Is it time for the democratisation of design?

The start of a new decade is always a good time to take a moment to ponder on the 10 years that have just gone and the 10 to come, and I have been doing just that. 

The design industry seems to be in another of its many states of flux at the moment; there are still thousands of individuals and organisations that call themselves designers, and many of them are very good too, but on all fronts, our profession is undergoing change, whether we like it or not!

Within the industry there are fewer and fewer ‘generalist’ design consultancies and there has been a massive rise in the number of specialist designers and design companies, covering everything from UX to UI, to Motion to Information design.

Embrace change or get left behind

Don’t get me wrong, I am not a Luddite, regretting the advent of the Mac and the opening up of design to anyone with creativity and a spare desk - change is a good thing and we should embrace it always - if we don’t, it will happen anyway and leave us for dust in its wake!

Outside of the design profession, I believe that there is still a strong recognition of the need for good design and the good business that it brings, but there is an ever-rising pressure to have that design for a lower cost, or for it to be able to make a hard case for return on investment.

Again, I cannot rail against these pressures, I do exactly the same when I look for professional services such as an accountant or solicitor - "What can I do myself?", "If I engage a professional, what will it cost?", "Can they guarantee to make, or save me money and will it be enough to justify the investment?"

Into this pressurised and fragmenting business model, you also need to add the rise of online tools and softwares that seem to provide a lot of what people imagine designers do; including royalty-free image sources, template-driven website systems, automated presentation builders, freelance designer marketplaces, drag and drop animation tools, video creators and many many more!

Holding back the tide is never an option

Again, as a profession, we could say that these are simply tools, that they don’t make you a designer, that effective design only comes from engaging a professional, versed in the skills of high-end softwares such as InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator, with access to expensively bought libraries of fonts and images, but we would, Canute-like simply be trying to hold back the tide!

There are of course still a few areas of design, where the skills and expertise are not yet replicated by some form of AI, and perhaps never will be; such as service design or the crafts, such as illustration, and we should never forget that at its heart, any form of design is really a way of seeing and thinking about the world, not simply a bunch of tools!

Having a hammer doesn't make you a carpenter. Having a Mac, doesn't make you a designer

But for most of us, I think it is perhaps time to re-invent ourselves, to look at the world as it is, rather than as we would like it to be and perhaps go back and look at what makes us designers - and it’s not the possession of a Mac and bunch of software!

If we are brutally honest, a website produced for free using a 1and1 template or a Wordpress theme, can, at least superficially look and behave as well as anything created from scratch in a design studio. The same could apply to a leaflet, poster or social media post created in Canva using any one of millions of free or low-cost photographs, illustrations or graphics. Its not so much about WHAT you use, its about HOW you use it!

So perhaps it is time to let these things go and look at how we can help clients to get the most out of using these tools, rather than dismissing them, and begin a process of democratising design. The more people feel able to think and act like designers, the more likely it is that they will see the benefit of investing in professional design thinking rather than simply the design doing?

With that in mind, we at FdK have decided to offer designer-led training in some of the most commonly-used utilities, such as Canva, Powerpoint and Wordpress. These workshops, courses and support are less about the practicalities of operating the softwares and more about how to integrate some basic good design principles into your use of them. 

Am I just another jaded old designer, or does that make sense to anyone?

For a bit more insight into what this idea looks like, check out our new website: