Maxx Burman

After nearly 10 years, I've finally redesigned my website. What was once just an archive of my artwork is now a place to share ideas on creativity, technology, business, and leadership. I'll be publishing essays regularly and sharing recordings of my keynotes and interviews here as well. If you're building something meaningful, navigating change, or simply curious about where creativity is headed, welcome. maxxburman.com

We are living through a period of enormous change in the workplace. Industries are being reshaped, priorities are shifting, and companies are restructuring teams faster than many employees can adjust. Those changes are painful enough. But they become even harder when people have spent years being told they were family. In my latest essay, I explore why honesty about our professional relationships is ultimately kinder, how meaningful connections can thrive without the promise of permanence, and what it means to be a great team. Written by Maxx Burman. Illustrations by Érik Guarisco. Read the full essay on maxxburman.com

What if becoming a better creative requires spending less time creating? In this week's essay, I explore why getting inspired needs to become a deliberate part of our creative practice, how our minds make unexpected connections, and why becoming a better creative in this new era of technology might require becoming a more interesting human. Enjoy, and let me know your thoughts! How do you approach staying inspired?

Every day I look online, I feel like I’m falling behind. Someone is building a company around a technological breakthrough, making a fortune in a market I don’t understand, or building a huge audience seemingly overnight. Then I remind myself that I don’t know the full story behind someone else’s success. We don’t see the daily work, the years it took to get there, or all of the attempts that failed. Building something great takes time. Along the way, we’re constantly tempted by opportunities promising faster results, bigger rewards, and an easier path. I hope this essay helps you stay focused on what you’re building, give your efforts time to compound, and most of all, beware of shiny objects. Read the full essay at maxxburman.com.

Thank you @vitalybulgarov for the incredible gift, the Revered Edition of Mortal Shell 2. Such a cool surprise to open it up and see my painting on the cover of the art book inside. Even more surprising was finishing the game, watching the credits roll, and suddenly seeing my name there! It’s one thing to support your friends while they’re making something cool. It’s another when that thing becomes one of your favorite games, you can’t put it down until the credits roll, and then your own name shows up at the end. So happy for the entire Cold Symmetry team and everything they’ve accomplished with this one. Very grateful to have a little trophy on the shelf to celebrate it with.

I've always believed that achieving excellence requires an extraordinary willingness to endure discomfort, setbacks, and sacrifice. As long as we want something badly enough, we can find a way through an incredible amount of difficulty. Once that desire disappears, even the clearest path forward can lose its appeal. I wrote this essay to explore what my first two careers taught me about the relationship between excellence and desire, and what I hope to do differently on my next summit. Read the full piece on maxxburman.com

The season of sitting outside by the lake is officially over. This summer gave me more than I expected. More space to think, more time to write, more perspective on what I want next, and a reminder of how much the environment around us can shape the way we feel. I’m going to miss this chapter. But there’s something nice about knowing the next one doesn’t have to look the same to be just as meaningful. Rainy mornings, a warm fireplace, and a very different kind of season ahead. I hope summer was good to you, and that fall brings something even better.

We have more things to choose from than ever before, but increasingly, the systems helping us navigate those choices are designed to give us more of what we already like. I wrote this essay because I think curation is more important than ever. It can connect dots we wouldn't have connected ourselves, put a point of view behind what deserves our attention, and build enough trust to introduce us to something unfamiliar. At its best, curation doesn't just help us discover new things. It helps us develop new tastes. – Illustrations by Eric Guarisco. Read the full essay at maxxburman.com

Thank you to @creativecargofestival for having me, and congratulations to @danarworya and the entire team for creating such a special event. I had the opportunity to give a talk about how artists create enduring value through times of change, a subject I’ve been thinking a lot about lately and one that felt especially meaningful to explore with this community. Spending the weekend reconnecting with old friends, making new ones, and feeling the energy of so many creative people together in one place was a great reminder of what makes our industry so special. Thank you, Rotterdam. Looking forward to doing it again next year!

The more our identity becomes intertwined with our company’s, the more likely we are to mistake business problems for personal threats. I learned this one the hard way and wrote about it in my latest essay: The Identity Trap. Cover art by: Studio HD and Gustopo (via Unsplash) Read the full essay at buff.ly/FVatLeu

Huge congratulations to the entire team at Cold Symmetry on the release of @mortalshellgame 2 today! It’s been a while since I’ve done any artwork, but when @vitalybulgarov reached out to see if I’d be interested in creating some key art for the game, I couldn’t resist. Here’s a little look at the process, from the first rough sketches through the final render, using Maya, Redshift, and Photoshop. Thank you to the Mortal Shell team for letting me make something in your incredible world. Time to dive in and play your awesome game!

"There’s more content than ever before, and at the same time breakout hits are reaching audiences at unprecedented scale. Demand isn’t following the supply curve. I wrote about what that means for where we place our ambition in The Dangers of Moderate Ambition Cover art by: Rizki Ardia (via Unsplash) Read the full essay at : buff.ly/8Uk05cV

We’re incredibly excited to share that @kitbash3d has acquired @ArtStationHQ and @Sketchfab . At KitBash, our mission has always been to enable and inspire creators, and that shared commitment is what makes KitBash such a natural home for these two incredible companies. ArtStation has helped creative professionals find inspiration, community, and opportunity, while Sketchfab has made 3D accessible to millions of people across the internet. We have an incredible foundation to build on, and we believe the best days of ArtStation and Sketchfab are still ahead. We’re excited to build the next chapter together with this amazing creative community.