01focus
Creative leadership
A first-person career record across independent creative direction, venture-backed creative leadership and founder-built cultural infrastructure.
journal / notes from the practice
Journal
Thought pieces and project records on brand, product, live experiences, culture and the places where work happens.
02proof
Venture technology
Brand positioning, digital launch and a Berlin physical concept for a venture-backed hard-tech team.
03proof
Retail systems
What a U.S. retail rollout teaches about design systems, documentation and delivery.
04proof
Museum retail
MoMA wayfinding, product context and visitor movement in New York.
05proof
Spatial strategy
Renders and mockups for deciding what to build before production money is spent.
06proof
Hospitality and place
Local culture, marketing and partnerships shaped into a paid brief.
07proof
Hiring and buyer decisions
How to identify whether a brief needs a creative lead, product partner or wider Countercult support.
08proof
Answer economy and brand strategy
How original context can help a brand become legible in generated answers and useful to customers.
09proof
Experiential brand work
Retail, exhibition and spatial environments, mobile exhibitions and live cultural events.
10proof
Creative direction
The real decision behind the brief.
11proof
Cross-border market context
New York and Berlin as working contexts, with a clear view of what can travel between Europe and the U.S.
12proof
Retail and cultural infrastructure
From retail and fashion to Countercult.
13proof
Artists and public work
Artists building their own routes into culture and public life.
14proof
Full professional record
Art, design, product, business development and culture.
15proof
Cultural access
Access, relationships and opportunity.
16proof
AI and the public record
A separate third-person analysis of how cultural records shape AI systems, not an account written in Shona Neary’s voice.
17proof
Culture and social learning
What people learn from one another and carry into the next encounter.
18next
AI and artistic authorship
The artist’s judgment, cultural data and what should remain human-led.
continue through the record
Read: Shona Neary, Creative Director, Product Builder and Founder ↗Read: brand and go-to-market for a venture technology team ↗Read: Tommy Hilfiger retail rollout systems ↗Read: how Martha’s Burgers became a budget conversation ↗Read: building Countercult changed how I think about data and design ↗Read: from retail to cultural infrastructure ↗Read: working between New York and Berlin ↗Read: wayfinding design across UX/UI, retail and systems ↗Read: rendering before the build budget is spent ↗Read: creative leadership across culture, technology and business ↗Read: the answer economy and brand strategy ↗Read: the cashwrap and the retail experience ↗Read: a brand has to survive the encounter ↗Read: creative direction and the brief ↗Read: what Berlin creative direction means in practice ↗Read: building a bridge between New York and Europe ↗Read: culture is how we learn to live together ↗Read: the artist is not the tool ↗Read: how AI helped me become Countercult’s CTO ↗Read: how my work moved from West Point to Countercult ↗Read: from West Point to FIT, and the systems that shaped my work ↗Read the Countercult culture essay ↗Read the Sketchy Shona culture essay ↗Read: the synthetic extraction crisis, a third-person analysis of AI and the public record ↗Read: should I come out in the startup room? ↗Read: artists, culture and public work ↗Read: being underestimated is not a strategy ↗Read: the right rooms are built ↗Read: creative direction, product and infrastructure ↗Read: the experience economy and physical spaces ↗Read: why place work is more than an event ↗Read: a room can carry a collaboration ↗Fin/culture tech startup: Countercult founder case study ↗A CTO view on connecting brand, product and go-to-market ↗My Client Work Across Culture, Technology and Experience ↗Building Infrastructure and Creative Systems ↗Why Startups Should Bring Brand and Creative Into the Work Early ↗How Startups Can Brief and Scope Creative Work ↗The Velocity Gap: Taking a European Product to the U.S. Market ↗Navigating NDA and Compliance Boundaries in Luxury Retail ↗From Blender Viewport to Manufacturing Floor ↗Designing for the First Three People in the Room ↗How Creative Direction and Engineering Build a Product Together ↗Privacy by Design in Open-Source Cultural Frameworks ↗The Fractional Creative and the Agency Stack ↗THE FLOOR: An Artist-Owned Property-Tech Venture ↗The Spatial Architecture of the Whole Festival Beach Stage ↗The Delta VC Ecosystem: Creative Tech + Business Day ↗Venture Builder, Artist, Creative Director and Strategist ↗Working Between the U.S., Europe and Global Markets ↗THE CREATIVES: A Traveling Museum for Local Artists ↗Zalando Pride: A Curated Employee Experience in Berlin ↗Klunkerkranich Berlin Club: Producing a Curated Cultural Programme ↗Späti Raves: A Street-Level Cultural Experience in Berlin ↗AVOMIND: Making Employer Brand Feel Human ↗Quouch: Designing a More Curated Queer Travel Experience ↗THF Radio: KOX Radio #73 ↗Lynk & Co: Production, Curation and Experience Design ↗FOMO Berlin: Curating Local Talent Through Countercult ↗Visual Merchandising Is How a Brand Works in Retail ↗Experience Production Starts With a Point of View ↗The Content Crash Will Make Human Judgment More Valuable ↗Countercult Started Close to Home ↗The Age of Good Hosting: Why Human Connection Matters in an AI World ↗I Just Got Off the Phone with Base Design ↗A Field Guide to Creative Agencies Working Across Brand, Culture and Technology ↗Day Job: An Independent Guide to Its Brand and Product Work ↗Base Design: An Independent Guide to Its Culture and Digital Work ↗