JOACHIM BAAN
Creative Director
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On Controlled Chaos, Storytelling, and Building a Meaningful Creative Life
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Joachim Baan is a creative director, photographer, and brand strategist based in Utrecht. Together with Christoph van Veghel, he runs Another Everything, a consultancy creating brands and cultural projects through strategy, design, and execution. His path spans independent publishing, fashion, photography, and running projects like Speed of Solitude — always guided by storytelling, aesthetics, and controlled chaos.
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In this conversation, Joachim reflects on resisting hustle culture, why stories are stronger than data, and how curiosity shapes both his personal life and professional practice. We talk about building Another Everything with Christoph van Veghel, creating brands and cultural projects for Nike, Rapha, KLM, the Van Gogh Museum, Skins Cosmetics, and Atelier Munro. Joachim explains why sameness is killing creativity, why taste remains a tool for predicting the future, and how independence and long-distance running shaped his resilience. Above all, he shows that building culture is less about control and more about trust, openness, and contribution.
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JOACHIM BAAN
Creative Director
25
25
02
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On Controlled Chaos, Storytelling, and Building a Meaningful Creative Life
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Joachim Baan is a creative director, photographer, and brand strategist based in Utrecht. Together with Christoph van Veghel, he runs Another Everything, a consultancy creating brands and cultural projects through strategy, design, and execution. His path spans independent publishing, fashion, photography, and running projects like Speed of Solitude — always guided by storytelling, aesthetics, and controlled chaos.
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In this conversation, Joachim reflects on resisting hustle culture, why stories are stronger than data, and how curiosity shapes both his personal life and professional practice. We talk about building Another Everything with Christoph van Veghel, creating brands and cultural projects for Nike, Rapha, KLM, the Van Gogh Museum, Skins Cosmetics, and Atelier Munro. Joachim explains why sameness is killing creativity, why taste remains a tool for predicting the future, and how independence and long-distance running shaped his resilience. Above all, he shows that building culture is less about control and more about trust, openness, and contribution.
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WHY I ASKED THIS GUEST
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Today I'm joined by Peter Adolf, a visionary garden designer whose work has transformed how we experience landscapes known for projects like a eyeliner in New York and Ry Garden in Chicago. Peter spent decades redefining the relationship between plant spaces and emotion.
In this episode, we dive into his early challenges and creative breakthroughs. He shares how taking risks shape his craftsmanship career, and what the vital role is of intuition in great design.
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LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
RECOMMENDED CLIPS
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[02:14]: ON CONTROLLED CHAOS
Talking about chaos and doing a little bit of research about you, I saw that you like controlled chaos. Can you describe a little bit what controlled chaos is and what am I looking at when I see your studio here?
Yeah, I think controlled chaos for me is, I point this quote also in my interview with Porsche a few weeks ago, "If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough." This quote is always a red threat through my career. And I'm always looking for these kind of chaos where people and even myself are struggling. Describing what I'm actually doing and why I do the things I'm doing. And I'm always really focused on being in control of everything. And I need that kind of control and organisation, and there is, if you look around in the studio, there is definitely a kind of idea and organisation behind all the books and collections and mess around that. It's also going everywhere, and it's also all over the place. I'm not a graphic designer. I'm not a photographer. I'm not an art director. I'm not a creative director. I'm somewhere moving in between all those things. And that's also part of that chaos. I guess.
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[04:35]: ON THE IMPORTANCE OF STORYTELLING
You've built a life that weaves aesthetics, strategy, and cultural storytelling. When you look at your ecosystem today, what holds it together?
For me, it all comes down to stories, to telling these stories in different things, in different ideas, in different output. But when there is no story, there's no strategy, there's no culture, there's nothing, and there's just loose threats. And that's also what I'm really trying to work against. So today it's all about optimising. Based on data and not optimising based on stories. And I think optimising based on data and everyone can create everything, but it will all look the same when it's based on data. Because data tells you A is better than B. So we all do A, but B might be a much more interesting story, or there might be a much more interesting story in X or Y. But data won't tell you that 'cause it's not optimised.
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[05:26] ON CAPITALISM AND CONSUMERISM
You work with a lot of big brands. Is this also what you do as a profession and how, for instance, do you not per se say convince, but portray that data isn't the most important and that storytelling, which you can't measure in many cases, should be valued more?
It's always a tough conversation, and it's becoming tougher and tougher. Why storytelling is more important in optimising for data or optimising for financial goals. And there's really a struggle I have with my current clients that that conversation of storytelling over data comes also back to that kind of belief. That same is killing us. If everything is becoming the same and you see it in everything, the blending, the logos that are becoming the same, the branding that is becoming the same, storytelling is even becoming the same, 'cause it's fully focused on 'Okay, how many clicks can we get on TikTok or Instagram?'
If this is your goal, you're not at the right spot working with me, 'cause I can't do that. There was a brand I worked a lot for, and they moved away from storytelling because they said financial is becoming more important and the metrics are becoming more important. And I said, I totally understand, and I totally believe that it's important right now, but I'm not the right person to help you with that, 'cause I will get extremely frustrated by that and I can't do the thing I'm best at, which is that storytelling. And storytelling also in a way that there is a tension. So if everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough. If everything is fully fixed, if there is no tension, or if the road is super smooth, if you're on a website and everything is made just to let you click on the buy button and check out as fast as possible.
Are we really on the world for that? I don't believe it. So if we're making a web shop, let's get people on a journey. Let's find them out, what the product is and why do you want to buy it? And of course there is a big tension. And that tension is becoming bigger and bigger over the past years of my profession and what I'm really good at. And the whole idea of capitalism and consumerism, which. That tension is extremely hard. How do we create brands these days? Why would we even put more stuff into this world? And yet that's what I'm really good at. So what the fuck am I doing? So I really hope to find ways to create brands that are not only here to put more stuff in the world.
People a bit more conscious on what are we really doing? Why are we buying this? Or why do I want to buy this product and what do I extract from the world by doing it? It's, and that's, and it's really hard 'cause of course every brand in this world is here to make money and make more money, and you can't make more money without putting more stuff into the world, adding virtual. Products and even that is costing a lot of data, energy and whatever. That's a big struggle for me lately.
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DO OR DIE / A OR B
Are you more rational or emotional?
Piet: Both.
Practical or romantic?
Both.
Structure or color, both controlled the narrative or let the garden tell its own story?
A little bit of both.
Cherish the process or cherish the result.
Result and process.
Your work primarily recognized for its ecological impact or its aesthetic beauty.
Both.
Design one final, groundbreaking garden or curate and refine all your previous works?
I would like to have a new project and I think the gardeners that don't work well or refine my own gardens will take a lifetime again to get them where they were. 'cause gardeners have their own life, and also they need to have their own life to change the right way for the legacy.
The gardens will be taken care of, the gardeners. And is there a wish from you that it's maintained the same way or just let it go?
Let it grow into the future. I would say so. Let it grow by the good hands of bareness and into something that still is good and especially beautiful because you can imagine and trees grow up with the plants underneath, don't like it that or and years. So you have to change your plans. And if I look back to all the plants of what I've done and no garden looks the same anymore, and you can just rip it out and put it all over from your original design. So that's it.
Focus on mentoring young designers or document your life's work?
Both.
Your gardens and your true maintenance or wild and natural growth?
Wild and natural growth doesn't exist because then our garden ends up in metals and BLEs. So, it's always gardens, our gardens and garden. I'll say it's a place where you feel good in and it's extruded from nature, a place for yourself. So you have to treat it, you know, like, you treat yourself and in the best way. So environmentally, right, ecologically, right. And that just wildlife allowed, I see that in that sense. So it's not, Corning is about control. You cannot let it go.
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Follow the podcast. And share it with one person in your world who needs it right now.
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Thanks for considering.
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