2026: The Year of Creation

It’s time to stop consuming, and start creating.

I’m excited to announce that 2026 is officially Martin’s Year of Creation! The Year of Creation is a year-long ethos to embrace the systems of creation, and see how creating, and not consuming changes the perspectives in your life.

Presented by Founding Partner CreativeSystems of America, the Year of Creation will focus on three key themes that I will bring to myself and others throughout the whole year of 2026.

Create Connection

As its name suggests, Create Connection focuses on creating connections and communities within the spaces that I am present in. Connection is a reflection of who we are, who we care about, and what we can ultimately be. This year, we create connection by opening ourselves to the different portals of our identity – sharing knowledge, ideas, and strong emotions with loved ones, and strangers.

Creating connection revolves around building the opportunity to interlink with others through open portals. We must ask ourselves: where can I be more mindful of opportunities to be more present with people in our lives? This may take form in written text, in-person gatherings, or a simple sought of solace of the vocalization of our problems. However this may present, it is an invitation of cognizance of life’s many small moments; ones that may present opportunities to listen and share.

Create Spirit

Create Spirit revolves around the ideal of an omnipresent idea that arises from our physical being. Many of us, myself included collect and curate objects that become a part of our mental and physical being. Creating spirit focuses on arising those thoughts outside of the object itself, where we build on the emotions and thoughts that come from the object and isolate it from physicality. The goal with this theme is to remove our attachments to the physical, and create a spirit using the emotions that we bring with us from the physical world into our mental sphere. In the end, our inner thoughts decompose with our physical thoughts, but the objects themselves stay stagnant – a reflection on how holding onto the past hurts the present you, evolving with life.

Self-expression is a powerful thing, and when we create spirit, we begin to move beyond our physical attachment to objects, and towards creating an attachment to what those objects represent. We can begin to let go of the physical and enter the mental, securing our creative identity without the need for the physical.

Create Myself

Finally, we must embody the creation of oneself during the year of creation. While we may never erase the past, we gain an opportunity to look beyond and see how our inner self becomes one with our outer self.

“Do we really create identity?” you may be asking. The motive is not to force the creation of oneself. Instead, you should be seeking out ways to create opportunities and safe spaces for our real identities to exist.

We take the moment this year to see what we really want to do with our limited lives. This is the year to rid oneself of the parasocial reflection highlighted through our social media accounts. Instead of following defined paths, we take the opportunity to see where new footsteps can lead towards. This is the year we omit goals in favor of direction.

What does this look like? We omit the consumption of what’s popular, and seek new explorations of what can be popular in our identities. We rid oneself of the pleasures of “what do you want?” and embrace standing up to what feels right in that moment. Rumination and self-reflection is pushed to ensure our movements align with our value. This is the pivotal moment to define how our value reflects upon ourselves.

Official Logo

To celebrate the Year of Creation, I have created a special logo to represent the theme. Although simple, the logo is a cumulation of creative enterprises emerging together to provide a graphical representation of the identity of the year.

The logo is comprised of three separate hard blocks stacked on top of each other, each representing a creative theme for the year. Gray is a neutral palette for new colors in life – a Connection for Creation. Blue is for our liberty – the Spirit to Create. Finally, Yellow, at the bottom, represents the backbone for creation – the mind of oneself. Each block is arranged at various angles related to 26, symbolizing the year 2026. Stacking each block provides context for each theme’s strong identity, but the immersion of all in the center provides a reprieve of loneliness – each block strengthens one another. The text, composed of uppercase Helvetica blocks, provides a clear backdrop for the year’s blessings; a clear path forward for creation.

Special thanks to our partners at CreativeSystems of America for the inspiration and logo copyrighting.