Jon Hicks

“In April 2024, Spotify implemented a new scheme: songs with less than 1k streams per year would no longer receive royalties. The data for 2025 was just released via Luminate, and 88% of songs have been demonetized. Read it again: 88% of songs on Spotify have been demonetized.”

Music Ally

5.1tn annual music streams... but 120.5m tracks had 10 or fewer

Music-biz number-cruncher Luminate has published its year-end report for 2025, with plenty of stats for the industry to chew over.

“If everyone who streamed All Hell on Spotify had done so using Tidal instead, we would have received an extra £31,847.38, which would double the amount we made from streaming of the album in this time period. Or if everyone used Apple Music it would have been £12,331 more.” Los Campesinos! break down streaming royalties. In other news, Fuck Spotify.

Los Campesinos!

Here’s how much money Los Camp! make from streaming… - Los Campesinos!

Wordpress folks: I have a client that is steadfastly WP, and currently uses Elementor, which for someone who loves the cascade, minimal scripting and clean code is absolute torture. Is there a better process that I can get them to use? In the past I've experienced Gutenberg being painfully slow with very long text pages. Maybe it’s better now? Not looking for a 'no code' solution, but control over code with good page preview. No shit-tonne of injected scripts, divs and styles to override.

If you miss the band Curve, and wish they had decided to reform like all the other 90s bands, then you might be interested in the new Daniel Avery album:

Apple Music - Web Player

Tremor by Daniel Avery on Apple Music

Album · 2025 · 13 Songs

I've got some availability coming up from October onwards due to a project being postponed. I'm normally at full capacity but if you're looking for help with any of the following, do get in touch! - Logos/ brand identities - Icon systems (large or small) - Front-end web design and development. While these are my specialties, I do enjoy anything under the umbrella of ‘Graphic Design’, including Print.

Hicks.design: Visual languages for digital & physical spaces.

Graphic design, branding, illustration & iconography. You may recognise our identity work on logos for Firefox, Mailchimp and Shopify, as well as e...

I like to set the washing machine going, and then 5 mins before it finishes, leave the house. Then the little prick can beep loudly all it wants. It feels like winning.

Finally made it to the V&A East Storehouse this weekend, to see my icons in use. When the actual V&A East Museum opens next year there'll be even more on show, but such a thrill to see these in real life.

If that’s just ‘please’ and ‘thankyou’, imagine what the whole prompt costs.

It’s been a fun week of food poisoning. Never had it before, and always thought it was just having the shits for a couple of days. In other unrelated news, I won’t ever buy a Tesco Sandwich again.

I've lacked inspiration for an art project for years, and finally got it 3 months ago. Combining 2 Usborne books that shaped my formative years; The Detectives Handbook + Guide to the Supernatural World (both from 1979). I've drawn the first few, and mocked them up in page layouts. No real plan what to do with them at this stage. For various reasons (time, lack of confidence), I've kind of stalled for the past month and half, but because Mastodon feels like a safe place to put up early ideas…