CreativeMornings/Berlin Interview – Cedric Kiefer on GROWTH and Emerging Technologies

The November CreativeMornings/Berlin is focusing on the global theme Growth and our next speaker is Cedric Kiefer. He is the Creative Lead and Co-Founder of onformative, described as a ‘creative innovation studio shaping new perspectives by combining art, design and technology’. 

In our conversation, Cedric shares advice for creatives starting today based on his extensive experience, as well as exploring the role of emerging technologies and AI in shaping a creative perspective.

1. Looking back at the co-founding of onformative 16 years ago, what lessons would you share with creatives starting their journey in today’s fast-changing environment?

When we founded onformative in 2010, we made a conscious decision that proved essential: we deliberately avoided locking ourselves into a specific medium, technology, or aesthetic style. Instead, we focused on developing a strategic, process-driven approach that could evolve with technology and our clients' needs. This adaptability became our core strength and competitive advantage, allowing us to respond effectively to rapid industry changes because adaptation is built into our studio's DNA.

My advice for creatives starting today: 

Reframe your relationship with change. View the constant flux of the creative and technological landscape not as a challenge to overcome, but as your natural working environment. This shifts your focus from reacting to change to proactively engaging with it as a source of inspiration.

Build your foundation on adaptable approaches rather than fixed specializations. While it's tempting to master a single popular tool, tools inevitably become obsolete. Instead, develop strong problem-solving frameworks. A flexible process for research, experimentation, and collaboration will outlast any piece of software. The ability to define a problem, explore possibilities, and find unique solutions is far more durable than mastering any specific tool.

2. How does collaborating with emerging technologies and AI foster creativity and growth — not just for the project, but for the people involved?

Collaboration with emerging technologies, especially Al, fundamentally shifts our role as creators. While the current discourse around Al feels revolutionary, for us it's an evolution of principles we've practiced since the beginning. When we started working with generative design, we were already defining systems, shaping processes, and curating outcomes. The process itself became a core part of the concept and project itself.

Working with Al follows this same philosophy. In an age where anyone can generate visually pleasing content, intent has become paramount. The story behind creation, the conceptual framework, and the artist's intention matter more than ever. This places immense value on the how and the why, the human intent, rather than just the what. The process behind the creation is another story to be told, that reveals the depth separating human creativity from generated output.

For our team, this has been a catalyst for growth. It sparks curiosity and pushes us to engage with fields like machine learning and data science.

Paradoxically, working with non-human intelligence has highlighted the value of uniquely human qualities: our intuition, our ability to provide conceptual direction, and our creative vision. The specific tool, whether a generative algorithm, Al model, or physical medium, becomes just one part of a larger creative strategy that we define.

3. Your upcoming talk is titled ‘Shaping New Perspectives: Embracing Uncertainty in Times of Constant Change’. Can you share an example when embracing uncertainty led to unexpected growth?

The founding of onformative itself is a perfect example. We didn't start with a rigid five-year plan or narrow definition of what we would produce. Instead, we embraced the uncertainty of where our process-driven approach would lead us. This openness was crucial, it allowed us to evolve from a small team focused on a niche field into the diverse, multidisciplinary studio we are today.

We've learned that uncertainty becomes a powerful creative asset when approached with the right framework.

The key is maintaining clarity on the objective, the problem we need to solve, while remaining flexible about the exact path to get there.

We've developed strategies to navigate this ambiguity and consistently find the right solution.

This balance allows us to pursue promising new directions that emerge during the creative process, often leading to solutions that neither we nor our partners initially imagined. It has transformed our client relationships from delivering predefined deliverables to embarking on collaborative journeys of discovery built on trust in the process.

Embracing uncertainty isn't about being lost, it's about having confidence in your process to discover the best possible destination along the way.

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Interview conducted by Aida Mola from CM/Ber