Founder and Creative Director Talia Cotton will join COMD’s “Meet the Pros” series for a presentation and moderated Q&A titled 

Start Offline: How Today’s Designers Can Build a Creative Process People Will Pay For.

The presentation will explore the importance of developing a personal creative process that goes beyond digital tools. Drawing from her experience leading Cotton, Talia will share how thinking, sketching, and experimenting away from the screen can lead to stronger ideas and more distinctive design work.

Through practical insights into her own approach, Talia will discuss how designers can develop a defined way of working that not only fuels creativity but also becomes a valuable differentiator—helping them articulate their value and build processes that clients are willing to invest in.

The presentation will be followed by a moderated Q&A, offering attendees an opportunity to explore Talia’s creative practice, professional experience, and perspectives on building a sustainable career in design.

Talia Cotton to Speak at COMD’s “Meet the Pros” Series on Building a Creative Process

Talia Cotton to Speak at COMD’s “Meet the Pros” Series

Talia Cotton will join Paradiso in New York City for a candid panel discussion exploring failure, creative risk, and the challenges of building a career in design. Hosted at Automattic's SoHo space, the event brings together leading voices across design, art, and technology for an honest conversation about the projects that didn't work, the lessons that stayed, and the importance of creative community.

, an AI-powered creative platform, and filmmaker 

. Moving beyond the traditional success stories often shared at creative conferences, the discussion will focus on the setbacks, missteps, and difficult decisions that shape creative practice, examining what it means to take meaningful risks in an industry where failure can come at a significant cost.

The gathering will also bring together an influential creative community, including illustrator 

. Through open dialogue and shared experiences, Paradiso aims to create space for greater honesty, connection, and mutual support among creative practitioners.

Drawing from her experience leading Cotton, Talia will contribute to a broader conversation about navigating uncertainty, embracing experimentation, and the role of vulnerability in pushing creative work forward.

Talia Cotton to Join Paradiso Institute Panel in New York

Talia Cotton will speak at the SXSW 2027 Innovation Conference in Austin, Texas. She joins John Maeda in the Design track, with the broader conference featuring speakers including AI researcher Timnit Gebru, futurist Amy Webb, poppi founder Allison Ellsworth, and social psychologist Amy Cuddy. 

Drawing on a decade at the intersection of design and technology, Cotton’s talk challenges the question of what technology will do to creativity, asking instead how creatives can shape its possibilities. Through historical examples, a proven methodology, and real-world case studies, she offers a pragmatic perspective on the fear that AI will replace creative work—and how creatives can embrace technology without sacrificing craft, meaning, or authorship. The session explores what makes creative work distinctive and what will keep it irreplaceable.

SXSW takes place in Austin, Texas, on March 15–21, 2027.

Talia Cotton to Speak at SXSW 2027’s Innovation Conference

Talia Cotton has joined Yale School of Art as a thesis advisor in its Graphic Design MFA program. Other thesis advisors listed by Yale are 

Julian Alexander, Alice Chung, and John Provencher

. The Graphic Design MFA centers on independent research and the development of each student’s design practice through studio work, individual criticism, and mentorship. Students present their work in a thesis book and end-of-semester reviews with faculty and external critics.

Talia Cotton joins Yale School of Art as Thesis Advisor

Fast Company’s 2026 Innovation by Design Award

 in Graphic Design and Branding for our work with Eternal Research.

Now in its 15th year, Fast Company’s Innovation by Design Awards recognize designers and businesses creating some of the most innovative work across design today. This year’s 

 include projects, products, and services from 

, and others. The awards celebrate work demonstrating originality, beauty, sustainability, user insight, cultural significance, and measurable business impact.

Rooted in the intricacy of Victorian ornamentation and powered by generative code, Eternal Research’s identity explores the relationship between craft and technology. At its center is a custom generative system that translates qualities of sound—including timbre, frequency, and intensity—into an evolving visual language. The result is a living identity capable of producing an infinite number of unique compositions while retaining the precision and expressiveness of its historical inspiration.

Fast Company’s feature, “Victorian craft inspired this hypnotic brand identity,” takes a closer look at the unlikely connection at the heart of Eternal Research’s identity: the meticulous craftsmanship of Victorian ornamentation and the accessibility of experimental music-making. The article traces how founder Alexandra Fierra’s collection of Victorian books became the starting point for the brief, and how Cotton studied and decoded the structural logic of these historical patterns to build a computational design system that reacts to sound. It also explores how the generative tool—capable of creating an infinite number of unique patterns—works alongside a customized wordmark and flexible typographic system to create an identity that reframes technology not as the opposite of craft, but as a new vehicle for it.

The Innovation by Design honorees were selected by a panel of leading designers, business executives, and Fast Company editors. As Fast Company editor-in-chief Brendan Vaughan described this year’s winners, the awards recognize ideas that “challenge convention” and demonstrate the possibilities of treating design as a strategic force.

We’re incredibly grateful to Eternal Research and founder Alexandra Fierra for trusting us to create something ambitious, experimental, and deeply considered together.

Explore the complete 2026 Innovation by Design winners 

Talia Cotton to Speak at COMD’s “Meet the Pros” Series on Building a Creative Process

Talia Cotton to Speak at COMD’s “Meet the Pros” Series

Talia Cotton to Join Paradiso Institute Panel in New York

Talia Cotton to Speak at SXSW 2027’s Innovation Conference

Talia Cotton joins Yale School of Art as Thesis Advisor

Cotton wins Fast Company’s 2026 Innovation by Design Award in Graphic Design and Branding