Oversaturated, understimulated, total meltdown. Navigating today’s abundance of information is the core of designers’ Catch 22: to find success almost guarantees you’ll be overworked, but take a beat and you risk becoming obsolete. Faced with peak overload, designers are looking in the mirror for answers, only to find that mirror is their phone: equipped with millions of options that make choosing one path forward feel impossible. Cue infinite brain melt.
WHAT EMOJI BEST REPRESENTS DESIGN TODAY?
DESIGNER INTERVIEW
2022
“I like that melting face emoji. Why? Because it feels like it's smiling but not super happy. It's melting and there's nothing it can do. It’s kind of content with the situation, but it's melting. Lol.”
“Maybe the ‘spiral eyes’. That's the one I resonate with the most. It’s overwhelmed but not necessarily with bad stuff, it’s just, you know… too much. It's everything on high volume.”
😵💫
DESIGNER INTERVIEW
2022
“[The spiral emoji], an infinite digital archive that one can scroll through chronologically back to the beginning of design, but one never actually reaches the beginning because there's so much that has been created even in the last 100 years.”
🌀
OPEN CALL RESPONSE
2022
2.1
STUCK IN LIGHTSPEED
"EVERYTHING'S MOVING WAY TOO FAST; WHEN DO DESIGNERS GET TO PAUSE AND REFLECT?"
Our world has never moved so fast. The speed of tech, abundance of channels, and acceleration of microtrends has created its own form of tunnel vision: blink and you’ll miss it so stay glued to your screen. When technology moves this quickly across so many different directions, what are the consequences of keeping up?
TIRED [SOURCE UNKNOWN]
If you’re lucky enough not to know the feeling, look no further than Everything Everywhere All At Once, for the emotional whiplash that comes with being very online all of the time — and how quickly the mood can shift from blind optimism to pure chaos. This always on mode leaves many designers feeling stuck in a cycle they can’t escape. There must be more to design than devouring the latest trends only to spit them back out with a button to BUY NOW.
Beyond the speed that our brains work to process a flood of “content”, we’re also losing how these images, quotes, gifs, videos, memes, and texts originated in the first place. Social-media scholar Danah Boyd coined the term "context collapse” to describe what happens when different audiences occupy the same space and information is passed to them without preserving the original context. Armed conflict intersects with NYFW coverage. Neighbor GoFundMe's are sandwiched between gnocchi recipes and newly minted NFTs. Our resulting attention spans are both desensitized and disoriented, and designers face even more pressure to create work that breaks through to them.
2.2
SEA OF SAMENESS
“IT’S A REALLY GREAT LOOKING POINTLESS BAG OF GLITTER AND GARBAGE.”
Abundant access to references plus 24/7 internet connection is one recipe for aesthetic sameness. “What does originality mean in today’s post-modern, post-web, post-social, post-AI world?” asked one interviewee. When every designer is looking at the same decontextualized images, moodboards, posts, and campaigns, that new bland looks so familiar because it is. And when CAC-driven clients ask for more of the same, designers are being paid to replicate rather than invent: "I worry about being innovative and developing new ideas when clients ask for reinterpretations of existing design ideas rather than something new." When the measure of a designer’s work is based on engagement — likes, follows, clicks — there is data to support playing it safe, and pushing outside the known can be a hard sell.
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ON COPY CULTURE:
What object best represents design in 2022?
One response: “The photocopier.”
OPEN CALL RESPONSE
2022
“Everything looks the same. Trends get tired very quickly. And when something finally looks different, it gets bullied into the ground.”
OPEN CALL RESPONSE
2022
"[Right now] everybody's trying to please everyone else, and you end up with a lot of stuff that looks the same."
DESIGNER INTERVIEW
2022
If the amount of designers expressing concern over “same-y” designs is any indicator, we could all be victims of what Elizabeth Goodspeed terms the moodboard effect. When design is shared and remixed endlessly on social platforms, “styles operate less like trends and more like memes” — but instead of promoting innovation and play, we’re left with “narrower thinking and shallower visual ideation.”
"I believe we're living in a deep black hole of content. [...] How can we make effective design and not jam-pack the world with more useless images?”
OPEN CALL RESPONSE
2022
With a steady drip of content in conversation with itself, we’re left paddling through a sea of sameness with no land in sight. Are we tapping into trends or just hitting command C? Is design (un)comfortably numb? Is it still possible to make something original?
2.3
MULTI-HYPHENATES
ANONYMOUS
“LIKE A CLOWN WITH THREE BALLS, WE DEAL WITH A LOT OF THINGS ALL THE TIME. AND WE TRY TO MANAGE EVERYTHING, TO NOT FALL APART.”
JUGGLER EMOJI, APPLE
Better-faster-stronger mode extends to the many roles that designers are expected to play on the daily. What began with designers as interpreters of visual language has evolved into the standard that designers be fluent in all languages. Flexing outside of your role can be fun. Juggling all of them is not, and most designers dread seeing “many hats” on their job description.
DESIGNER POSITION JOB DESCRIPTION FOR MEDIA COMPANY
The expectation to do the most doesn’t always come with the support to get it done. A majority of interviewees spoke candidly about the persistent realities of being overworked and underpaid and a struggle to find personal meaning while being treated like “a hamster on the wheel.” “We're all creative people, we all want to make things we love and things we're proud of. But it is an industry where the most creative fulfilling projects sometimes pay the least.” Most are frustrated that the choice between creative and financial fulfillment is often a mutually exclusive one that, in reality, has to pay the bills: “I still work for clients that call me and say ‘I need a logo’ — I’ll do it because it pays my rent.”
“Everyone kind of expects too much and then everyone gets overworked and underpaid. Then, when you work for yourself and try to be a Freelancer, go against the big companies, try to do things a different way, I feel like there's pressure to prove yourself. Only few people are lucky enough to do that. I know I'm unhappy with the ways things are, but at the same time, I feel this is a mindset that everyone seems to be okay with, and so things don't really change.”
DESIGNER INTERVIEWS
2022
ON COMBATING BURNOUT:
"I would ask if design is a practice that calls for urgency at all. Does a sense of urgency come from the engine of capitalism demanding workers be faster/better? What would it look like if the field prioritized slowness and thoughtfulness rather than arbitrary deadlines set by non-creatives?”
OPEN CALL RESPONSE
2022
“Designers don't have one organisation that helps to regulate labor. We’re just kind of talking to each other and trying to organize ourselves. I think it creates some problems and I hear a lot of people complaining about the current state of design. Maybe they're not always talking about wages or health care, but those are big problems. [...] In a way, we see also burnout, depression, ADHD, because of all those things.”
DESIGNER INTERVIEW
2022
“I think designers would benefit immensely from a union. I think about some of these big studios where there really was no collective bargaining power. Working at having experience working at a big studio felt like you couldn't demand anything because they could fire you and there was a line out the door. so there was really no way to advocate for yourself. I've had experiences staying way past what was considered my working hour without overtime compensation. “
DESIGNER INTERVIEW
2022
If reading this stresses you out, you’re not alone. Faced with the demands to consume, create, then create consumption, designers are seeking ways out of business as usual. While stepping off the wheel isn’t a viable option for most, we all deserve an environment where it’s possible to find creative freedom and advocate for the right to rest. If designers are the poster children of burnout, then they are ready for a rebrand.
💬 UNRAVEL
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HOW HAS THE ABUNDANCE AND SPEED OF INFORMATION INFLUENCED OUR WORKING HABITS?
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HOW DO WE BREAK AWAY FROM THE MOODBOARD EFFECT IN HOW WE RESEARCH?
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CAN DESIGNERS ADVOCATE FOR THE RIGHT TO REST WITHOUT SACRIFICING FINANCIAL STABILITY?
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HOW IMPORTANT IS PERSONAL FULFILLMENT IN A PROFESSIONAL JOB?
🔗 LINKS
ON THE FAST AND FURIOUS:
“The increasingly fast-paced and high turnover of trends in culture and design means designers are always trying to keep up with clients who are always chasing the latest.”
OPEN CALL RESPONSE
2022
“We just go really fast, design is just so fast-paced. And we're constantly just making, and making. The mind is a muscle that we keep on, so it does get tight. I feel like designers need some rest in order to give you the chance to have great new ideas. you can also get burnt out creatively.”
DESIGNER INTERVIEW
2022
“How do we stay thoughtful and not churn stuff out just to churn stuff out? How can we not fall under the pressure of the speed of our capitalist society and fight for slow and thoughtful work?”
OPEN CALL RESPONSE
2022
“There's a lot of design that's just visually provocative, but it's really missing all of this substance. I think of it like junk food. There's never been so much junk food in the design world. And so there's just a lot of people who don't know any better, they see that and they think that's good work.”
OPEN CALL RESPONSE
08.2022
ON DOING IT ALL:
“Today, designers are multi-hyphenates. I think designers are expected to be content creators, strategists, expected to be a lot of things. I think there is a lot more pressure on designers now.”
DESIGNER INTERVIEW
2022
"[Designers are] living in a world with insurmountable tasks of brain power and deliverables paired with impossible deadlines."
OPEN CALL RESPONSE
2022
"I don’t want to have to know every software and skill. I just want to be a graphic designer — not motion designer, 3D artist, UX strategist.”
OPEN CALL RESPONSE
2022
“Technology is great because now I’m working from home and closer to my family and that’s amazing. But I feel like I'm working now more than ever though. It's like not leaving my office at all. There's no nine to five, it's just like nine to twelve.”
OPEN CALL RESPONSE
08.2022