

Tools are tools. NOT a replacement for creative expertise. True creative skill (understanding of design principles, branding, etc.) remains the differentiator.

Good design can never be replaced by a tool… creativity and ingenuity can’t be automated or replicated by software.

The tools handle the "low lift" content, freeing up real creative teams to solve bigger strategic problems. Top teams can now move 3x faster with ⅓ of the staffing and invest saved time into better brand storytelling, unique design, and breakthrough campaigns.

If your team isn’t thinking this way, you’re falling behind.

Video killed the radio star (what it means for designers)

IMO, the rise of Canva is a foreshadow of today’s template-driven economy. Between 2019 and 2024, Canva grew from 30 million to 170 million users, democratizing design.

I’m picking on Canva because it exists and it’s easy, yet we still use Figma for the bulk of our design work. Squarespace exists and it’s easy, yet we still get paid to design custom websites.

Canva didn’t kill professional design. It forced design to evolve. Brands still turn to experts for high-impact identity work, campaigns, and strategic creative. The things that software can't automate. (And the brands who invest in those things stand out.)

Tools like Squarespace and Webflow captured the "simple site" market for small businesses, personal projects.

But serious brand websites, digital experiences, and robust e-commerce still demand professional creative expertise. Today, high-end brand experiences still require strategy, originality, and a mastery of both storytelling and technology.

The rise of supercharged, lean creative teams

New tooling and templating is collapsing the traditional creative sprint from months to days. What once required engineering now gets prototyped in hours. What once took a marketing department now takes a small, empowered team.

For brands, this means two things:

• Faster experimentation
• Higher expectations

Anyone can move fast now. The brands who win are the ones who move fast with strategic clarity and creative excellence.

**Technology saves time and effectively changes how creative work is done. Teams can afford to take more risks and try bolder concepts because the cost of failure is lower when you can build and tweak prototypes quickly.**

In short, the creative process has become more experimental and agile, with template-driven tools acting as the catalyst. What matters now is the strength of the idea and user insight, not the overhead of building the prototype.

Good enough isn’t good enough anymore

If everyone can create passable content, then true differentiation demands outstanding creative. Beyond content, top brands are investing in distinctive identity, storytelling, and customer experience.

In a world of lookalike templates, standing out requires:

• Original thinking
• Strategic storytelling
• Design systems that feel bespoke, not boilerplate

Templates solve production. Creativity still wins hearts.

Tiny studios are about to eat big agencies alive

Big agencies are struggling to adapt. Smaller, sharper creative teams are thriving / automating the busy work and doubling down on strategy, originality, and execution.

Supernova, for instance, with a team of just 20, can deliver:

• An original animated series
• Award-winning brand work for F500s and startups
• Multi-million dollar brand campaigns at faster speeds and lower costs (our producer may kill me for saying that one)
• Visuals on demand for hundreds of music artists

The advantage isn't size anymore. It's speed, creativity, and the ability to build emotional connection at scale. Automation erodes the old model. It supercharges the new one.

This is a golden era for S-tier brand creative work

The fear that templates would "kill creativity" missed the point.

Templates killed mediocrity. You can’t sell basic work as a service anymore because basic work can be bought for $99 from offshore talent or on a digital product marketplace. But try to do anything custom, and you’ll find yourself pulling hair out, wasting dozens of hours iterating templated or low-quality work.

Trust me, we hear it all the time. “We tried to hire a cheap agency, we wanted to get away with something fast and cheap. It didn’t work. And we’re calling you back to pay what it actually costs to get it done right because I am way past our deadline and I need our creative deliverables yesterday.”

If you want custom creative, which every brand in a competitive landscape should strive for, the best creative teams use automation to clear the runway for actually ambitious brand ideas. Less grunt work on low-lift, forget it next week social content. More imagination for the big, high-impact work.

In 2025 and beyond, brands who invest in strategic creativity (not just production) will be the ones who win attention, loyalty, and cultural relevance.

The message is clear:

Tech is making the basics easy. That’s not your threat. That’s your advantage.

Master the tools. Elevate the human part of creative. Build something only your brand can own. And this is a passing moment. The opportunity to leverage new tech will neutralize as everything becomes more streamlined and automated. There will be more opportunities down the line, but don’t miss this one.

If you want to future-proof your creative edge, check out what we’re building at Supernova and we’ll shoot you our capes deck. We work with bleeding edge startups like Luma and global brands like Square to upgrade their creative expression.

The modern brand wants speed and quality, at cost. Traditional agencies, even ones built in the social media era, can’t keep up. We’re building an agency that speaks 2025. The best is yet to come.