- This event has passed.
James Hurst: The Tension of Design Between the Familiar and the Unfamiliar
June 4, 2025 @ 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Design has always been a tension between the familiar and the unfamiliar.
Too normal? No one notices.
Too weird? No one understands.
The sweet spot? That’s where culture shifts.
I’ll be talking about the creative framework that’s shaped much of my work over the past two decades:
Weird the Normal — making the everyday feel strange, delightful, or uncanny.
Normal the Weird — taking complex or unconventional ideas and making them feel obvious.
From rethinking global brand systems at Google to building playful weirdness into Tinder, I’ve found that creative impact often comes down to how bravely — and precisely — we calibrate those two forces.
In this talk, I’ll share:
– Why our cultural definition of “normal” is eroding (and why that’s a good thing)
– How to use AI not just to generate, but to reframe
– Real stories from the frontlines of brand reinvention, product design, and semiotic strategy
– Tools to help your team design for emotional resonance, not just efficiency
If you’re working at the intersection of creativity and technology — this is for you.
Come find me at SF Design Week — I’ll be in conversation, sharing new ideas, and probably drawing some weird diagrams.
ABOUT JAMES HURST:
James Hurst is a designer, author, Partner & Chief Creative Officer at Zag.
He has led creative teams at some of the world’s most influential tech companies — as Head of Brand Design at Google, Global Creative Director at Pinterest, and Creative Director at Tinder — where he helped shape product-led brand experiences at scale. James is the author of Use Design To Design Change, a practical framework for building brands with purpose, and teaches a course on AI and Aesthetic Intelligence, equipping creatives with the tools to thrive in a new era of design.
