LinkedIn Top Voices in Design: The 10 experts to follow
The 2022 LinkedIn Top Voices in Design highlights 10 thought leaders covering how to combine creativity and problem solving to create impactful user experiences.
What goes into designing a product, campaign or experience that breaks through? Designers across fields have approached that question for decades – ultimately developing what’s become known as design thinking. The combination of creativity and problem solving, while maintaining a users-first mindset, has enabled everyone from iconic brands to bold newcomers to figure out what is most important to end users and create thoughtful designs.?
Today, LinkedIn News is debuting our Top Voices in Design — 10 experts covering how to develop a design mindset and create impactful user experiences, regardless of what industry you’re in. They’re sharing behind-the-scenes snippets of their creative processes, advice for those looking to break into or get ahead in the field, tips for powerful storytelling and more. Check out and follow the voices who speak to your interests and stay updated on their latest insights in your LinkedIn feed.
While this is our latest Top Voices list, it joins a family of features highlighting subject matter experts in areas ranging from marketing and advertising to the creator economy. All Top Voices lists are editorially curated by the LinkedIn News team and highlight creators to follow who are writing and sharing about today’s important workplace, career and industry topics. You can find more about how we compiled the list and who is eligible to be a Top Voice at the bottom of this article.
Check out this year’s #LinkedInTopVoices in Design — and follow them to stay plugged into the conversation.
Honorees are listed in alphabetical order. Reporting by Josh M. Carney and Joseph Gobran .
What he talks about: How can iconic brands approach a redesign? What are the key elements to consider in a disruptive advertising campaign? Why do unconventional design choices feel so engaging? Azarbeygui breaks down all of these design decisions and more to highlight how perennial brands and bold newcomers are pursuing innovative ways to thoughtfully tell their story. The design director outlines what top brands are doing to effectively modernize their look and elevate established designs to reintroduce their products and services to new audiences.
His best advice for professionals trying to break into the design field: “Create a strong portfolio with work you love and have passion for. Always keep learning and growing, design is limitless.”
What she talks about: Bowling helps designers strategically pursue their creative careers with informative videos breaking down the industry's rapid growth and some of the biggest developments across the community. She also shares actionable advice for young professionals around topics such as time management, the latest design trends and the hardest parts of pursuing a career in the field. Bowling, the creative lead for a consulting firm, highlights why there is strong value in having a personal style but that designers shouldn’t simply stick with a look or trend and never veer from it: “Creativity is all about exploration.”
Her best advice for professionals trying to break into the design field: “Find an area of the design industry that you are passionate about and grow in your skills there. Research companies that align with your values and ones that will also enable you to continue to grow.”
What she talks about: Cheng, a creative director, shows how new augmented reality tools can open up a world of possibilities for designing content, products and spaces. Specifically, she explains how artificial intelligence can revolutionize visual arts through step-by-step tutorials that show how new technologies can increase accessibility and empower innovative ideas across the design field. Cheng continues to test her own processes, outline detailed results for her followers and push the envelope when it comes to designing video effects.
Her best advice for having impact as a designer: “Focus on projects that excite and energize you — those are the ones that you’ll do your best work on, and the impact will happen as a side effect. Start with personal projects and use it to build up your portfolio.”
What she talks about: Cuevas digs into how brands can utilize the power of color to design inclusive campaigns that emphasize vibrancy and culture. Through her work as the head of a brand strategy and graphic design firm, she outlines how to think about the relationship between color and cultural heritage to show how brands can thoughtfully apply those principles to their marketing strategies. Cuevas emphasizes why brands need to understand the role color plays in perception and the ways to lean into representative designs that can create stronger connections.
A current design trend that she is most excited about: “I love how color is leveraged more strategically throughout design and not just about making ‘pretty palettes.’ Instead, it’s becoming a way to evoke emotion, celebrate cultures, and enrich our physical and digital experiences.”
What she talks about: Kastenbaum helps aspiring user experience designers navigate their way into the field with everything from step-by-step lessons on design systems to ways of applying transferable skills. She uses her newsletter to outline what’s important to know about different research methods, how to fix common mistakes among novice portfolios and even ways to explain the world of product design to relatives. Kastenbaum demystifies the path to a UX job with tips for completing design challenges during an interview and strategies for how junior designers can stand out and present their case studies as a story.
Her best advice for professionals trying to break into the design field: “Take advantage of the skillsets you have learned from your past career, education and your hobbies. The design field is multifaceted, so being able to tie these in will only make you a stronger, more experienced designer.”
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What she talks about: Lau uses everything from the shape of a banana to a short stack of pancakes to explain what goes into product design. She covers the traps to avoid when designing a product and strategies for thinking about the end-to-end experience of a customer to show why collaboration is vital, all while sparking conversations among other designers and brand strategists about ways to effectively execute projects. Lau also opens up about the realities of the industry and how she manages burnout as a means for sharing advice she wishes she could’ve told herself when starting out as a UX designer.
A current design trend she is most excited about: “The number one trend I’m most excited about is witnessing the subtle transition from designing with empathy to compassion. While empathy offers the understanding of people and feeling their behaviors, compassion extends the hand by asking, ‘how can I help?’ As our constant curiosity and knowledge of the people we serve grows, we get more creative when designing for the people.”
What she talks about: Moore Pervall covers the do’s and don’ts that user experience professionals need to be aware of to make informed decisions and collaborate across teams. As a UX engineer, she explains the importance of research, why more equitable technology matters, how unconscious bias can be one of the greatest risks for designers and how to be mindful of assumptions to deliver the most inclusive user experience. She also breaks down knowledge barriers for aspiring UX designers and lays out key questions to ask in design interviews.
Her best advice for professionals trying to break into the design field: “Know your why…Why am I in UX? Despite all the challenges and frustration, I love the opportunity to design equitable technology that meets business needs and users’ expectations…When we know our ‘why,’ it can lead us into a career and sustain us through the challenges.”
What he talks about: “Keep it simple,” that’s Moura’s message to UX designers, because “it’s our job to make simplicity from complexity.” The user experience architect leans on his decades of design experience to highlight how the field has changed over time and highlights ways that junior designers can break through to get people to buy into their vision. Moura also challenges his followers with exercises and follows up in the comments with unique advice to show how he approaches developing impactful designs.
His best advice for having impact as a designer: “Be the voice of the end user. Understand how your design will impact them, then the business. Work from the outside in, not inside out.”
What he talks about: Parry takes his followers behind every step of his design process for putting together creative stop-motion animations. His “How I Made This” video series breaks down the strategies he uses to solve his biggest design challenges. Above all, Parry highlights why leaning into creativity is vital and how it has led him to produce viral videos where he’s turned himself into a skeleton, recreated popular logos with yarn or brought the inanimate to life.
His best advice for having impact as a designer: “Surprise people. Lure them in with the seemingly ordinary and then make an abrupt left turn toward what you find spectacular or interesting.”
What he talks about: Porcini, chief design officer at Pepsico, highlights the detail that goes into refreshing iconic designs and how to put human needs at the center of the process. He shows how to incorporate visuals and storytelling to ignite a product with new energy as he outlines different ways to blend local needs with the identity of global brands. Porcini also speaks with other design executives to spark dialogues about purposeful innovation and strategies for developing meaningful experiences.
His best advice for professionals trying to break into the design field: “Investigate the world through the three lenses of design thinking — visibility, desirability, feasibility — always hunting for inspiration, always searching for the root causes, always looking for unique insights, always having your own original perspective, on everything, never taking anything for granted.”
How we compile the list
Top Voices is a series of lists that have been editorially curated by the LinkedIn News team, with the goal of highlighting creators to follow who are covering the chosen segments and/or topics. To compile each list, editors consider each individual’s content on LinkedIn. Specifically: Are they covering the topic at hand on a regular basis? Are their contributions insightful, conversational and timely? Have they built up and engaged with their communities? Do they seek to give and get help vs. being self-promotional? We aim to highlight a diverse set of voices, so that the list reflects the world we live and work in today.?
Who is eligible
Any LinkedIn member who shares content and drives professional conversations on the platform is eligible to be a Top Voice, with the exception of LinkedIn and Microsoft employees, members who have violated LinkedIn’s?User Agreement, including our?Professional Community Policies, or individuals currently running in an election for an executive, legislative or judicial position.
Top Voices may include individuals who are a part of the?LinkedIn Influencer?(invite-only) or the?Creator Accelerator?(application-based) programs. However, being a part of either does not automatically boost a member’s chance of being a Top Voice, nor is it a requirement or prerequisite for success on the platform.?
Interested in building your audience on LinkedIn??
New voices emerge every year — and there’s nothing stopping you from turning your own ideas into powerful conversations. Try?creating a post?to share your expertise or thoughts on the?latest trending news, and you may be surprised at the community you find. If you’re struggling with where to start, follow our?LinkedIn for Creators?page for content inspiration, tips, news, education and more. And if you’d like to recommend someone for a future Top Voices list, let us know in the comments (just be sure to tag them and let us know why you love following them). We’re always looking for new individuals to highlight.
Who would you recommend for a future LinkedIn Top Voices list? Let us know in the comments section below by tagging them and sharing why you enjoy following them.
Conversational AI | Data Analytics | NLP Chatbot & LLM | Contact Center | Technical Sales & Marketing
9 个月Federico Francioni I enjoyed our conversation earlier. Looking forward to learning more about your vision and insights about the AI industry!
Head of Design at Cake | Technologist | Cartoonist | 13 Years Design Leadership
1 年This list is stellar, and I'm already following many of these influential voices! Excited to see the insights this year unfolds. Considering the growing discourse on product and service design, Federico Francioni would be a great addition to the list.
UX Writer & Content Designer | Crafting Digital Experiences through Strategic Storytelling
1 年Federico Francioni writes insightful posts, he'd make a great addition to LinkedIn's Top Voices!
UX Design @ Google
1 年Federico Francioni pushes the boundaries of product design methodologies to service design. He innovates design thinking not only for design implementation but also for cross-functional collaborations and challenges.