About Extra Curricular

Most people think creativity is a talent. I think it’s a way of seeing the world.

Extra Curricular is a publication about creativity, brand, business and the art of thinking for yourself. I write about the things that shape good work before anyone sees it: taste, curiosity, instinct, ideas, decisions and the courage to follow a thought somewhere interesting.

Some pieces are practical. Some are personal. Often, they’re both. You’ll find thoughts on building brands, making things, working with your own brain, and staying creatively alive in a world that keeps offering to do the thinking for you.

This is a place for people who care about how they think as much as what they make.

Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter, unlock practical resources and publication archives.

A little about me

I’m Tess Robinson, a creative director, writer and founder. I built and sold one of Australia’s best Brand Agencies, Smack Bang, and I co-founded Land Lab. Across both, I’ve spent years working at the intersection of strategy and intuition: using research to get closer to the truth, then trusting my instincts to do something with it.

I believe taste can be developed. Curiosity can be practised. And creativity becomes more useful the more seriously we take it.

Extra Curricular is where I explore those ideas in public.

Why subscribe?

Because the best ideas rarely arrive when you’re staring harder at the same problem. Sometimes you need a new question, an unexpected reference, or a sentence that makes you see your work differently.

Subscribe to get new essays from Extra Curricular in your inbox. Come for the ideas you can use. Stay for the ones that change how you see things.

P.S. I’ve just released A 40-Page Guide to Brand, a practical guide to thinking more clearly and creatively about brand. Become a paid subscriber and you can read it immediately.