Alex Zeevalkink - The Subthread

How to Earn, Spend, and Exchange Cultural Currency

In an era optimized for convenience, the brands that introduce deliberate, meaningful resistance become the ones people follow.

Culture Marketing

Alex Zeevalkink

Dec 15, 2025 — 4 min read

Tech as a Tool, Culture as a Compass

Micro‑scenes, meme logic, and IRL moments shape youth marketing. Tech and AI aren’t the headline for these audiences, it's just a tool. Usefulness and participation, those are the areas to win. Louise Millar of Seed champions collaborative, human‑led designed experiences with results that travel.

Culture Creativity

Alex Zeevalkink

Dec 9, 2025 — 5 min read

Forget About Micro‑Aesthetics, Find Macro Truths

We don’t live in one stream anymore – we surf many. Trends come and go, but shared moments and routines are what shapes the culture brands should care about. We just need to slow down to see what really matters.

Culture

Alex Zeevalkink

Nov 26, 2025 — 4 min read

Brave by Design

We sit down with BFB Labs’ head of product, Nabeena Mali, to unpack how Lumi Nova offers therapeutic digital intervention to children – and how her process of co‑creation, analog sketching, and a lean tool stack turn therapy into playable progress.

Design Tech

Alex Zeevalkink

Nov 10, 2025 — 5 min read

Emotion First: How Tech Can Build Living Brands

At Future Makers Live, Doddz and Will Thacker showed how technology, used with intention, can deepen brand storytelling, sharpen audience understanding, and turn one‑off campaigns into living, evolving worlds.

Creativity Branding

Alex Zeevalkink

Oct 28, 2025 — 5 min read

The Designer’s Shortcut: Branding, UI, UX

We tell ourselves inspiration is a simple errand: open Pinterest or Instagram, take a walk, buy a coffee, return with a spark. In reality, it’s more like skimming a library’s returns cart, you have to go through stacks of almosts to reach the book you actually need.

Branding Creativity

Alex Zeevalkink

Oct 2, 2025 — 2 min read

Future Makers Live: Insights You Can Use Tomorrow

We started The Subthread to spotlight the people shaping what’s next – and to turn great ideas into real-world conversations. This month, we’re bringing the community together for the first time.

Branding Marketing

Alex Zeevalkink

Oct 1, 2025 — 1 min read

The Pyramid of Creative Automation

Unilever’s Rachelle Schuimer on making big bets, scaling content, and why quality rides on quantity.

Marketing

Alex Zeevalkink

Oct 1, 2025 — 4 min read