Design - Craig Jamieson

CEO’s Your Design Team is Broken

What CEOs need to know about the state of their design function
If your design team isn’t delivering what you expect, the issue may not lie with them. It may be everything around them.

Most CEOs do not have direct visibility into the design function. It often sits under digital, technology, or marketing, far removed from the boardroom. The information reaching you is filtered through layers of leadership, metrics, and assumptions. What looks like slow progress or underwhelming output is usually the result of poor structure, misplaced priorities, and a culture that makes great design difficult to deliver.

You might be feeling the pressure to modernise, especially with the rise of AI promising faster results and leaner teams. But in the rush to stay competitive, there is a growing risk of sidelining your design team just when you should be investing in them most.

This is not about blame. It is about awareness.

Here is what you need to understand in order to unlock the real value of the team you have already invested in.

Broken Hiring and Team Structure
Most design teams report into departments that are not design-led. They sit under technology, digital, or marketing functions, none of which are structured to prioritise or nurture design thinking. This removes design from the strategic level and positions it as a service or support layer. As a result, critical product and experience decisions are often made without meaningful design involvement.

In some cases, the person leading design has no background in the discipline. They may have transitioned from project management or operations, completed a short course at a fancy university that gave them superficial credibility, and stepped into a leadership role because they aligned with the right internal stakeholder. They may be great at reporting upwards, but they often lack the experience to guide design teams through complex, ambiguous challenges.

The consequences of this are long-term. You end up with bloated teams made up of junior staff with no mentorship, senior staff with no authority, and design leaders who cannot lead. This is not a problem of resourcing. It is a problem of structure and responsibility.

Toxic Work Culture
Design thrives in environments that support focus, autonomy, and exploration. But most corporate workspaces are designed for consistency, control, and operational efficiency. Designers are often asked to operate under the same norms as legal, finance, or HR, even though their work requires entirely different conditions.

Telling people to return to the office without addressing what they are returning to does not rebuild culture. What is the point of going into the office to have a Zoom call?

Open-plan floorplans, generic spaces, and restricted software access do not support deep, creative work. Designers find themselves stuck in back-to-back Microsoft Teams meetings, working in environments that are not designed for thinking or problem-solving.

In many organisations, designers are not even allowed to use modern tools that would enable their work. AI tools, cloud platforms, and open-source systems are often blocked by IT, which operates from outdated security models. The result is frustration, inefficiency, and disengagement.

If the team has no space to call their own, they spend half the day trying to find a seat in the new office that has consolidated the entire company into a single space. You no longer needed those extra offices, but now you’ve decided you want everyone back.

Even small blockers, like software restrictions or micromanagement of process, can significantly reduce creative output. Trust your team more than your blanket policies.

Contractor Culture
Contractors are often brought in to boost delivery speed or fill short-term gaps. On paper, it looks like efficiency. In reality, it often leads to inconsistency and friction. These roles are usually filled through expensive consultancies that supply mid-level talent at high rates. While the external staff do their hours and move on, the internal team is left to integrate, fix, and maintain the work.

This creates a two-tier system. Contractors are protected by their agency structure, often better paid, and excluded from internal pressures. The full-time team carries the long-term responsibility, often working overtime out of fear that underperformance will lead to cuts.

Using external contractors is not the issue. The issue is how they are used. If your internal team is constantly cleaning up or onboarding new faces, you are not building capability. You are burning out the very people who are committed to your organisation.

Consultancy Dependency and Outsourcing
External agencies are often given the most exciting work. The rebrands. The campaigns. The vision decks. Internal teams are left with execution and support. This imbalance signals that the in-house team cannot be trusted with strategic work, even if they have the skills and context to do it better.

Worse still, many consultancies do not deeply understand your product, users, or constraints. They hand over incomplete strategies, over-designed concepts, or pitch-driven deliverables that cannot be executed in the real world. The internal team then spends weeks trying to make sense of it all, often with less time, less clarity, and fewer resources.

I once worked with a company that launched a major initiative built by an external agency. The work looked stunning, but when it hit the internal team, nothing fit. It did not align with the tech stack. It ignored user constraints. And it lacked any roadmap for support. Within weeks, it was stripped down and patched just to function. Six months later, the initiative was shut down quietly. The executive who championed it had already moved on. The cost was hundreds of thousands in sunk time, vendor fees, and brand credibility. All of it could have been avoided if the internal team had been trusted from the start.

This cycle creates waste. It damages morale. And it keeps design in a reactive posture.

Shiny Object Syndrome
Many businesses fall into a pattern of investing in new tools, platforms, or features without clear evidence of user need. These initiatives are often driven by senior stakeholders, rushed through third parties, and launched without integration into the broader product strategy.

At its most basic, your product needs to work. That means refining the core flows, fixing small frustrations, and continuing to iterate on what matters most to users. But these basics are often neglected in favour of the new and exciting. You end up chasing parity with competitors, rushing out features to impress the board, or building tools that go unused, all while fundamental user journeys remain broken.

One of the most common mistakes is building features just because a department with the biggest budget asked for them. If you are not using data to trim the fat, identifying what is actually being used and what is just noise, then you are not managing a product. You are feeding a backlog of politics.

Most features are underused. The cost of not focusing is hidden, until the user leaves, the team burns out, or the system starts to collapse under its own weight.

Undervaluing Design
Design is often expected to drive business impact but treated as a cost centre. Salaries are uncompetitive. Career paths are unclear. Titles are capped below what the market recognises. At the same time, consultants and contractors are brought in at higher rates, given more strategic work, and publicly recognised for their contributions.

Worse still, designers are placed on internal career paths that are disconnected from how the design industry actually works. HR frameworks are often modelled after marketing, project management, or IT roles, which makes progress feel performative, not meaningful. Designers are told they cannot have the title that reflects their level because it does not exist in the internal structure. That forces them to leave to grow.

HR teams must stop treating design like an edge case and start collaborating with design leadership to define what growth looks like in this function. That means aligning your job levels, salary bands, and promotion criteria with how the industry operates.

The result is stronger retention, clearer role definition, and a team that can grow with your business instead of out of it.  AI Hype and Creative Fear

AI is changing what’s possible. With a few prompts, you can now create visuals, motion, and layouts that once required the most experienced specialists in the industry. That’s real. But design is not just execution. It’s not something you automate because a dashboard looks good or a pitch deck said so.

When leadership buys into the hype that AI will replace creatives, your team hears it loud and clear. Not as a challenge. As a threat. Instead of being empowered to explore what these tools could unlock, they brace for impact while consultants fly in to present generic strategies designed to sell more software, not solve your specific problems.

AI will not design for you. It will not understand your business. It will not ask the right questions, navigate trade-offs, or tailor solutions to your users. The companies that win are the ones that give their team time to think, space to test, and permission to build better. The ones that lose will chase the trend, generate faster versions of the same broken experiences, and call it innovation.

Disconnected Teams and No Source of Truth
You already have a design system. If you have a product in market, you are relying on shared patterns, components, and conventions. But what was once a tool for clarity and alignment becomes useless when it’s handed off to people who don’t understand its purpose, treat it as a side project, or let it grow without guidance.

Eventually, no one trusts it. Design teams create their own versions. Engineers build around it. Contractors ignore it entirely. Visual inconsistencies creep in, decisions aren’t recorded, documentation is outdated, and every new project starts with a mess someone else created.

This isn’t just inefficient. It erodes brand trust, slows teams down, and disconnects your product from the people building it. You can’t keep scaling teams without a shared foundation. You can’t deliver quality when no one knows what good looks like. And you can’t claim to be design-led if your design system is an abandoned folder full of guesswork.

So How Do You Fix It?
If your design team is underperforming, it is not about adding more people. It is about improving the conditions they work in. Here are eight actions you can take to shift from underperformance to long-term value.

Fix the org chart
Design should not report into functions that see it as decoration or support. It should be led by an executive who has actually built design teams and products. This gives design a voice in key decisions and ensures that user experience is considered early, not retrofitted later.

You need to hire a design leader who does more than play politics well. Hire someone who is actually a designer. Someone who came up through the design industry. Someone the team will respect because they are one of them. Someone who has been on the tools, shipped real work, and knows the pressure of delivery. They will not be doing the hands-on work anymore, but the experience they bring becomes something the team can aspire to, be motivated by, and learn from. Real credibility, not just corporate credentials.

In fact, some functions could benefit from reporting into design. Marketing’s primary job is to market the product. If they are communicating a brand message that the product cannot deliver on, that is not just a problem for design. That is a trust problem for your business. Marketing output should align with the experience, and design should have sign-off to ensure that happens.

The impact is a more cohesive experience, fewer internal clashes, and stronger alignment between what the business promises and what the user actually gets.

Build a real team
Contractors are not your core team. They are there to roll out delivery work so your main players can move to the next challenge to solve, like a Seal Team 6. Your best designers should be free to tackle the high-value problems, not trapped in day-to-day production cycles.

While it makes sense to structure around squads, you also need specialists who can move quickly, snipe the biggest problems, and keep momentum alive. Back this up with a strong design ops function whose job is to onboard contractors quickly, plug them into the toolchain, and keep the internal team focused on what matters most.

This leads to lower attrition, reduced dependency on external support, and a team that is solving real problems, not just getting work done.

Respect the environment design needs to thrive in
Designers need desks. They need walls. They need messy spaces covered in inspiration and personal touches that feel like their own. Give them a place to belong, not a hot desk next to someone measuring quarterly compliance reports.

Let them shoot the shit, sketch ideas on the furniture, be noisy when they need to, and express themselves freely away from the school hall monitors who kill creative flow. And do not let the corporate machine fill another room with the same grey furniture bought in bulk. Invest in their space the same way you invest in your brokers’ bullpens and their sixteen-monitor setups.

You will see higher-quality thinking, stronger team cohesion, and an environment where creativity is not squeezed out of existence.

Stop outsourcing the fun stuff
Bring in consultancies when your team asks for them, not when leadership feels insecure. Use them to support your team, not to undermine them. Hire specialists who add new thinking or depth, not another rinse-and-repeat pitch deck written by people who will never stay to build anything.

Your in-house team knows your systems, your constraints, and your users. Trust them to lead, and when they call for backup, back them up. Do not replace them.

This produces more consistent design, lower costs over time, and a team that is invested in the outcome, not just the process.

Kill the shiny-thing pipeline
Use your own people to tell you where to focus. Ask your design team to show you what is happening in market, what they are seeing, what users are gravitating towards. Let them bring ideas to the table before you hire a research company or listen to a suit pitching the next shiny thing.

Refocus on data, craft, quality, and focus. Build what aligns to your product and your brand, not what looks good on a roadmap presentation. Be true to what you are. Stop trying to be everything to everyone and producing watered-down experiences that offer no real value and even less return.

Done well, this leads to better adoption, reduced delivery waste, and stronger, more differentiated products.

Pay them like they matter
Design is not an optional extra. It is how customers experience everything you offer. You cannot say design matters while locking designers into capped salaries, internal-only career frameworks, and fake progression paths designed to tick HR boxes.

Pay competitively. Recognise design-specific seniority. Let your best people grow inside the business instead of forcing them to leave to earn what they are worth. If they have to choose between loyalty and survival, survival wins.

That is how you build loyalty, retain institutional knowledge, and compete for top-tier talent that powers real growth.

Empower your team to lead your AI adoption
Form a dedicated research and development squad inside your design team whose sole focus is testing, validating, and integrating AI tools that actually fit your work. Let them experiment, run pilots, and work directly with other designers to stress test what fits the toolchain and adds real value.

Educate the entire design function on how to effectively use these tools. Make AI a lever that enhances creativity, reduces grunt work, and unlocks new thinking. Not something imposed from the outside by vendors with a quarterly target to hit.

You will gain faster workflows, smarter solutions, and a team that becomes stronger and sharper, not weaker and cheaper.

Invest in your design system and treat it like infrastructure
Make using the design system mandatory. Not to limit creativity, but to give it a strong foundation to build on. Your system is not a set of rules. It is a platform for faster delivery, better consistency, and higher quality without reinventing the wheel every time.

Empower teams to innovate inside the system. Free them to spend more time solving real problems instead of cleaning up inconsistency. Constantly educate, communicate, and demonstrate the value it brings. Build unity, not division.

Staff the system with your best designers, the ones who obsess over every pixel, token, and principle. When you build a system that others want to contribute to, you create a centre of gravity for everything your design team builds.

When treated seriously, it becomes the single most efficient way to scale quality across your entire business.

Final word
If you’re serious about building better products, delivering better experiences, and creating long-term value, then your design team needs more than praise. They need power. They need space. They need leadership that understands their value and an organisation structured to support it.

And no, letting them wear black t-shirts and trendy sneakers while you throw around buzzwords like “customer experience” does not count. That is not investment. That is theatre.

You cannot keep treating design like a downstream service and expecting upstream impact. You cannot outsource vision, underpay talent, overrule process, and then wonder why things do not work. And you definitely cannot keep waiting for someone else in the business to fix it, because no one else will.

If you have built an in-house design team, you already have what you need.

But until you create the conditions for them to thrive, you will never get the return you are hoping for.

This is not about giving design more. It is about expecting more, by making the right investments, setting the right structure, and finally giving it the seat at the table it deserves.

The companies getting design right are already outpacing you. It is not too late to catch up. But it is on you to lead the change.

What Do I Call Myself Now?

I didn’t start out chasing a title. I just wanted to be a designer.

That was enough. That word meant something. That was all I wanted to do.

But as my experience grew the titles started creeping in. First, it was graphic designer. Then multimedia designer. Web designer. Interactive designer. Eventually, I started calling myself a creative thinker because I was working across disciplines. At some point, I got really attached to “design professional.” It felt grown-up and flexible, but still didn’t capture everything I was doing.

As I began working on award show websites for the Art Directors Club and The One Club, I found myself aspiring to the big title: Creative Director. That felt like the pinnacle. The one that meant you’d made it. And eventually, I got there. Hired as a Creative Director, and the title stuck.

But here’s where it gets complicated.

At my first proper ad agency gig, Ogilvy, I was technically operating at an Executive Creative Director level. But I wasn’t allowed to use that title because I didn’t have Creative Directors reporting into me. Not for lack of trying. I’d have promoted my most senior Art Director if I could. Then came National Creative Director at another agency. Still just Creative Director on paper.

During this came self-employment. A studio. A startup. I wore whatever title made sense that week, usually back to Creative Director. Eventually, I landed an in-house executive role at a bank. I led the design function, and with my black t-shirts and sneakers in the bank, I was certainly the creative in the boardroom. But I wasn’t allowed to be Chief Creative Officer because there’s only one chief. So I settled for Executive Creative Director. At my next full-time job, I didn’t settle. I became Chief Design Officer. And finally, a title that felt almost right.

But even that doesn’t quite fit. I’m more than just a designer. I think across channels, across teams, across systems. I integrate with brand, content, product, and service. I shape experiences end to end. So what do I call myself now? Not just in job applications, but in conversations, pitches, bios, intros, and that inevitable “what do you do?” moment. Maybe I should just embrace the times. There is AI in my name, after all. Feels like the universe nudging me toward my next evolution.

Here’s the thing. Titles are broken. And we’re in the middle of a full-blown identity crisis at the leadership level.

I’ve read the think pieces. I’ve seen the bios. The confusion is everywhere. People doing the same jobs are called Heads, Leads, VPs, Chiefs, Principals, or sometimes just Designers, with a suspiciously large scope. And it’s not just semantics. Titles have real-world consequences. Companies don’t want to hand out the Chief label because it implies compensation and authority. So they give you just enough to make the role sound senior, but not enough to pay you what you’re worth.

I’ve seen VPs of Design running global design orgs. I’ve seen Creative Directors acting as product owners, strategy leads, and team managers. I’ve seen brilliant Design Directors passed over because the brief said “Creative Director.” Especially in the UK, where I’m currently job hunting, I’ve noticed Creative Directors often get more respect and higher salaries than Design Directors. That stings, especially when the creative in question is mostly analogue, 30-second TV ads and campaign-based, and the design in question is building banking platforms, solving business problems, and future-forward digital ecosystems.

It’s like comparing a handcrafted wooden sailboat to a carbon fibre racing yacht. Both are beautiful. But only one is built for speed, scale, and the world we live in now.

And if titles weren’t confusing enough within companies, try jumping between industries. Say you’re a Creative Director. Do people assume you work in advertising? If you’re a Product Designer, do they picture digital apps or physical goods? Are you less creative because you’re in-house? Less strategic because you’re not in consulting?

I never studied industrial design, but I’m pretty sure I could give solid direction on a tin opener. Just like I’m confident I could direct a short film, lead a content strategy, or reinvent a product-service ecosystem. Not to come across as arrogant, but I just don’t see any limit to my ability to create. Yet at the same time, I’m watching self-employed social media managers call themselves Creative Directors and Chief Creative Officers. Not to knock their work, it’s a valuable craft, but when exactly did they work their way into those leadership titles? Where’s the experience in brand stewardship, cross-functional management, systems thinking, or executive decision-making?

This isn’t just about gatekeeping titles. It’s about clarity, progression, and respect for the journey. If everyone is a chief, then what does leadership even mean?

And let’s talk about the table. The one we’re all supposed to have a seat at. Too often, the Head of Design is hired by the CTO, not as an equal, but as an add-on. A support act. Design is supposed to be one third of the triad that builds great product: business, tech, and design. Yet in too many companies, it’s still treated as the pixel pushers. Not a strategic partner. Not a co-architect. Just the people who make things pretty.

It’s no wonder our titles are all over the place. The role itself is misunderstood.

And titles do carry weight, whether we like to admit it or not. Show me a CEO who gives up their title just to fit into the flat structure they sell to the rest of the team.

In more formal professions like law, medicine, or finance, titles are earned through years of structured progression, underpinned by formal education and recognised qualifications. You don’t become a partner, consultant, or CFO without years of study and accreditation. But in design and creativity, most of the skills required to lead at the highest level aren’t formally taught. They’re developed on the job, in the trenches, over time. Through experience, intuition, taste, leadership, and hard-won lessons. That makes it harder to define our roles and even harder to validate them through existing frameworks.

So where do we go from here? I could give myself a title. I could fight for one in interviews, push for it once I’m in, or just accept the compromise and get on with the work.

Titles aren’t everything. But they’re not nothing either. They shape how people perceive you. They affect your salary band. They determine whether you’re seen as a leader, a peer, or a service provider.

And the truth is, many of us are working across brand, content, product, service, and experience, often at an executive level, but with a title that doesn’t reflect any of that.

So here’s my question to the industry: what do we call people like us?

People who lead multi-disciplinary teams. People who shape experiences across every customer touchpoint. People who operate at board level but still deeply understand the craft.

Maybe the real answer isn’t one perfect title. Maybe it’s creating space for more fluid, honest language around the roles we play and the value we bring.

Until then, I’ll keep working. Keep leading. Keep creating. Call me whatever you want, just don’t undervalue what I bring.

Are you having a title crisis too? Let me know in the comments what you call yourself and whether it fits.

Designers, Let’s Talk

The most important skill in design today isn’t visual. It’s communication.

Not just how you visualise your work, but how you shape ideas, ask questions, guide discussions, and speak the language of the people you work with. It’s how you articulate design, understand problems, and adapt your language to others. If you can’t clearly express what you’re doing, why it matters, or how it contributes to the broader goal, it doesn’t matter how strong your design is. It won’t land.

Design is now deeply collaborative. You need to be able to communicate with stakeholders, engineers, researchers, strategists, and leadership. That means adjusting your language to suit the room. Speaking in terms of outcomes, not outputs. Explaining trade-offs without jargon. Framing your thinking so others can see what you see.

One of the most effective ways to improve this is to read. A lot. Read beyond design. Study how business leaders think. Learn how engineers document ideas. Read about psychology, negotiation, and decision-making. It helps you expand your vocabulary, understand different perspectives, and communicate your work in a way that resonates across disciplines. Books give you the mental models and the words to operate at a higher level.

This applies equally to facilitation. It’s not about sticky notes or frameworks. It’s about how you guide people through complexity. How you keep momentum without dominating the room. How you listen, interpret, and reframe ideas so others feel heard and the right problems are surfaced. Running a workshop is an act of design in itself, and communication is the material you’re working with.

Great designers don’t rush to have all the answers. They know how to ask better questions. Questions that open up thinking, challenge assumptions, and reveal what’s really at stake. Whether in a workshop, a design critique, or a stakeholder review, the quality of your questions often matters more than the quality of your solutions. It’s not just about curiosity. It’s about intent. Knowing what to ask, when to ask it, and how to ask it in a way that invites honesty and clarity is one of the most underrated forms of communication in design.

The shift toward strategic design makes communication even more essential. Designers need to move beyond artefacts and start speaking in terms of priorities, risks, opportunities, and results. That means being fluent in product and business language, not just design. You have to understand what matters to the organisation, and communicate your work in a way that supports those goals.

AI has changed the pace and shape of creative work, but not the core of it. Prompting isn’t a trick; it’s another form of expression. The quality of what you get back depends on the clarity of what you put in. If you can write well, you’ll prompt well. If you know how to frame a request, direct an idea, or structure a brief, you’ll get more out of the tools around you. This isn’t separate from design. It’s part of it.

Design systems are also a communication challenge. A good one doesn’t just look consistent. It expresses shared intent. It reduces friction by making expectations clear. It documents patterns so they can be understood and reused. Creating a design system that actually gets adopted is less about how it looks and more about how well it communicates across the product and engineering teams using it.

Critique, when done properly, is one of the most valuable communication skills a designer can develop. It’s not about offering opinions. It’s about asking the right questions, giving clear and respectful feedback, and receiving critique with professionalism. Good designers know how to separate themselves from their work. They listen, reflect, and use feedback to improve the outcome, not protect their ego.

Strong communication isn’t just about what you say. It’s knowing when to say it, how to say it, and when to hold back. It’s the ability to read the room, to sense when to speak up and when to listen. It’s understanding how to navigate tension without adding to it. Great designers know how to behave under pressure. They don’t throw others under the bus, shift blame, or deflect when things go wrong. They take responsibility, learn quickly, and move forward without making it personal. They focus on the work, not the politics. And they know that how you carry yourself, especially in difficult moments, often says more than any deck ever could.

Understanding how products are built is also part of this. You don’t need to write code, but you should understand the language of how things work. Know what’s easy and what’s expensive. Learn the basics of how interfaces are structured in code. This helps you speak more effectively with engineers and avoid unnecessary friction. The more you understand how your designs are implemented, the better you’ll communicate their intent.

Being able to communicate publicly is part of the job now. Whether it’s sharing work-in-progress on internal Slack channels, posting insights on LinkedIn, or writing longer-form thinking for a wider audience, designers need to know how to show up with clarity and intent. That means learning to write sharp one-liners that spark curiosity, structuring posts that make people want to keep reading, and crafting comments that add value to the conversation. Long-form writing builds depth, short-form builds reach, and both build credibility. The designers who know how to share well don’t just get noticed. They help shape the narrative around the work.

Designers who can communicate clearly, consistently, and with confidence are the ones who get heard. They move projects forward. They build trust. They shape outcomes. It’s not a soft skill. It’s the foundation of everything else.

If you want to grow as a designer, sharpen how you speak, write, listen, and present. Learn to communicate ideas in the language of those around you. That’s the skill that will set you apart. And the one that makes all your other skills count.

Built On Quality

We’ve all been taught the triangle: time, cost, and quality. You can pick two. In reality, quality is usually the one that gets left behind. Time and money are easier to quantify, easier to justify, and easier to prioritise. Quality, by contrast, is often treated as optional. It’s something people say they care about, but are quick to compromise when the pressure builds.

In many cases, this isn’t intentional. It’s just that time and cost are simpler to manage. They’re visible in timelines and budgets. Quality requires judgment, experience, and taste, which are harder to measure and even harder to defend. When teams are under pressure, they make choices that feel safer to explain. Prioritising quality doesn’t always feel like the safest bet.

Over the years, I’ve focused heavily on making teams more consistent and more efficient. The goal was never just to move faster. It was to create space for better work. When your systems run smoothly and the process is clear, people have more time to think, refine, and improve. That time allows for better decisions and stronger output, which in turn leads to greater value.

The challenge is that many companies don’t use that extra time to improve the work. They use it to increase the volume. Rather than investing in depth, they chase speed. The teams that were just beginning to find their rhythm are pushed harder. The space that could have been used to craft something meaningful is filled with more deliverables. The opportunity to raise the standard is missed.

When I speak with executives, they often ask how to improve their organisation’s output or their team’s performance. I always return to the same answer: focus on quality. That doesn’t just mean polishing the end result. It means creating the conditions for quality to emerge. It means giving people the time and space to do great work, and showing that craft and care are not just welcomed, but expected.

This mindset doesn’t just improve the output. It improves the experience of doing the work. When people are proud of what they make, they stay longer. They care more. They push each other. But when work is rushed, compromised, or constantly deprioritised, motivation fades. People leave. And when they go, they take more than their job title. They take institutional knowledge, momentum, and culture with them.

The strongest teams I’ve led were held together by a shared commitment to quality. They were efficient, yes, but they also had pride in what they produced. That pride created resilience. People stayed because they believed in what they were building and because they knew their time and effort mattered.

Quality is not a luxury or a nice-to-have. It is the foundation of sustainable work, strong teams, and long-term value. When it is prioritised, everything else gets better – from the work itself to the people behind it.

The best work I’ve seen in my career, and the most successful teams I’ve worked with, all had one thing in common. They were built on quality. Not occasionally. Consistently. Intentionally. And it made all the difference.

Because when you make time for quality, you’re not slowing things down. You’re creating value. That time becomes the reason people stay, the reason the work stands out, and ultimately, the reason the business grows. Time for quality doesn’t cost you money – it earns it.

Ignorant, by design

When I was younger, I remember hearing people say things like “ignorance is bliss.” It used to sound like a weak excuse – something people said to avoid thinking too deeply or engaging too honestly. But over the years, I’ve started to take that sentiment a little more seriously. Not in the sense of tuning out reality altogether, but in learning to be highly intentional about what I let into my world.

These days, I don’t watch the news. I don’t scroll TikTok. And I don’t allow negative people to influence my day. It’s not a head-in-the-sand strategy. It’s a behaviour choice – something I’m constantly working on to protect my energy and focus. I’ve realised that if I don’t design some boundaries for myself, the world will happily fill every corner of my attention with fear, noise, and drama.

It’s not a foolproof plan. I still get pulled in sometimes. But more often than not, I’ve trained myself to step back. To observe without absorbing. To not let someone else’s mood become mine. I’ve learned that I don’t have the capacity to take on every problem in the world, and I’ve stopped trying to. That might sound harsh, but it’s actually an act of self-respect.

I see a lot of people drowning in everything. Every crisis. Every argument. Every piece of secondhand stress. And I get it – it’s easy to fall into that pattern. But I’ve made a conscious decision to stay out of it. I avoid engaging where I don’t need to. I steer clear of people who seem addicted to the drama. And I focus on my own lane. Ever heard the phrase “mind your own business”? That’s the choice I’ve made. Because when I do, I get to protect the parts of myself that actually matter.

I try to leave room for better things. Things like practice, gratitude, kindness, forgiveness, empathy – and most importantly, creativity. That last one is the baseline of who I am and what I do. It’s not just work. It’s how I process the world, how I find clarity, how I keep going. When I’m in a creative flow, I’m at peace. So why would I willingly disrupt that state just to be more informed, more reactive, more plugged into something I can’t control?

Simply put, I got tired of the negativity. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel it. I already carry the weight of a life well visualised and, like most people, sometimes traumatised. I just want to reduce how much more I take on. I want to be more selective about what earns my energy and my attention.

Some might say I’m being ignorant. And maybe they’re right. But this isn’t about denial, it’s about design. I’ve learned to filter out what drains me so I can stay focused on what feeds me. Because if I don’t do that, I’m no use to anyone – not to my work, not to the people I care about, and not to myself.

I’m not completely tuned out. I see and hear enough of what’s happening to stay aware. I ask questions. I stay curious. I just choose not to live in a constant state of reaction. I take things in at my own pace, and I respond when it feels thoughtful, not rushed.

It’s not a perfect system. But it’s one that gives me space to focus, to create, and to stay well – mentally, emotionally, and creatively.

Because in the end, I’ve realised I can’t give the best of myself to the people and work I care about if I’m constantly overwhelmed by everything else. So I filter. I pause. I protect what matters most.

That might look like ignorance from the outside. But really, it’s clarity.

It’s not that I don’t care.

It’s that I care enough to be intentional.

Ignorant, by design.

Not Just Designers

There was a time when the big push was for digital designers to move into product. It made sense – stable teams, measurable outcomes, and the promise of finally having a seat at the table. And for many, it worked. Product design became the new home.

But somewhere along the way, we started to forget who we are.

We’re not just system builders. We’re storytellers. Creative thinkers. Dreamers with sharp execution skills.

A decade ago in digital, building social content felt like the death of creativity. Banner ads. Templates. Endless grids. But look at where we are now. Tools have caught up. Budgets don’t have to be blockbuster-sized. The tech is in our hands.

Want to build a channel people return to like an ‘80s TV show? You can. Want to launch an experience that blends storytelling, design, and interactivity? You don’t need a twenty-person dev team anymore. We’re in an era where the only limit is the brief – and maybe our own imagination.

Think back to what excited you before “flows” and “patterns.” Remember pitching wild ideas in agency boardrooms? Getting people to scan a shoe with their phone. Bringing AR into a burger joint. Designing physical experiences with real-world impact.

That spirit is needed again.

And here’s the thing – we’re better now. We understand ROI. We get strategy. We’ve built empathy for users and business. We can help the agencies we came from evolve into something new. Something braver.

We’re not just here to refine. We’re here to invent. To reimagine what creative impact can look like – in every format, every channel, every part of life.

The tools are here. The briefs are wide open. And our skills go far beyond wireframes and workshops.

Let’s remember what it felt like to dream bigger. Let’s start making again.

From Pixel Pusher to Problem Solver

There was a time when being a designer meant being the person who “made it look pretty.”

A pixel pusher.

But we’ve come a long way.

Today, design is seen as a critical part of solving business problems, creating meaningful experiences, and guiding strategic decisions. And as we stare down the next wave of change – AI tools, no-code platforms, new modes of interaction – there’s never been a more exciting time to be a designer.

We Weren’t Just Pushing Pixels

The misconception was never about talent. It was about visibility.

Designers have always been solving problems – making things clearer, faster, easier, more useful, more beautiful. But because the output was visual, it was easy to mistake the interface for the entirety of the work.

We fought for research time. For strategic influence. For a seat at the table.

And gradually, we earned it.

We showed that good design isn’t decoration – it’s direction. It’s not what things look like, but how they work, how they feel, how they perform. We connected the dots between user need and business value. We made the case that design is strategy.

And we did all that with Figma open, yes – but with minds wide open too.

So What Now?

With the rise of AI, new platforms, and shifting expectations, the dust is being kicked up again.

Some fear we’ll go backwards. That we’ll be replaced by prompts. That execution will get faster, but thinking will be devalued.

I don’t believe that.

Because when the tools change, the thinking becomes even more important.

Designers are already adapting – not just in how we work, but in where we work. Some are diving deep into strategy. Others are pioneering AI-assisted workflows. Many are pushing the boundaries of experience design in ways that go far beyond screens.

We’re not just solving interface problems anymore.

We’re solving business problems, team problems, even future problems.

Experiences? Strategy? Prompts?

There’s no single future for design. And that’s the best part.

We’re going to see specialists who shape immersive worlds. Generalists who tie together complex ecosystems. Strategists who inform company direction. And yes, prompt engineers who turn ideas into outcomes in seconds.

The common thread?

A designer’s mindset:

Empathy. Curiosity. Systems thinking. Craft.

These remain timeless – no matter what tools we use.

Why We Should Be Excited

If you’ve ever felt stuck in the execution loop – just delivering, never shaping, now’s your moment.

We’re in a transition where imagination matters again.

Not just what you can push live, but what you can imagine, propose, model, test, improve.

This isn’t the end of design.

It’s the beginning of something broader, bolder, and more impactful than ever before.

Let’s lean into it.

Where are the groupies?

I can’t remember who said it, but I once heard that web designers are the rockstars of the future.

Twenty-five years later, I don’t see the panty-dropping, gushing groupies standing behind the designers.

Where are our advocates, as talented people are being made redundant in favour of the promise that AI will replace us?

I realise that the textbook designers – the flat-earthers of our industry left a bad taste in the corporate mouth. But we’re not all that basic, and it’s rather sad, given most of us didn’t just one day decide to learn design.

We spent our entire lives looking at the world through certain eyes. Constantly noticing the details no one else paid attention to. Developing our skills, talent and taste.

The good ones are not a product of a bootcamp – they’re the result of unique journeys, shaped by a school system that didn’t know what to do with us. Pushed into the creative category, told to do art, and expected to accept a future where we’d make pretty things and starve for it.

Long before design had a seat at the table, I passionately pined over club flyers, record covers, the layout and purpose of products of all shapes and sizes. I analysed the typography, the composition, the intent behind how things were made. I studied the techniques of films and the engineering of outdoor gear. I obsessed over the simple logic of navigating a PlayStation menu – how it felt effortless without ever having to think about it.

There is so much that influences the decisions I make in the digital products I build. Every click, every layout, every choice is backed by years of pattern recognition, lived experience, and relentless curiosity.

But who is in my corner?

Who has my back?

And who is standing up for us in rooms we’re not in – to fight for us when we’re not there to do it ourselves?

We were never in this for clout.

But we did hope that, over time, people would understand the weight we carry.

The decisions we make that users never notice – because good design is invisible.

And the cost of stripping us away isn’t just aesthetic. It’s cultural. It’s experiential. It’s human.

We’ve watched design get systemised, templated, and handed over to AI tools that claim they can think like us.

But they weren’t in the trenches.

They didn’t grow up dissecting streetwear tags, cereal box layouts, album sleeves and the shapes of soap bottles.

We did.

We still do.

And we’re still here – asking the same question:

Where are the groupies?

Show Me the Autonomy, Not the Money

Like many creatives, I love spending it – but I’ve often shied away from earning it.

Not because I don’t want to work hard. I’ve worked in fintech, led design in one of South Africa’s biggest banks, and helped stakeholders see the ROI in design. I understand the business side of what we do.

But I’ve never been driven by money.

I have friends who obsess over stocks, crypto, global markets. I have others who love building businesses to make money. I admire them – but it’s not what gets me out of bed in the morning.

What drives me is the work. Great teams. Great problems. The freedom to do things well and do them my way.

Yes, I’ll always negotiate to be paid fairly. I believe every creative should. And just because I say I’m not driven by money doesn’t mean I don’t deserve to be paid my worth.

In fact, one of the things I hate seeing is companies trying to offer designers just enough to stay. Asking for payslips, negotiating a minor increase, or offering a last-minute raise only once someone decides to leave.

When I’ve hired designers, I try to pay them as much as I possibly can within budget. No games. No tests. No “let’s see what we can get away with.”

Because here’s what I believe:

👉 If you take the stress of money away from creatives

👉 If you show them they’re valued from day one

👉 If you give them the space and support to do their best work

…they will thrive. They’ll be loyal. You won’t have to ask them to go above and beyond — they’ll already be doing it, because they care.

Not because of a bonus. But because they feel seen. Respected. Backed.

I don’t need the biggest pay cheque in the room.

I just need the trust, the challenge, and the opportunity to make something great.

And I think I’m not alone in that.

Relax, It’s just a Job

Somewhere along the way, we forgot that creative work is supposed to be fun.

We’re not saving lives, so the work doesn’t need to feel like a constant emergency.

We’re not data points, and creativity can’t be forced into a spreadsheet.

We don’t work in straight lines, and the best ideas never show up exactly when or how the process says they should.

The job has become heavier than it needs to be, and it’s not because of the work itself. It’s the environment we’re being asked to do it in.

The Fake Urgency

Everything is treated like it’s critical.

Stakeholders act like we’re carrying a heart in a box, and if we don’t ship by Friday, someone might die.

But creative work doesn’t flourish under panic.

It needs space. It needs air. It needs time to wander, go wrong, and come back better.

This constant pressure to “move fast” doesn’t make the work better. It just burns people out and kills the joy.

Spreadsheet Culture

Creativity has become something we’re expected to quantify.

OKRs. ROI. Performance metrics. 360 reviews.

Dashboards built to turn creative thinking into tidy numbers.

Why?

Because the people holding the purse strings don’t actually understand creative work.

They’ve never made anything. So they build spreadsheets to help them feel in control of it.

And we, the creatives, spend more time proving the value of our work than making it.

Process Theatre

On top of the urgency and metrics, there’s the obsession with process.

We’re expected to follow a set structure.

Double diamond. Design sprint. Weekly rituals.

And when we don’t follow it exactly, we’re asked to explain why. In detail.

But creative work doesn’t follow a perfect sequence.

It loops. It stalls. It leaps ahead, then doubles back.

The magic doesn’t happen because of the process. It happens in spite of it.

So yes, we care.

Yes, we want to do great work.

But we don’t need to treat every task like it’s mission critical,

turn everything into a spreadsheet,

or explain the magic before it even happens.

We’re just people trying to earn a living, using our talent to make cool stuff.

Relax. It’s a job. And it’s supposed to be fun.