"Every design exists in conversation with everything that came before it. Use that conversation deliberately."

Do this now

Identify one visual style, cultural reference, or recognisable system your audience would know. Sketch how your concept could borrow from that reference — not copy it, but reinterpret it. What does the borrowed meaning add?

Unpack

Intertextuality is how designers speak to audiences who share cultural knowledge — a Swiss grid implies precision before a word is read. The risk is copying without reinterpreting. The skill is borrowing meaning and transforming it into something that serves the new idea.

Draw it.

Fast and messy is better than perfect.