In therapy lately, I have been processing some feelings about how design is received among the economic buyers of my industry. In short, because design is a form of leveraged power, and because power dynamics have shifted towards more toxic structures, people have consciously chosen to remove the power of designers and create more hostile experiences on the web. Designers are losing jobs, reworking their job titles, or leaving the industry entirely. The pendulum will swing back towards us someday, as it must, but for now things are grim.
Presumably, you read these updates because you want to learn how to practice design better. Or you like what we do here at Draft and want to keep tabs on our business. Or you just think I’m a cool space alien, and you like basking in my piles of words? Either way, I’m a designer, I’m going to remain a designer, and we’ve suffered through design winters before. Draft has so far survived a financial crisis, a fascist uprising, an ongoing war in Europe, and a global pandemic.
And now, blessedly, we are booked through the rest of the year, and so we will be winding down the receipt of new consultative operations until at least February. We are grateful to those who understand the outsize economic value of design, and are willing to act accordingly.
It’s my job to make design legible & understandable to you. It is not my job to manage how you receive what I have to say. Maybe you think listening to customers isn’t a good use of your time, or you think you have better ideas than they do. I don’t agree, of course, but ultimately you’re going to do what you’re going to do, and I’m going to do what I’m going to do.
