Ash Newman, also known as Chip Stronghold.

Designer, creative director
and creator of CSTV.

Twenty years across product, brand, games and content. I co-founded We Discover, led design and research at Perion, and now I’m Creative Chaos Director at WTF. On the side, I make comedy for CSTV.

AI is changing this industry fast. I’ve run agencies and watched the services model as we knew it die first-hand, with AI eating the work we used to bill for. Nobody really knows where it ends up. What I do know is I’m not getting left behind. I use the tools every day and push them hard. These days I’m pushing creative tech and development skills together, using these tools to make original shows and comedy, and building my own IP rather than borrowing other people’s likeness.

I’m not trying to be the best designer. I’m trying to be the best person to work with.

How I work.

Live it first.

Get inside the user’s head by doing what they do. Designing for gambling? Gamble. DeFi? Use DeFi. Crypto trading? Trade. Then back it with research: video tests, monthly NPS and a private Discord of players shaped XP.GG and Cutthroat Chaos.

Solve the real problem.

That first-hand view finds the real problem. One XP.GG ad concept halved our cost per acquisition. Cutthroat Chaos went from doc to launch in five weeks, then hit #1 on DappRadar for Base.

Lead it, and build it.

Co-founded We Discover, a team that peaked at 20, then led design and research at Perion. I don’t stop at design: I prototype, vibe code and deploy real builds myself, from playable games to live sites.

Direct the whole thing.

As Creative Chaos Director at WTF, it all comes together: product, brand, animation, 3D, characters and live shows, from first concept to launch.

Build the world, then the audience.

People fall for worlds, not features, so I build the characters, stories and shows around a product. Then I bring the eyes: CSTV has pulled 35M+ views and 55K+ followers, and that read on people drives launches, content and collabs.

Work smarter with AI.

AI runs through my workflow: assets, prototypes, code and the busywork in between. Ideas reach a playable build in days, not sprints, and work that used to take months is moving toward weeks.