37 Global Creative Leaders Share Their Inspiration in 2025 Recess Creative Playbook

Creatives from some of the world’s most famous agencies, brands and production companies share their creative secrets and inspiration in a phenomenal new free creative resource published this week.

From the daily hacks and tools they use to their favourite reading and feelings about impostor syndrome, the 2025 edition of the Recess Creative Playbook, available as a free PDF via the Recess website, is full of creative leaders’ tips, tools and resources for creative inspiration.  

Building on 2024’s successful launch edition, this year the Playbook takes a truly global approach, with 37 creative directors, designers and strategists based in 32 different countries offering up their advice and recommendations for how they stay on top of their creative game.

Contributors this year include Artan Mansouri, global creative director at Spotify (Sweden), Trevor Robinson OBE, founder and creative director of Quiet Storm (UK) and Atiya Zaidi, CCO and CEO at BBDO (Pakistan). Others include creatives from agencies such as R/GA, VML, Grey, Ogilvy, Publicis, DDB, VT Pro Design, 180 Amsterdam, and Wieden+Kennedy, brand leaders from the likes of Absolut, Vox Media and AB InBev and ground breaking artists from India (Boomraang Studio) and Australia (Studio ENESS).

In addition, Recess has partnered with Makers, a new kind of production company, on a special bonus section featuring nine producers from Monks, Yuga Labs, Specsavers and more, discussing the free and paid tools they use to manage projects and keep sane with 10,000 tweaks and client requests.

Recess was created by Jody Orsborn Medina, a freelance experiential creative director who has worked both in-house as executive creative director for WPP agency Deeplocal and now freelances for clients across the US, Canada and the UK, including Shopify, Vice, MAS, Live Nation and Jam3. Recess also hosts free online events throughout the year with the aim of bringing together creatives, designers and strategists to share what’s currently inspiring them in the world.

Jody Orsborn Medina says, “As a freelancer, I missed having a steady community to share inspiration with – so I created one! I’m thrilled to follow up the success of last year’s Creative Playbook with a new version that takes a truly global look at creativity.”

“You can expect a lot of the same things that you loved from last year’s edition – the tips, tools and recommendations for staying at the top of your creative game. New sections this year include a look at imposter syndrome and how to overcome it (spoiler alert: 89% of our creatives feel it) and a look at the global creative landscape with each creative sharing the artists, places, trends and more happening in their country!”

“I’m a firm believer that creativity can come from anywhere and that gatekeeping is a thing of the past. As one reader said last year: “Count this as your industry cheat sheet!”