I know I tend to start these with an apology, and this is no different. It took me an age to decide what to write about, far too long to get in touch with people and an equally embarrassing amount of time to get words down in an order to resemble an article. Some of this is entirely of my own doing, but reassuringly, some of it is because people kept sending thoughtful responses that felt too good to ignore.
As much as there is always the temptation to get ChatGPT to write this stuff for me by training it on the myriad past articles in my repertoire, there’s something a little empty and lacking from its suggestions, so until such time as it can blether like me, I’m still writing these long form.
So here goes…
My initial decision to write this – or at least explore it in the first place – was prompted by a few messages, chats or fireside pints with people who have made a conscious decision to move away from the design industry as we know it. Crucially, not away from the creative act, but from the infrastructure that currently contains it. Their moves have been to landscaping, carpentry, horse rearing and other rather beautifully worthy activities. Things with soul and effort.
On paper, they’ve left the building. In reality they are all still doing versions of the same things that drove them to design in the first place. Making, shaping, solving, working with materials and people. The job title has changed, the context has shifted, but the underlying motivation is – like a stick of rock – ever present and running right through them.
What is interesting, is that these moves have not been dramatic or tantrum inducing. For sure, the internal wrangling and torment may well have been an ordeal (and I don’t underestimate that for one moment), but the outward move has been intentional and quiet. A shift towards something that feels more aligned. A course correction if you will. Possibly recalibration.
Noticing these, I put a message out to my usual suspects plus anyone else who might have a penny to throw in the fountain. People across the industry and beyond, from different and multiple generations, levels of experience and geographic locations. I wanted a cross-generational, global (ish) overview. It ain’t perfect but it’s at least an attempt to look beyond my immediate views, prejudices and observations.
For reference, I’ve peppered comments from respondents throughout this article. All separated out and quoted for clarity. Some asked to be kept anonymous whilst others were happy to be cited, so I’ve kept them all anonymous for simplicity.
Interestingly, someone I messaged asked “…is this just another Four Beards rant about how shit the industry is?” Fair point. But no. It’s easy enough to do that. That’s not my intention with this.
I wanted to take a bit of a step back and try to understand what’s happening. Something has shifted and I want to try and capture the broader sentiments reflected in the comments and opinions that have been communicated to me. I want to understand why a profession that so many people care so deeply about seems to be losing some of its gravitational pull.
Things are leaving its orbit.
So here are the themes that I pulled out of the myriad responses I received.
1. The Effort / Reward Equation.
Design has never been an industry you enter for the moolah. It’s notoriously poorly paid for the effort and commitment expected of its inhabitants. But we don’t (really) do it for the money right?
As much as we all bitch and moan about pay, the bigger part of us is driven by doing good, creating stuff, solving challenges many others simply can’t fathom. Jeez…we all sound so bloody righteous…but you get the gist?
As you get older and start to prove your worth, you start to desire more money and that typically involves moving into ‘management’ – something many designers struggle with. Instead of getting more creative freedom and autonomy alongside that extra cash, you now have to deal with resourcing, bureaucracy, spreadsheets and endless meetings. The stuff that often drains the creative soul. The creativity equation rarely aligns linearly with salary. You want more money? You have to do more dull shit that keeps the business moving rather than feed your creative beans.
“The pay really does not reflect the skill level and time…”
Having said all that, there seems to be an emergent and widening realisation that the effort / reward equation is no longer fair, sustainable or future proof. It’s less about “We’re underpaid” but more about “Hang on…is this actually worth it?”
“The balance between effort and reward is kind of out of whack.”
It happens when the initial fire and excitement has run its course, the workload doesn’t seem to be getting any less (or better) and life circumstances start to change. You begin to compare the ‘effort in’ to other adjacent industries and questions start to form.
“Honestly, the pay is not amazing…and what we do is so mentally taxing.”
You could argue that this has always been the case. But this time it feels more acute because of the wider commercial landscape that design sits within. Juniors are looking ahead to future career growth (and future salaries) as they climb the ladder, founders are struggling to keep their businesses afloat, let alone grow, and the ones in the middle feel it the most. Many are starting to genuinely and openly consider alternatives that are not only less gruelling, but better (if not equally paid) and provide the creative and soulful reward that design used to provide. A clearer return on investment.
Salary is the most obvious expression of reward, but the total equation is the crux of the matter. What I give the job versus what it gives back to me. Time, cognitive load, emotional energy, responsibility, expectation to be ‘on it’ all the time, are my contributions.
What do I get back in return for my pound and a half of flesh? For some, that question lands harder.
“I’m out of love with it (design)…Surely I can do something more.”
This is the quiet hum running underneath almost everything else. It featured in almost everyone’s feedback in some articulation or another.
It feels like a root condition.
2. Just a Pair of Hands.
Designers have always – somewhat romantically – thought of themselves at the pointy end of innovation. Near the front of the conversation. Of where the critical, business shifting decisions might be made. To be fair, there have been times in the last decades where that place has felt secure or at least reassuringly proximal. Design was seen – or at least perceived – to have had a seat at the table, whether universally true or not. We’ve been seen as a critical cog in shaping ideas, reframing problems and influencing direction. The magic beans in the recipe.
That version of the role is fading.
“Designers are listened to less and less…we’re told what to do.”
But more recently it feels a little less stable. A little more sandy.
It feels like we’ve been relegated to a side room. Our seat has been slowly and surreptitiously shifted to somewhere a little less visible and less meaningful. They know where to find us, but we are not there for the ‘grown up’ conversations anymore.
It feels like design is being brought in to sort shit out. Rather than help define what should be done, the sense is that we’re asked to realise what’s already been decided. Design is still furiously attempting to prove itself, but we seem to be less ‘heard’. We appear to be morphing into a singular delivery function rather than the challenger, reframer or unlocker of assumptions, insight and opportunities. And this isn’t petulance talking or creative ego. It’s about understanding and appreciating that opportunities to make genuine change and wholesale improvement get lost if design is not at the fuzzy front end of conversations, where nebulous strategy and innovation intention is formed.
“Low level, short term, superficial work seems to be where design is asked to focus…”
Trouble is, as soon as you become a ‘responder’ you move into commodity territory. You become a line item on a re-org spreadsheet. A replaceable team. A group that gets given problems to sort, not one asked to help define them. And with that comes a lack of recognition, a lack of influence and a lack of impact. Work becomes more responsive. Decisions are often made too many org levels away to make sense. Work gets diluted. Inputs and efforts feel less meaningful.
All rather lobotomising.
It could be down to a number of things. A more cautious business climate, where anything perceived as risky, costly or complex is treated with suspicion. The continued growth of in-house teams, often built without a clear understanding of how design actually creates impact, where capability gets assembled but not always shaped or nurtured properly…not to mention a risk of becoming embedded but often diluted. Stakeholders with competing priorities and a general lack of clarity around what design is actually there to do. Talent then migrates accordingly, drifting towards environments that feel more stable, better rewarded or simply more understood. Not always upwards, but away from the confusion.
Eventually the balancing of the water in the U-bend results in broad mediocrity…settling at a level that feels safe, manageable and broadly acceptable, further eroding the standing of design through the eyes of those ‘buying’ or ‘utilising’ it.
Whatever the reason, the net result is a lack of meaning and a sense of structural displacement within the design community. A loss of control and influence results in a sense of loss and pointlessness.
“The diminishing impact of design…is something I’m seeing more and more.”
It’s no wonder people are moving towards things that give them that control back.
3. The Agency Treadmill.
I don’t think I’ve known a time of greater ‘shift’. On the face of it, it all looks the same as it’s always been. Agencies still pitch. Clients still brief. Projects still run in phases. Deliverables get delivered.
But beneath the blusher and foundation lies a much less stable and predictable landscape. I’ve explored this in earlier articles (here) drawing on my own experience of working in and running agencies over the last three decades. It’s something I’ve had to adapt to, and at times pivot around, as client behaviour and expectations continue to shift.
I think the best word my article contributors have used to describe it is ‘relentless’. But not in a creative sense. Relentless creativity is something we’d all welcome, but this is relentless treadmillery (to coin a new term). The kind of relentless that can be damaging. Physically, emotionally and financially.
“I’m exhausted right now. Completely running on fumes.”
It’s all got a bit bloody hard. Not that it was ever straightforward or easy, but it’s noticeably harder now. Many recall the 2008/9/10 period as tricky and ‘lean’ but this appears to be on another level and translates to work that is much less predictable, harder to win, much more fragmented and invariably shorter term…even when you’ve built up years of robust relationships with clients you’d hang your hat on in times past.
“(there’s) a complete dearth of good project leads…clients reluctant to spend on R&D.”
Yes, some agencies are still peddling the same approach and quixotically expecting the same result, but there’s also an element of the commercial dynamic and landscape shifting to something a little less recognisable. This landscape isn’t simply about agencies being more abundant, competitive or more fragmented, but clients themselves are finding it harder to command budgets. Their hands are forced towards caution, cost tightening and to wanting more certainty, ultimately meaning that tides turn away from the more creative, exploratory work many agencies pumped on. The outsourced provocative stuff that brand managers and internal business champions needed to supercharge their pipelines and leapfrog competition.
The world is run by cautious accountants right now.
“The standard consultancy model is simply not working anymore.”
The most heartfelt comments on this topic came from founders and business owners in the design sector. Responsible, honest, noble people who were quietly grinding themselves down trying to ‘truffle pig’ their way through client ‘tree stumps’ to find anything to keep the boat afloat. Work is invariably patchy and much less ‘strategic’ in its scope. It’s more about ‘rent a labour force’ than ‘innovation partnership’. Not because there isn’t appetite for it, but because nobody can quite make the case for it in the current climate.
For sure, agencies are still busy but with less valuable, more trudgy work. The ensuing vibe is one of endless production but little movement.
“Work becomes busy…but it feels like busy work.”
The engine is revving, but the clutch is stuck.
I’ve spoken to a few founders who have recently exited (by choice thankfully) but they are resoundingly grateful to be off the hamster wheel. For those that are still on it and can’t do anything about it but keep running, they can’t really see a way out right now. It’s also the origin for many seniors or experienced designers seeking alternative routes to satiate their creativity but without the ‘precipice pressure’ or the lack of control over the work they’re ultimately assigned.
4. Good Enough.
You could argue that this topic could be bundled up with Topic 2 (‘Just A Pair Of Hands’), but there something slightly different going on here. It’s less about workload or structure and more about the fundamental nature of the work itself.
The bar seems to have slowly lowered to one of acceptable mediocrity.
“Unoriginal, unnecessary products…all appear to be symptoms of the age.”
Some have argued that this is a direct by-product of budgets or client timescales, but those have always been an ever present set of circling buzzards. This feels more like a grinding down of what feels good enough to deliver to a point that teeters on acceptable. Not quite shit enough to feel ashamed but certainly not good enough to feel proud. Like a tea tent on an optimistic but windy Spring day in the UK. You know it probably won’t fly off, but you wear a sturdy jacket just in case.
Unfortunately, ‘good enough’ then defines the benchmark for ‘optimal’. It gets signed off quicker, costs less, carries less perceived risk and fits more neatly into business timelines. Everything is just enough to get it over the next transitional finish line, but very little goes beyond it. Commercially it looks efficient, but from any robust angle it feels flimsy. Business targets are met but everything kinda looks the same.
“There’s a lot of…more and more of the same stuff being turned out.”
Design has always argued for craft, for time, for exploration, for thought. These are the things that bring new, exciting and fragile young ideas to seed and to flourish. Things that are meaningful and feel worthy of the effort. Designers know that the first few ideas are likely the most obvious and least novel. They are the early rush of ‘foremilk’ – the watery breast milk – to the needy breastfeeding baby. What should happen is that time and patience should be heeded to the thicker, more nourishing ‘hindmilk’ which brings with it fat and calories to help the baby really develop. It’s harder to drink, slower to arrive and yet richer in yield.
“The process…the drudgery of it all…all for what? Another thing that does X.”
But like the last point, it isn’t something we can lay at the feet of our clients. They themselves are being squeezed to deliver their own version of ‘good enough’ and only being permitted to buy the same in return. The system reinforces itself.
You could argue that this type of work is easier to deliver, faster to complete and with the rise of AI – much more profitable. But that avoids the elephant in the room. The designers themselves.
Because designers rarely enter the industry for predictable contentment. They were (and hopefully still are) driven by wanting to create, to change things, to improve circumstances for others, to help the planet, to bring people more for less, to elevate experiences and solve knotty problems. Which tends to work in direct opposition to mediocrity or ‘good enough’. It’s like asking an ambitious chef to cook fast food every day or a musician to play cover songs at every gig. Yes, there is an audience for it and a desire for consumption, but it does nothing to light the fires inside the creator.
And only a stoked fire keeps the engine humming.
Otherwise it goes cold.
And stops.
5. Why Is It So Hard To Explain?.
Another theme that hit home was something I’ve explored in other articles. Our own professional tendency to shoot ourselves in the foot by finding it almost impossible to describe what we do in simple enough terms that everyone can understand.
Our industry persists with making value illegible.
“Nothing is wrong with what industrial designers do. Everything is wrong with how we try to sell it.”
We do genuinely life changing, world altering things when it’s done beautifully and brilliantly, but we over complicate both how we’ve done it and what it actually means. We are riddled with jargon, high on our own self-importance and completely at odds with how the business community needs to hear about what we do and what value we can add.
“The moment a client cannot connect what you are saying to the problem sitting on their desk, it is over.”
The strangest thing is that we all know it and yet persist in speaking in ways that obscure rather than clarify. As if beating someone over the head with a blunt instrument enough times will make them understand.
The skills involved in good, solid industrial design (and many adjacent design disciplines) are broad and not insignificant. We often need to command aspects as diverse as engineering and psychology, persuasion and finance, dream like creativity and accountant level logic. We inhabit both sides of the human brain at once, fighting with our own selves to find suitable compromises between beauty and pragmatism, invisibility and brashness, luxury and affordability.
But we insist on elevating our worth to Kanye levels of self-aggrandisation. We speak in tongues that only the ‘design informed’ can understand. We talk about process like no one else can do it. We position ourselves as uniquely gifted.
And in doing so, we make it harder for anyone else to see the value.
What if we simply chose to speak in metrics that others understand? It might feel uncomfortable, but it would close the gap between creative intent and commercial reality, without which design doesn’t really exist in the form we know it. We rely on commerce to feed the creative mouths. Without them we are simply artists. Not designers. We need money to survive and constraints to deliver.
Much of it stems from wanting to be seen as unique. Our process, our thinking, our magic. But as we compete amongst ourselves to prove how inept the competition is and how adept we are, we craft yet more indecipherable bluster to translate. More noise than clarity. But as we fight amongst ourselves to decide which version of the truth is most truthful, others are getting on with it. Not necessarily better, but simpler, clearer and easier to engage with.
And while we debate definitions and disciplines, they gain ground.
We will continue to fight amongst ourselves about banal tropes. Be it the difference between ‘product design’ and ‘product design’ or the need for ‘brand strategy’ not ‘graphic design’ or the eternal fight between UX and UI, design has always had a slightly odd relationship with how it communicates itself. And unfortunately, the only loser in all of this will be design.
“Designers are people pleasers…if we can convince a client, we can also fool ourselves.”
It feels like VHS and Betamax having a fight about who’s best whilst DVD sneaks around the corner and pulls the rug from under both of them.
Google it kids.
6. Tool? Threat? Both?
Yup. You guessed it. This topic is about AI. What self-respecting article wouldn’t include it?
But this is interesting. Most mentions of AI in the past have either been in staunch support and advocacy or in blatant denial and hatred, but now we’re somewhere in the middle. A phase of shapeshifting integration, coupled with a nagging sense that we might be accelerating our own downfall.
There is no doubt that design is accepting AI as a powerful tool.
“There’s still a lot of hype around AI…it hasn’t taken over our jobs yet.”
It’s the technology equivalent of being asked by your doctor how many units of alcohol you consume each week and pretending to answer honestly whilst knowing full well you are at least under quoting by 50% plus. It’s all of our dirty little secret. We all use it but don’t want to admit how much we find it useful, powerful or time efficient.
We talk a lot about ‘tools’. It’s “just another tool to use…like the computer or the phone”, but it’s way more than that. If you’ve used it to even a small percentage of its potential you will have realised quite how impactful it can be to your workflows, your thinking and your output – particularly when in agency land, time is money. It permits individuals and small teams to do the work of many more.
“There is an expectation that we’re all pretty good at using it and integrating it into our workflows.”
Some cite it as a collaborator or a sparring partner. Something or someone (I will fully admit to giving AI a pronoun) to bounce ideas off and massively shorten the distance between thought and output.
But there’s something else at play.
A gnawing awareness that this ‘tool’ might just be quietly robbing you of the very thing that made you valuable in the first place. Your hunch. Your instinct. The time spent sitting with a problem before jumping to a solution. Just dumping it into AI to mince it at speed. Are we eroding our own craft? Is originality being short-changed? And are we starting to doubt our own ability to do it ourselves? Are we making ourselves better, or just faster?
“I feel that ignoring design skill in favour of AI represents a short sighted approach…”
Across the respondents, AI is acknowledged as necessary, utterly brilliant but equally warranting concern. Founders reluctantly admit to seeing the benefits to profitability in a time of squeezed budgets and sparse pickings. Seniors start to question the years invested in honing their craft. Juniors fear some level of replacement unless they upskill fast.
This topic isn’t about whether or not AI can do your job (although there are some in the digital space that have openly suggested that they can see them being replaced in a matter of years), but the sense that – like a horror movie – we are letting the killer through the door and making them dinner, thinking they are just a lovely neighbour. Possibly a little extreme.
Maybe it’s less about whether AI will replace us, and more about how much of ourselves we’re willing to hand over in the process. We don’t quite know where the line is yet, but we do know we are approaching it faster than we had maybe anticipated.
7. Well…It Looks Like Design.
You could argue that this topic is inherently linked to a few others already mentioned, but there’s enough nuance and frustration in the responses to warrant a topic of its own.
The sense that design – or at least design tools and the outward veneer of design output – has become so democratised and available that anyone can call themselves a designer and produce ‘design’.
“After reviewing lots of junior portfolios…it feels like there are still too many graduates who aren’t really prepared for a job in design.”
You could argue that this is a good thing, but at a certain level, there is a cleaved separation between something that ‘looks’ designed versus something that ‘is’ designed. This isn’t entirely new. When rendering software became prevalent and freely available, students (and experienced designers for that matter) were initially lauded for their ‘realistic’ work and highly polished visuals. But over time, a creeping scepticism emerged. Anything too ‘polished’ or too good to be true began to be questioned – metaphorically scratched at with pointy fingernails – to assess the substance (if any) beneath.
Today, that gap has widened.
Software now enables almost anyone to produce visually convincing outputs quickly and cheaply. It is freely available to do anything you need. The established ‘giants’ of design software are still clinging on with their outdated subscriptions, service plans and threats to back charge for older versions (despite very little actually changing), and in the meantime, the agile munchkins (and often non-designers) in software land are pumping out (arguably) better, more capable and much less costly alternatives. Instead of having to engage with a ‘design professional’ to get stuff done, software targets the influencers, the content creators and the marketing interns directly, giving them the authority and ‘skills’ to do it themselves.
This ensuing landscape creates a new kind of tension. Where anyone with a laptop and a few hours to experiment can – on the face of it – create solid, appealing, visibly viable design solutions (I’m now talking about physical product design). To the lay viewer, the output is slick and warrants interest and has been delivered in next to no time and at very little cost. This ultimately devalues ‘design’ as a whole, shifts the expectations of the ‘client’ and the role of the trained, professional, experienced designer starts to come into question.
“There are so many tools now to make something look real, without really understanding how to design it properly.”
Most of the design process is inherent invisible to the outward observer. It relies on rigour, exploration, depth and iteration. Thousands of micro decisions combine to create a singular solution to something that is multi-faceted. Function, aesthetics, usability, assembly, manufacturability, cost, modularity, branding…the list of competing considerations is significant, but has to be juggled to result in something that is holistically considered.
But this hidden endeavour is hard to communicate which means that – on the face of it – the two design outputs (quick and dirty versus deep and considered) may well look very similar. In fact, the deep and considered version might actually look less desirable and a little bit underwhelming. Which further tips the scales towards ‘design appears easier than it actually is’…no matter how much we protest and argue that it isn’t.
“If you’re still trying to be heard using the old model…the words never mean anything.”
But the real danger is in the purchase of design. Given that design is predominantly a ‘service’ delivered to and funded by ‘those’ that can’t, there is a real danger that with a lack of understanding between the two apparently similar offerings, comes a massive devaluation of design as a craft or vocation. It becomes an overpriced commodity.
If it quacks like a duck and looks like a duck and swims like a duck. It must be a duck. Right?
Except sometimes it isn’t.
8. Design Will Eat Itself.
I’ve spoken at length in previous articles about design industry bodies and community. This topic is not about that, although there are natural overlaps.
This is more about a cultural undercurrent running through quite a number of the responses I received. A sense that the design industry doesn’t always help itself.
There’s no doubting that design needs an identity. It leans into variations of kookiness, coolness, left of centre thinking, radicality, confrontation and provocation. You can ‘look like a designer’ and you can be deliberately different in the cause of ‘being a designer’. It’s almost part of the rules of engagement (despite much of it being somewhat pastiche and clichéd). But it works to define a discipline. A way of thinking and being.
But whilst this may serve the discipline internally, the wider industry representation needs to act differently.
I know I’m going to sound like a stuck record, but there are too many design awards, judged by designers. Too many conversations with designers, by designers about design. Too many self-referential echo chambers. Too much guff slapping and twaddle babble.
“There is still too much pretentiousness, posturing and ‘eating our own’.”
It all feels a bit too performative, insular and far too focussed on internal validation than outward impact. We laud the linen wearing ideologues and earnest self-justifiers with accolades and soap boxes to wave their Shoreditch flags but rarely support the struggling outliers trying to convince a business owner called Terry in rural somewhere-shire to part with a couple of grand to get some innovation into pig fertilizer. I appreciate I’m milking the extremes here.
“We’ve seen incompetent work win design awards because it fits the high status agenda.”
And that’s just the industry bodies.
Let’s not forget the pile-ons. The flame throwing spittle that rains down on those, brave (or foolish) enough to share work publicly. Many respondents have commented how quick we all are to critique, to undermine and to pick apart. Lest we not forget Jaguar-gate?
“We seem to take more pleasure in pulling things apart than building anything up.”
For sure, we are all free to have our own opinions, but we can’t start hurling lemons around when we struggle enough to communicate our effectiveness and relevance to those outside of design. The very people – as I’ve suggested in several other topics – who fund our work.
Sometimes we do feel a bit like a travelling circus. People come to marvel at what we do and watch us perform. Some even buy a ticket. And whilst they can’t quite fathom how we do what we do, and clap eagerly in response, there is a slow sense that we are becoming a little bit irrelevant.
A bit of an oddity.
A beautifully wonderous oddity, but an oddity, nonetheless.
9. Career ≠ Life.
Heavily linked to the effort/reward equation in Topic 1, is the question of longevity. Not success or notoriety, but whether this is a career you can sustain with any sense of balance or stability.
Design has long anecdotally prided itself of the pub-bragging sentimentality of the ‘all nighters’, the grit and determination to ‘hit the deadline’, the self-flagellation and proving ground of being the junior. All rites of passage to stepping up, to proving yourself. Much of it was bluff and bluster but it served as a sort of grunt stripes to mark your ‘coming of age’ into the design corps.
“There’s a tendency to reify a narrow set of craft skills and ignore the broader context people operate in.”
Energy, availability, flexibility and willingness were rewarded. Long hours, last minute pivots, friendless travel and gruelling intensity worn as badges of honour. Or at the very least, accepted as part of the ‘deal’.
“There’s still an unspoken expectation that work comes first, whatever’s going on in your life.”
But times are changing.
I for one have made significant decisions in my life and forfeited ‘dream jobs’ to prioritise family over agency life. Life has a habit of expanding and with it people start to question whether the industry is capable of expanding with it…or at the very least, adapting to it.
“The constant questioning and challenging women face…can grind down confidence over time.”
I’d like to be a designer AND have a family if you don’t mind.
News flash. My role as a parent is more important than my role as a designer.
Glitch.
So many people have spoken about how inflexible the industry is when confronted with entirely reasonable life choices. Surely, we should be embracing creative people and helping them find ways to fit being creative around being a parent or just life in general? Not vice versa. So many people have cited an inherent inflexibility as a reason for their falling out of love, or – even more drastic – falling out of the industry altogether.
“There’s still a sense of white, middle class, middle aged men dominating the industry.”
And this isn’t unique to design by any stretch. It’s a tale heard across many industries, but as an industry seen as solving problems, we seem to be making a bit of a meal of this one don’t you think? People don’t necessarily leave design because they don’t love design anymore, they leave because the structure around it doesn’t fit their life anymore. Some of it is obvious stuff like gender imbalance, career progression and motherhood (not always necessarily linked but sometimes). Some of it is geography and the reluctance to do what lots of other businesses do and embrace remote working. Some of it is just life stuff and an ironic lack of empathy, given the straplines on most agency websites.
“The hours and pressure just don’t really fit with having a life outside of work.”
It feels like Golem and the ring. Unless you give yourself fully to it, you are nothing.
It certainly explains a surplus of mid-career dropouts.
And by ‘dropout’ I don’t mean failure.
I mean deliberate, intentional departures.
Choice.
10. Creative. Elsewhere.
I want to end with what might be the most impactful topic of all, and that is the pursuit of creativity. One would think that the design industry would be a natural home for that.
From the feedback I’ve had, there is still a craving – a thirst almost – for raw creativity. The kind that buzzes and satisfies. The fizzle in your fingertips type stuff. There’s certainly no lack of desire to solve challenges, build stuff, make ideas real and craft, but worryingly the industry we call home is less often the place we can find it.
“I do my best work when I’m genuinely enjoying what I’m working on.”
It’s almost as though the promise of creative adventure is no longer something the industry can deliver. Whether it’s the nature of the work, the limitations imposed on clients and their budgets or the necessity for extreme efficiency in delivery, the space to be creative has been sacrificed. Squeezed. So people have looked to other ways to seek their creative nourishment.
“I tend to get more creative on my own rather than through the day job.”
Not just side hustles. Not just hobbies. People are literally leaping into careers that are entirely different and yet connected by creativity, or at least the opportunity to flex those creative muscles and satiate the creative hunger that design cannot. Different but the same, and often with less complexity.
“You realise there are loads of other ways to use the same skills outside of design.”
It feels less about abandoning the design industry, and more about reclaiming creativity on different terms, knowing that it cannot be found within those existing four walls. Sometimes it’s a sense that a purer form of creativity can help people reclaim their mental health or spirituality. Sometimes it’s a more direct, visceral, physical connection to something. Sometimes it’s a rejection of bureaucracy and what some see as management ‘emptiness’. Sometimes it’s an awareness that continuation may very well lead to burnout…I should know.
It feels like people are seeking a shorter, more direct route to creative satisfaction. They still want to solve, think and shape but with less pressure, more autonomy and a clearer sense of impact. Greater tangibility. Shorter feedback loops.
“It feels more real when you can actually see what you’ve made at the end of it.”
A clearer sense of the connection between effort and reward.
So, there you have it. Ten things that came out of the myriad responses to my cursory request.
There’s an argument that the things I’ve noticed are those that resonate with me, but I have tried hard to be balanced about observing overlaps and synergies in people’s offerings. There is much that I agree with, having spent the best part of three decades in and around design agency world, but if you’ve read any of my other articles you will know that I’ve often questioned much of what makes our industry tick (or not as the case may be). At times, I’ve reacted to it and made some fundamental life decisions off the back of what I’ve seen.
I’ve seen this industry at its worst and at its best.
At its most frustrating and at its most brilliant.
And I still believe in it. I believe in what design can deliver and achieve when given the space, encouragement and wings to do itself proud. When it is trusted. When it is allowed to think before it is forced to deliver.
Creativity is masterful. It can pull a fucking rabbit out of a hat better than anything else I’ve seen. It can embolden and enliven people from all walks of life. It can level the playing field and raise the bar all at once. It can unlock things, shift perspectives and bring people with it.
Interestingly I used to use the word ‘design’ in the place of ‘creativity’.
I’m not so sure anymore.
Creativity is rife. It is flowing and it is finding its people.
I’m reminded of Venom and Eddie Brock (IYKYK).
I’m not convinced the same can always be said of design.
Design is the natural vehicle for ‘paid’ creativity. It has permission to own it. But something feels a bit ‘out of sync’. With how people want to work. With what businesses actually need. And with how creativity looks when it’s allowed to breathe.
If anyone is capable of resolving that tension, it is the design industry.
Your industry.
Footnote :
I wanted to make a note about the incoming ‘next generation’ of design talent. Not everyone was ‘doom-laden’ about them as modern media might suggest. Quite the opposite. A few people went out of their way to say that younger designers and interns had been a highlight. Thoughtful, talented, articulate, industrious and a far cry from the lazy stereotypes that get trotted out. Which rather suggests that the issue may not be the people coming in, but possibly the industry they are coming into.
