In his latest Designism column Brian Collins writes from the city of Cannes in the south of France where he is looking to rekindle something lost.
The Collins House experiment in full swing in 2024
Cannes, what happened to you?
I don’t mean that in a bitter way.
Well, not entirely.
It’s just that when I first came here in the ‘90s, Cannes felt like a creative summer camp for people who hadn’t been invited to any other kind of camp. The Carlton Hotel stood like a grand old Beaux Arts ship anchored at the edge of the sea, full of people who made things. Ideas were currency. Curiosity was contagious. And you could wander from a breakfast meeting to a beachside dinner and talk the entire time without being sold a damn thing.
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You could find yourself talking with an actual creative genius. Or, even better, someone well on their way to becoming one, but you couldn’t always tell and that was part of the charm.
Back then, people came here to be around other creative people. That was the point. The ads were, mostly, just a good excuse to coalesce.
Sure, that still exists, in pockets. You can hear it in the kind words exchanged at a few bars at midnight. Real, sincere admiration whispered over a hungover breakfast. Or some quiet awe on a sunrise walk home after the strobes have burned your retinas and someone you love finally got their Lion. That spirit hasn’t disappeared, it’s just been drowned out a bit by the volume, the branding, the platforms, the platforms about the branding, and the panel on what the platforms mean for the branding.
And now we have the all-on AI blast.
With this in mind, last year, we ran an experiment. A modest idea: what if we built a gathering place for creative people who didn’t come to Cannes to be seen, but to see each other? What if we made space for weird conversations, shared meals, shoulder-bumps between weirdos and misfits, and those too-rare moments of, “Wait, you think that too?”
A place not for people who make decks about making things or people who just talk about making things, but for people who actually make things.
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It was a mad experiment. And it worked.
To our surprise and relief, people showed up. Not only physically, which is lovely, but fully open-hearted, open-minded and surprisingly generous with each other in a way that felt... well, a little unexpected.
Because - and let’s be real here - we’re all swimming against the tide right now. Against flattening algorithms. Against an industry caught between sad “purpose” fatigue and techno panic. Against what Derek Thompson has called ‘The Antisocial Century.’ A time when we talk at each other, not with each other. A time when being together feels optional, and increasingly rare.
For some this is a time of panic, yet this feeling stifles creativity so let’s banish it from the city this week.
At Collins House, we’re trying to reclaim a bit of what has made this place so remarkable in the first place: the sorcery of being in a room, or on a roof, or in a garden with people who care about the work and each other. The kind of conversations that don’t come with a pre-digested press release. The ones that remind you why you started doing this in the first place.
And yes, some good food. And good music too. But no lanyards. No one pitching an AI-powered skincare line on a LED-trimmed disco yacht.
No, this is not the only version of Cannes. But it’s one we hope more people might copy. Because every industry – not just ours – could use a few more real chats with real people.
With people who don’t use “platform” as a verb. And maybe, just maybe, a little less techno.
Welcome to Collins House.
We’ll be here. Come say hi.
Brian Collins is an acclaimed American designer, creative director, educator, and co-founder of COLLINS, a leading brand and experience design firm with offices in New York City and San Francisco. Renowned for shaping the future of brand building, Collins has worked with some of the world’s most influential companies, including Spotify, Nike, Facebook, Airbnb, Coca-Cola, and Microsoft.