Creative Business Wrap – November 2025

Much to talk about this month, from AI changing how music is made, why women and under-35s are quitting the arts, current trends in architecture and design and even a brutally frank assessment of the death of a creative business. 

But maybe you’re up to your neck in client work, working to unreasonable demands and too busy to read anything at all? No worries, here’s a funny video for you. Happy November, all.

Let’s start with nothing. In fact, let’s devote some time to doing nothing.
 
In this article from bizjournals.com, Bree Groff talks about a Do Nothing Day (DND) as a tool for sustaining business creativity. DNDs are full workdays devoted to creative thinking, providing the time and space for the brain to wander, explore, and conjure ideas. According to Groff, every proper, day-long DND has yielded one or more ideas that have contributed massively to the success of a project.
 
For this strategy to succeed, Groff says you must “woo the Muse,” who is not impressed by impatience or pressure (but then, who is?). The DND must last a full day because the Muse is “not impressed with a half-day effort”. It must also take place in a non-worklike location, as a windowless hotel ballroom will cause the Muse to refuse flat-out to attend.
 
To facilitate creative thinking, Groff suggests using two sets of cards as prompts. Deck A features different topics related to the project or work, such as “session on culture”. Deck B is for fun, offering random, playful prompts. The intention must be clearly set: the day is about thinking about everything but doing nothing, ensuring a pressure-free environment.
 
Ready to give nothing a go?

Next up, a music video. Here is Xania Monet, with “How was I supposed to know?”, currently climbing up the Billboard charts. It has a double-edged title for sure; how, indeed, are you supposed to know that Xania exists only as an AI creation?
 
“She” is not alone. In fact, according to Billboard, “in just the past few months, at least six AI or AI-assisted artists have debuted on various Billboard rankings. That figure could be higher, as it’s become increasingly difficult to tell who or what is powered by AI — and to what extent ”.
 
Xania is the creation of Telisha Jones, a lyricist, but not a singer, from Mississippi.  “The lyrics are 100% me,” she told CBS. “Xania is an extension of me, so I look at her as a real person.” A record deal for Xania is in the bag. But if people can create music from their home laptops, where does this leave producers and others in the supply chain?
 
In this article, also from CBS, Grammy Award-winning songwriter and producer Dallas Austin says that the music industry must embrace AI or face being left behind. Austin views this period as another Industrial Revolution, affecting not just music but also film, clothing, and actors.
 
Austin believes that AI artists are here to stay and will coexist with real artists rather than replace them. He argues that AI won’t be able to eliminate human artists because people desire human connection, noting that a fan meet-and-greet or concert is not the same when the artist is AI.
 
Problems with this? They’re everywhere, from copyright infringement to authenticity (the campaign to vindicate Milli Vanilli can’t be far away). But the take-home message is this: AI-created music isn’t coming. It’s already here.

Here’s a candid story: “‘We screwed up our creative business’: what really happened with RoomFifty“. Written by Tom May for Creative Boom, the article examines seven years of mistakes made by illustrator Leon Edler and his business partner Chris Clarke.
 
RoomFifty, an online shop selling limited edition prints, was popular and acclaimed, making £25,000 in its first three weeks after launching in October 2017. Despite this initial success, the founders struggled with significant blind spots on the commercial side of operations. They never paid themselves, avoided looking at spreadsheets, and consistently lost interest once the “fun, creative stuff” was done. Instead of consolidating, they used their banked money in 2020 to build a sister company, MakeRoom, a platform artists loved but which the founders—who had “no tech knowledge”—could not affordably maintain when tech issues arose.
 
The struggles of running the chaotic, unprofitable business took a severe toll, compounded by personal trauma. Leon was diagnosed with testicular cancer in July 2020, leading to severe anxiety, and he later went through a divorce. The exhaustion and chaos eventually led to the manager quitting in 2022, and the final closure of RoomFifty in September 2024, which brought Leon “huge relief”. However, the time off allowed Leon to see the business objectively. A critical breakthrough followed a breakdown and a referral for an ADHD assessment, which provided clarity on why the company had failed. This diagnosis led Leon to stop beating himself up and instead seek a partner who possessed the complementary business skills he lacked.
 
I’ll let you read about his plans for relaunch. Still, the key lessons learned from this ordeal are brutally simple: Pay yourself from the start, don’t build what you can’t maintain, hire people who fill your gaps, and understand your own strengths and weaknesses before trying to understand business.

Which workers are opting out of arts, culture and heritage jobs? According to a report from the UK’s Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC), women are more likely to leave arts jobs than those in other sectors, a “troubling” finding driven largely by creative roles being “incompatible” with caregiving responsibilities.
 
Overall, exit rates for arts workers are generally higher than in other occupations, jeopardising the sector’s supply of “skilled employees” due to issues such as low pay, limited progression, and a lack of flexibility. Furthermore, the analysis reveals that workers aged 35 and under are “much more likely” to quit ACH work than workers in older age brackets, exposing “structural vulnerabilities” in the industry’s ability to retain early- and mid-career professionals. Curiously, while salaried staff are departing, the self-employed and freelancers—who make up 59% of the sector—are significantly less likely to leave.
 
The underlying reason for these departures is often brutally simple: low pay, which remains closely intertwined with rising precariousness. One former technical manager interviewed in the study noted that her senior position pay “topped out at £22,000 a year,” an hourly rate she believed she could exceed working in a supermarket. This lack of financial viability decreases the likelihood that people from less affluent backgrounds can pursue careers in the creative industries, impacting diversity. While the skills developed in ACH careers are transferable to other, often higher-paying occupations, the loss of these skilled individuals suggests that urgent retention measures are necessary. Lighting designer Paule Constable stressed the importance of strategic government support for professional freelancers, noting that many disciplines, such as acting and directing, now rely on freelance workers due to the disappearance of salaried positions.

Experimentation with materials, wellness, and the “quiet power” of craft: these are three trends impacting architecture and design, according to Alex Ulam in ArchiExpo e-Magazine.
 
For an example of material innovation, how about a ceramic chair? Max Lamb’s Crockery collection, a collaboration with 1882 Ltd, features chairs and stools rendered entirely in slip-cast ceramic. This work shifts ceramics from the realm of the delicate and decorative to become structural, load-bearing pieces, achieved after years of refining the process to cast ceramics at an architectural scale.
 
As for wellness, there’s the Wake light, developed by Thomas Heatherwick and Tala, designed to counter digital overload by reestablishing the “sacredness of sleep”. The lamp counteracts the blue light of digital screens—which can suppress melatonin by up to 85 per cent—by using a “Wind-Down” mode to gradually lower brightness and blue-spectrum light at night. In the morning, its “Wake-Up” mode mimics the natural sunrise.
 
Craftsmanship is another trend, according to Ulam, and an expression of a quiet resistance against disposability. Henge’s Colonne Cucina kitchen system embodies this. The entire kitchen, built from onyx and hand-hammered metal, is designed to disappear when not in use, turning the functional space into an austere, luminous surface. Henge’s reliance on Northern Italian artisans, whose single tables can take months to make, illustrates that modern luxury is defined by invisible mastery of creating rather than conspicuous display.
 
Ultimately, these examples point to changing trends in design: valuing depth over speed and meaning over spectacle. (As long as you can pay for them, of course!)

Finally, a few grant opportunities to consider this month:
 

• The Queensland Government is strengthening support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander creatives through the new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Development Fund. The fund will support projects with up to $70,000 for new performing arts work by Queensland-based individuals, groups, and organisations.  Additionally, the fund includes a visual arts market development stream with funding up to $30,000 to support creatives in gaining global exposure. Up to $10,000 is also available across both funding streams to support costs related to the participation of artists and audiences with disability.

• The NSW government’s MVP Ventures Program is a competitive grant designed to support New South Wales-based startups and small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in commercialising highly innovative new products or processes, helping them move from early-stage development to market-readiness. Round 2 of the 2025-2026 program is now open, offering grants from $20,000 up to $75,000, depending on the funding stream. It operates under two streams: Stream 1 (General) provides up to $50,000 with a minimum 50% cash co-contribution, while Stream 2 offers up to $75,000 with a minimum 25% co-contribution for women-owned, regionally-headquartered, or Aboriginal/Torres Strait Islander majority-owned businesses, aiming to foster diversity in the state’s innovation ecosystem.

• Creative Australia’s Music Australia Export Development Fund assists Australian contemporary music artists and businesses (including managers and labels) to grow their careers and businesses in international export markets. The fund is split into several streams, each with a different focus, such as Performance and Touring Activity (up to $75,000 in matched funding), International Professional and Artistic Development (up to $15,000 in matched funding) and International Market and Audience Development (up to $10,000 in matched funding). Open now, but closing very soon (December 2, 2025, for the current round).