Just a quick reminder that we have a facilitation lab tomorrow at 1:00 PM Berlin time via Zoom. We’ll walk through the digital tools and explore a tabletop version of the Bloomerangas game in its new setup.

Of course, there will also be time to get to know each other better and ask questions.

Please register for this facilitators-only event here.

…

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In our latest Bloomerangas Podcast episode, I speak with Lina Žemaitytė-Kirkman, Head of Rockit (a Startup and Innovation Centre) about something many of us are feeling right now: how hard it has become to stay focused, creative, and mentally clear in a world of constant digital input.

We explore why digital overload affects more than productivity, how boredom and rest support creativity, and what simple habits can help us protect our attention in the age of AI.

It’s a thoughtful and practical conversation for anyone who wants to feel less scattered and create with more clarity.

Watch the episode below, listen on substack/spotify/Apple Podcasts or read the summary on our blog.

All the best ✨
Egle

https://bloomerangas.com

I’d like to invite you to a facilitation session where we’ll explore a new way of running gamified workshops using Bloomerangas tools.

In this session, we’ll test a board-led workshop format that combines a workshop brief, Bloomerangas card decks, tabletop mechanics, and visible outputs to create a more dynamic and participatory facilit…

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These labs are a recurring space to deepen your facilitation — theme by theme, tool by tool. Each session is 45 minutes and focused on one specific aspect.

The theme for the first session is Reading Resistance: what resistance looks like i…

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We’ve just released a small but powerful update to help you run better sessions.

You can now save cards to Favorites and arrange them in your own order—making it easy to prepare structured, gamified sessions for your clients.

Switch between grid and card view, reorder cards however you like, and use your curated set during facilitation.

Want to make it more interactive?
Spin your saved Favorites in the spinning tool and explore them together with your client.

Try it out and let us know what you think.

All the best,
Egle Karalyte
https://bloomerangas.com

P.S. Friendly reminder for our facilitators — we’re hosting an online facilitation session this Friday at 12pm (Berlin time). You’ll find the login link in the Learn section. If you need any help, just email us at hello@bloomerangas.com.

80s design has been bold, colorful, and unapologetically experimental, defined by bright palettes, geometric shapes, and playful, often chaotic compositions.

Moving away from strict modernist rules, it embraced emotion, irony, and individuality—seen in movements like the Memphis Group—while early digital tools began reshaping graphic design, making the decade a turning point toward expressive and highly stylized visual culture.

Inside the brief, you’ll find:

• Key influences (Postmodernism → New Wave)

• Messaging directions

• Visual cues

• Pitfalls to avoid

• Hands-on workshop exercise

• AI prompts for bold, personality-driven design

You’ll also find the design cards from this brief in our Design Cards section so you can expand your options when exploring a design direction for your project.

⏰ A reminder: our next facilitation practice session is happening online on April 3rd at 12pm Berlin time. You’ll find a link to sign up in the Learn section of the tools website. Each session is unique, centered around a different theme, and led by a facilitator from our community. It’s a safe environment to experiment, learn, and strengthen your facilitation skills. Any questions, just reply to this email.

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I’d love to introduce you to Andra Bagdonaitė, venture capital investor and Partner at FIRSTPICK — a high-speed VC fund and accelerator backing ambitious early-stage startups across the Baltic region (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia).

Andra shares insights from her experience investing at the pre-seed and seed stages, often becoming the first investor on a startup’s cap table. She explains what truly makes a company investable in its earliest phase: a committed founding team, early validation, and a clear path toward scalable growth. We explore how milestones are defined, why willingness to pay is the strongest signal of product-market fit, and how founders can think strategically about reaching their next funding round.

Before co-founding FIRSTPICK, Andra worked in early-stage investment and accelerator roles at Startup Wise Guys, one of Europe’s leading startup accelerators, where she supported emerging startups through growth and fundraising. Her journey into venture capital was not planned, but shaped by years of working alongside founders and witnessing how ideas turn into companies.

This episode offers a grounded look at early-stage investing, practical advice for founders considering venture capital, and an honest perspective on what it takes to build globally competitive companies from the Baltics.

Continue reading on our website and watch the full talk on our YouTube channel to explore early-stage investing, what investors truly look for, and how founders can turn patterns into scalable opportunities.

All the best,
Egle Karalyte
Brand Strategist, Facilitator, and creator of Bloomerangas

💡 New Bloomerangas Website

We’ve just launched the Bloomerangas website — a growing library of tools, skills, and experiences to unlock creativity and nurture your creative thinking. Designed for facilitators, educators, creatives, and team leads, it’s your competitive edge in the age of AI.

Explore

I’d love to introduce you to Jessica Dance — a UK-based artist, designer, and creative coach. In her work, Jessica combines art, business, and psychology to support creative entrepreneurs in building lives and businesses that are joyful, impactful, and financially sustainable.

In our latest talk, Jessica opens up about how, after years of working with brands like Vogue, Nike, Barbie, and Google, she reached a point where she felt exhausted and disconnected from the very work she once loved. What she realised is that burnout is often a sign that the way your creative life is structured is no longer sustainable.

So many creative careers begin organically. You’re good at something, opportunities start arriving, and the work snowballs. It feels exciting — until, somewhere along the way, you stop asking whether the pace, the projects, and the pressure actually suit you. You might be earning and delivering, yet internally feel depleted.

A big part of our conversation focused on Jessica’s belief that strategy alone is not enough. Before refining your niche or raising your prices, there’s something deeper that needs attention — your nervous system. If you’re operating in chronic stress or survival mode, even the best strategy can fall apart. You might avoid visibility, hesitate to pitch dream clients, or undercharge — not because you lack skill, but because success doesn’t feel safe to hold.

Jessica structures her work around nervous system regulation, mindset shifts, and strategy — in that order. When the body feels safe, the same actions can produce very different results. The shift isn’t just tactical; it’s energetic.

We also talked about alignment — and how easy it is to drift into “should” energy: I should take this job. I should be further along. I should follow what’s working for others. Externally, things may look successful, but internally there’s friction. Even when you take a project simply to pay the bills, doing so consciously shifts the energy from obligation to choice.

When we feel overwhelmed, our instinct is often to do more. Instead, Jessica suggests stopping — even briefly — to “drop a pin on the map.” To write things down. To separate facts from the stories running in your head. Without pause, we stay on autopilot. With it, we regain agency.

One idea that stayed with me from this conversation is that safety precedes expansion. When your nervous system feels settled, creativity flows more freely. Decisions feel clearer. Growth feels sustainable rather than frantic.

Continue reading on our website and watch the full talk on our YouTube channel.

All the best,
Egle Karalyte
Brand Strategist, Facilitator, and creator of Bloomerangas

💡 New Bloomerangas Website

We’ve just launched the Bloomerangas website — a growing library of tools, skills, and experiences to develop creative thinking. Designed for facilitators, educators, creatives, and team leads, it’s your competitive edge in the age of AI.

Access digital cards, creative prompts, gamified experiences, and online sessions to bring clarity, activate creativity, run better sessions, and spark breakthrough ideas — starting at just €8/month. bloomerangas.com

At a time when so much design feels flat and interchangeable, Portuguese design offers a warmer modernity. It shows that clarity doesn’t have to mean coldness — and that ornament, texture, and heritage can coexist with contemporary systems.

This brief builds on our exploration of Portuguese design as a living logic rather than a nostalgic reference — where azulejo geometry, cork, ceramics, Moorish pattern, Atlantic light, and layered history translate into structured, repeatable design principles.

Inside the brief, you’ll find:

• A snapshot of why Portuguese design feels especially relevant today

• Historical context — from Moorish influence to Atlantic exchange and global hybridity

• Messaging and narrative directions, including Warm Modernity and The Atlantic Exchange

• Clear visual cues and anti-patterns to guide your design decisions

• A practical workshop exercise: Tile-to-System Translation

• AI prompts to help you turn cultural cues into scalable brand systems

Read more

I’d love to introduce you to Emily Sharp — a licensed art therapist, psychotherapist, and writer whose work explores the deep link between creativity and healing.

I recently spoke with Emily on the Bloomerangas Podcast about how she blends traditional talk therapy with creative expression — helping clients unlock emotional resilience, insight, and self-trust through the creative process.

Emily explains how making art can be therapeutic, even if you don’t consider yourself an “artist.” “Art therapy is really just a form of psychotherapy,” she says. You still talk through life’s struggles as you would with any therapist, “but then you also have the opportunity to explore it visually.” This visual dimension often reveals perspectives that words alone can’t reach.

We spend so much of our lives in language — talking, writing, thinking — that we sometimes build protective walls around our emotions. Art has a way of softening those defenses, letting feelings emerge through color, shape, and movement. “The art-making process is cathartic in and of itself,” Emily says. “You feel like you can release something”from within.

In our conversation, she shares how she tailors creative tools to meet clients’ emotional needs.

“You feel more contained when I’m using pencil or marker,” she notes — ideal for moments of anxiety or overwhelm when structure brings a sense of control. On the other hand, looser, more fluid materials like watercolor or clay can “pull people out of stuckness,” gently inviting freedom, release, and emotional movement.

We also talked about what it means to balance creativity, work, and life. After over a decade in fast-paced New York, Emily relocated to Copenhagen and became a mother. The change in pace was transformative. “New York was really go, go, go… I was working a ton, and I loved it,” she recalls — but the intensity eventually led to burnout. In Denmark, she found the space to recalibrate, choosing a slower rhythm that now allows time for creative work, family, and a part-time private practice.

Life in Denmark, she notes, is shaped by a quiet trust in systems, a cultural ease that reduces stress. And that matters — especially for creative work.

“When we are in a not-stressed place and our nervous systems are settled, we’re able to be more creative,” Emily observes. In a calmer state, ideas come more freely. In her words, “taking care of one’s well-being isn’t just good for health — it directly feeds creativity.”

Continue reading on our website, where you’ll find more insights from Emily’s work — and watch the full talk on our YouTube channel.

All the best,
Egle Karalyte
Brand Strategist, Facilitator, and creator of Bloomerangas

💡 Explore the New Bloomerangas Website

We’ve just launched the Bloomerangas website — a growing library of tools, skills, and experiences to develop creative thinking. Designed for facilitators, educators, creatives, and team leads, it’s your competitive edge in the age of AI.

Access digital cards, creative prompts, gamified experiences, and online sessions to bring clarity, activate creativity, run better sessions, and spark breakthrough ideas — starting at just €8/month. bloomerangas.com

This collection features solo, paired, and group exercises. Each card invites meaningful reflection and conversation, helping individuals and teams slow down, connect, and gain fresh perspective—together or on their own.

You’ll find the cards on the Bloomerangas Tools website as part of your subscription.

Access the cards

Want to begin today?

Try this small practice from the card deck. Slow down, relax, and bring your attention to your body.

If you’re not yet a member, consider subscribing to Bloomerangas Tools to access a range of creative resources for facilitating brand clarity, team building, and self-reflection.

All the best,
Egle Karalyte
Founder & Facilitator at Bloomerangas

I’d love to introduce you to Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin, founders of Formafantasma, a research-driven design studio based in Milan and Rotterdam.

I recently spoke with them on the Bloomerangas Podcast about their projects for Prada in 2025, and was inspired by the depth of their imagination and the way they approach creative work.

Formafantasma creates products, spatial projects, installations, and exhibitions, collaborating with brands such as Prada, Hermès, Lexus, Max Mara, and Bvlgari.

Central to Formafantasma’s practice is a creative process rooted in listening, imagination, and social responsibility. Each project begins with a careful dialogue that allows the designers to understand a client’s intentions and context before developing ideas that help achieve meaningful outcomes.

As they explain, the ideal collaboration is either “a very thoughtful conversation” or complete creative freedom — in which case they let ideas lead the way, allowing form and format to emerge organically from the process.

In this talk, Andrea and Simone open up about their creative process. They dive deeper into the thinking behind projects such as Prada Frames and Staging Modernity for Cassina, reflect on design’s responsibility in a complex world, and share their perspectives on ethics, AI, and working with brands in more meaningful ways.

The designers are “interested in [an] expansive understanding of design” and have developed the capability to execute ideas in whatever format best fits the context. By not limiting themselves to a single niche, they avoid getting pigeonholed.

“If we are depending only on one way of approaching design or one type of client or one context of working, I think we would be very much limited by the clichés that are inevitable in any kind of work,” they note. Instead, “this variety of works allows us to work on projects that we like, to skip the ones we don’t like, and to maintain a certain degree of flexibility and independence”.

One standout example of Formafantasma’s work is their ongoing collaboration with the fashion house Prada. Prada Frames originated from an open brief: prior to the 2020 pandemic, Prada approached Formafantasma with the intention of participating in Milan’s Salone del Mobile in a new and more innovative way. Rather than mounting another product showcase, Prada wanted to move beyond that format and create something more intellectually engaging. After several iterations, the concept of Prada Frames took shape as a traveling symposium series.

Launched during Milan Design Week, it consists of interdisciplinary talks and conversations. “We did not want it to become a celebration of the individual author. It is transdisciplinary – we involve anthropologists, philosophers, architects, designers, but also policymakers, writers,”. Each year, they choose a critical theme and an unconventional venue that reinforces the topic.

“It’s rare to find a partner with which you can construct a thinking that is lasting for a very long time”. This underscores a core theme in Formafantasma’s work: the most fruitful brand collaborations are those that give designers room to explore big ideas and invest in outcomes beyond immediate marketing gains.

Continue reading on our website, where you’ll find more of FormaFantasma’s work — and watch the full talk on our YouTube channel.

In this brief, we explore how traditional Korean aesthetic principles — pure formality, naturalistic simplicity, symbolic decoration, and playful spontaneity — continue to inform today’s design. Widely known for its simplicity, elegance, and functionality, Korean style follows a “less is more” mindset, where meaning is carried through restraint rather than excess.

Inside the brief, you’ll find:

• An overview of key aesthetic principles behind Korean design

• Visual cues and language to recognise and work with Hallyu aesthetics

• A practical, hands-on exercise to help you adapt these principles to your own creative or brand work

  

Read more

Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful break, and starting 2026 with fresh, fiery energy, drive, and confidence. 🐎✨

I’m excited to share a new talk on creativity with Tina Touli. Tina is a London-based designer working across disciplines. Known for blending the analogue with the digital, she mixes materials and technologies in inventive ways. Her curiosity has led her to create phygital experiences, experimenting with materials, techniques, sound, and surroundings.

Tina’s way of experimenting with phygital experiences and letting curiosity guide the process feels very familiar to us. At Bloomerangas, part of what we do is create phygital, gamified experiences — or Bloomerangas Playgrounds, as we call them.

In this talk, we dive deeper into the exploration of creative expression through phygital experiences, experimentation, and finding your creative voice.

For Tina, working across disciplines isn’t a strategic decision — it’s a necessity. “If you ask me to do the same thing again and again, I get bored,” she admits, explaining why she constantly moves between print, branding, web, motion, 3D, and installation work. Repetition, for her, doesn’t create mastery — it drains energy.

Moving between mediums keeps her engaged and curious. Each discipline feeds the next: branding informs motion, motion feeds back into typography, and digital work often sparks physical experimentation — and vice versa. Rather than seeing these fields as separate, Tina treats them as part of one continuous practice.

This way of working also reflects how she understands creativity itself. It’s not about doing everything at once, or trying to master every tool, but about allowing curiosity to lead. Switching mediums becomes a way to reset, to see ideas from a new angle, and to keep the work — and herself — creatively alive.

One of Tina’s most immersive projects, grew out of a desire to create an experience people could physically and emotionally enter. “I wanted to create something that allows you to get lost within it,” she explains — a space where you can pause, disconnect from external noise, and turn inward. Rather than beginning with screens or software, the project started with analog experiments: liquid compositions filmed up close, producing slow, hypnotic visuals that invited viewers to linger and let their attention soften.

For Tina, this blend of physical process and digital outcome is at the heart of phygital work. The tactile experiments weren’t sketches to be replaced later — they became the foundation of the final experience, carrying a sense of materiality and imperfection into the digital realm.

Sound played an equally important role. For an immersive installation, it isn’t an add‑on but a core ingredient. For Voices in My Head, Tina collaborated with singer Lydia Scarlet, whose voice translated emotion into sound — moving between calm and intensity, softness and tension. Together, the visuals and sound formed a 20‑minute audiovisual piece designed not to guide or instruct, but to hold space for individual interpretation.

Continue reading on our website, where you’ll find more of Tina’s work — and watch the full talk on our YouTube channel.

Hi guys,

Today we went out for dessert because we were feeling a little down. And honestly, dessert works like therapy for us. 🍰✨

Let’s admit it — we all have those days when creativity just doesn’t flow.

On days like that, you can still do mundane tasks that don’t require much creativity, and sometimes that even helps you feel productive. But when it comes to creating or collaborating creatively, it becomes difficult. It requires clarity, presence, and communication — and when you’re not feeling like yourself, that’s hard.

One thing that really helps is saying out loud how you feel. Simply, “I’m not feeling my best today.” You don’t need to explain everything. Just letting others know creates awareness, reduces confusion, and invites more compassion and space.

When emotions stay unspoken, they tend to build up. For us, that often means caving in and boiling inside until the water spills everywhere.

Communicating isn’t always easy — it requires being brave — but even naming that something is there can shift the dynamic and create a safer space to be yourself.

Life moves in ups and downs. Sometimes it’s not one single thing — it’s an accumulation. And then one small moment brings everything to the surface. That’s why it helps to know yourself, to notice your emotional state, and to have small routines that support you. Little joys. Being good to yourself. Creating space when things feel heavy.

When emotions are acknowledged instead of ignored, creativity has room to breathe again. Communication becomes clearer. Collaboration feels lighter. And you don’t have to fight yourself to keep going.

💬 What routines help you get through those down days? Write in the comments — we’d love to hear.

We’re wishing you a beautiful holiday season and a wonderful start to the new year. Thank you for being with us, for listening, and for sharing this space with us — we can’t wait to see you in the new year. ✨💜🌸

Warm wishes,

Egle & Kotryna

We’re excited to share a new digital set of team building cards 🙌.

This collection contains questions, group exercises, and prompts to deepen the bonds within the team and create alignment around a shared vision. You can use them to facilitate the team-building workshops remotely or in-person.

We’ve tested all the exercises and prompts during the workshops we did with Bloomerangas. So they work!

You’ll find the cards on the Bloomerangas Tools website as part of your subscription.

Access the cards

If you’d like to learn more about facilitating gamified workshops, consider joining our course in February 2026.

We’d really love your feedback. If this is useful or inspiring, please vote on this post and, if you can, please share your feedback by replying to this email or posting on our shared Slack channel. Your insights will help us understand what works, what doesn’t, and how to shape a set that’s genuinely helpful for facilitators and teams ✨

What’s New on Bloomerangas Tools

• We’re introducing a new Slack channel for all members, where you can ask questions related to the digital tools and workshops you design or run. All members will receive an invitation—so keep an eye on your inbox. We look forward to welcoming you!
  

• All Creativity in Action Briefs are now available on the Bloomerangas Tools website.

• For inspiration, explore our deep dive into Mexican and Italian design, featuring cards, creativity briefs, and videos—all organized in one place. You can drag and drop the design cards directly into your moodboards.

• Each design trend now includes links to additional inspiration. Some trends also come with Figma templates, set up with colors and fonts for faster experimentation.

  

• User experience improvements:

  • You can now drag and drop any card into your favorite presentation tools, such as Miro or Canva.

  • You can click any card to open it in a new page for easier viewing.

If you’re not yet a member, consider subscribing to Bloomerangas Tools to access a range of creative resources for facilitating brand clarity, team building, and self-reflection.

Subscribe now

All the best,
Egle Karalyte
Founder & Facilitator at Bloomerangas

I’m sure that as creators — whether you’re a designer, a craftsman, a musician, or anyone working creatively — you’re familiar with the situation of having leftover materials that are not being utilised. They quietly sit somewhere in the corner waiting to be noticed.

In our case, it’s different cards that we don’t include in the packages, or fabrics that were left from when we were setting up our creative studio.

But it doesn’t mean they need to stay like that. We can easily think up how to merge them into different things. So many ideas can be born spontaneously. You can mix and match different components you like during the process — that’s part of the creative flow.

For example, we ended up making different sets of cards for different purposes, like team building. We mixed cards left from workshops and created a completely new set. We also made pillows and ties for women from leftover material. Even if they’re not directly related to what we do at Bloomerangas, they help us train our creative muscle and bring us joy.

So if you have leftover items, just try playing with them. Don’t overthink what to do — start experimenting, and ideas will begin to form. Let those ideas move through you and materialize in their own way.

You can create different tunes from the same sounds — it’s all a matter of how you mix them up.

Let us know what you end up creating!

🎄 P.S. The pillows and ties could be a perfect gift for your funky friends. You can grab them here if you want - https://karalyte.com/shop/#goodies.

🎧 Watch the full episode to hear more how we mix, match, mash up, and keep our creative muscle alive — and how you can too.

Hi guys,

We’re happy to share a new Talk on Creativity with Amy Hood — co-founder of Hoodzpah Design, the studio she runs with her twin sister, Jennifer. Their work is rooted in bold typography, playful humor, and a distinctly Californian style.

In this talk, Amy shares insights into the unique aesthetic of her studio, the dynamics of working with her twin sister, and the importance of community in building a successful design business—with all the messy, human, hilarious moments that come with it.

When asked about Hoodzpah’s style, Amy shares a refreshingly grounded perspective: you don’t “find” your style—your style finds you.

“I always wonder, how do you find your style?” she says. “I think it’s just innate. Even if you try to change with the times, it always ends up looking like your style.”

Even attempts to imitate someone else’s work fall flat, she jokes, because your hand—and your instincts—give you away. “If you’re not copying something one-to-one, it will always just inform what you already innately do.”

That stubborn consistency, she says, is a blessing. It’s what turns a freelance practice into a recognizable studio. But it can also feel limiting. “When you hit the ten-year mark, you’re like… can I do anything else? Am I stuck?” she laughs. “And then you realize—no, this is me. And that’s good.”

For many young designers, the early years of running a studio feel like a rush to look established: polishing portfolios, cold emailing, chasing dream clients. But for Amy and Jen, their first steps came through something far more organic—their creative community.

“All of our first clients were friends,” Amy reflects. Musicians starting new ventures. High school buddies building passion projects. A pasta company created by friends from Nashville. “They trusted us—and they gave us fun projects that showed what we could do.”

They bartered logos for photography, reinvented each other’s brands, and even staged a fake busy-office photoshoot with friends sitting at desks so they could appear more “legit.” “That first phase of bartering with your creative friends? I lovethose times,” she says.

These early opportunities created the snowball effect that most design programs never teach: friends grow, friends get jobs, friends refer friends.

“It’s hard to pinpoint. But your friends will go on to do great things—and people see your work through them.”

Continue reading the story on our website & watch the full episode on Bloomerangas YouTube channel ✨

I’m happy to share a new trio of Creativity in Action Briefs inspired by the Mexico’s design scene 🇲🇽✨

In recent years, Mexico has experienced a creative renaissance across multiple disciplines. Here, creativity is woven into everyday life—shaping how stories are told, how materials are explored, and how communities express th…

Read more

Most often, when talking about creative burnout, we look for tips, hacks, or routines that might help us escape that state. But we rarely address the deeper root of it — burnout isn’t just about doing too much. Often, it’s about doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons.

In the episode, we explored how burnout appears when your motivation is driven by external outcomes: recognition, achievement, money, or the need to prove something. When the source of your creative effort comes from outside yourself, it drains you — even if everything looks “successful” from the outside.

But something shifts completely when your work begins to align with your values and your calling. Suddenly, even if you feel tired, there’s an underlying joy — a sense of inner expansion. A kind of blissful state, where the energy comes from within instead of being squeezed out of you.

Yet even when you’re on the right path, burnout can still catch up with you if you ignore the basics: sleep, rest, nourishment, space.
Self-care is not separate from creativity — it’s part of the creative process. A well-rested mind works more effectively and makes better decisions. When your body is supported, you don’t have to fight yourself to stay disciplined. Productivity becomes about working wisely rather than working endlessly.

The moment you feel boxed in, drained, or chronically resistant, it might be a sign that the rhythm you’re following simply isn’t yours. The real danger is ignoring that feeling and pushing through anyway — that’s the path straight to burnout.

🎧 Listen & watch the full talk, where we explore these ideas more deeply and share our own experiences of finding alignment, balance, and joy.