12 Creative Days Of Christmas

We want to say a big thank you to everyone we’ve worked with this year and to anyone who has wished us well along the way, so we've put a little something together to celebrate all things creative and to inspire you for the new year ahead.

More than anything else we love it when people push things forward, they do something so original, striking, beautiful or genuine that it moves you. You could love or hate it but the fact remains that they've done or produced something so unique or poignant that it changes the way others approach their own work going forward. We push ourselves to produce work that we love, if something’s just fine, or nice then we keep on trying.

We’ve come up with 12 people, one for every day of Christmas, who inspire us to keep doing this every day. These are just a handful of people out of many in the creative community who constantly surprise and impress us with their approach and the quality of their work, it’s an exciting time in our industry and we look forward to the next year of creating at John&Jane.

What we love most about Murray is how he can make singing along to Bob Dylan, smoking a cigarette and playing with a garden hose entertaining and heartwarming somehow – as he does in the closing credits of the film St. Vincent. The fact he refuses to carry a mobile phone and his approach to the projects he takes on makes his contribution and body of work pretty unique.

Throughout the early 1960s Dylan was dubbed the voice of his generation in the folk music world, having written classic protest songs such as "The Times are a-Changin’". However, in 1966 he decided he wanted to take his creativity in a different and unpopular direction—one with electric guitars. Things came to a head when his angry folk followers furiously booed him at a show in Manchester calling him ‘Judas’. He could have played it safe, he could have given his fans what they wanted—but instead, her turned to his band and ordered them to “Play it loud!” The rest is history.

Woolf pushed writing forward despite receiving no formal education. She dared to write honestly and frankly about her experience of life, she wrote as though her books were a stream of consciousness. She believed that you had to take risks to create great literature. This led the way for authors to write in a much more free and human way, ultimately changing the way we communicate and eschewing the formalised, restrained literature that came before. With "A Room of One’s Own" she also skilfully depicts the barriers women can face in terms of producing outstanding work which still bares relevance 100 years later.  

Alain de Botton has an incredible ability to communicate complex philosophical ideas in a way that feels really easy to understand. His frank and generous attitude to making sense of the human experience has led him to start The School of Life which is going from strength to strength and helped countless people strengthen their mental health and emotional intelligence along the way.Visit their website.

Byrne has inspired countless other artists and never fails to keep experimenting – not letting fashion or age get in the way. His seminal live show Stop Making Sense features dancing so original that it proves his theory that the body understands music before the mind does. The fact that 35 years on he has put on a unique concert like American Utopia and published Reasons to be Cheerful shows the power of staying open minded and experimental creatively.

We listen to too much Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon than is healthy, but this year they have definitely earned their place in this list with the collaborative project PEOPLE. This is all about making good music and removing as many barriers as possible in making this happen and in sharing it. Everyone is invited and the focus is on experimentation and creating new material. If the first album, Big Red Machine is anything to go by the potential with this project is very exciting. Discover new music.

JR is a French photographer and artist with a great story and a visually-striking style. In 2011, he won the TED prize and invested the $100,000 prize money into the Inside Out Project. Inspired by JR’s large‐format street pastings, the project gives people the opportunity to share their portrait and make a statement for what they stand for.

Swissmiss has been an advocate of the strength in building diverse creative communities for years, she started CreativeMornings which has been fundamental in our own creative lives and has undoubtedly changed our paths as a team forever. A talented designer who constantly thinks of creative ways to share the positive in good design. We endeavour to live by her motto "Don’t Complain, Create." Thank you Tina.

Walala's bright and colourful murals stand out amongst the urban landscape on even the most miserable of grey days. We love her use of colour, pattern and her desire to make people smile with her work. We can also relate to her desire to create pieces "The Bigger the Better!" We'd love to go to Walalaland.

One of the most renowned figures in design, Spiekermann started as a letterpress printmaker and then worked as a graphic designer in London in the early 1970s. He specialised in type design and is now reinventing the letterpress with his new studio P98a. Spiekermann has always been an innovator and continues to strive for difference in everything he touches.

The first African American First Lady epitomises everything that we want the next generation of women to become intelligent, resilient, educated, open minded, inclusive, pro-active and socially aware. After being told she was "setting her sights too high" by following her brother to university she is determined to communicate the opposite to young women world wide. Awesome interview with Obama.

Formally trained in architecture and carpentry, Rams is a pioneer of design. His work can be found to have touched all forms of design, and graphic design is no exception. When he joined Braun his impact was huge and his influence on the work that followed from the creative community is clear to see and still evident today looking at Jony Ive's design and the resulting Apple products.Learn more about this design legend.