I’m often reminded how lucky I am to be part of the design industry. Family and friends lean in when they hear who our clients are, who their clients are, and the end game: brands we know and love out in the world. Design is fun, creative and wonderfully playful.

But as an industry, we still have further to go to model healthy working practices, achieve true inclusivity, and entice tomorrow’s best designers through our doors. When we invest in developing strong values, attract the right mix of people, and create processes and structures that support them, then design becomes the dream career it should be.

An opportunity and a responsibility

Throwbacks to noughties-style management still occasionally linger. Think 11-hour days and Saturdays in the office, sadly the norm when today’s creative directors and agency owners first started out. We need to eradicate any remnants of a “do what was done to you” mentality.

I’m reminded of one of my first jobs, where an environment characterised by a top-down blame culture and bullying nearly put me off the industry altogether. Thankfully this was just one bad egg, but I vowed that negative experience would steer me towards a wholly different leadership style.

Every leader has the opportunity, and the responsibility, to do things better at their own business. This means never assume that those with more years’ experience automatically make the decisions. Healthy leadership means giving everybody ‘choice and voice’.

In design, creating the conditions where creativity and great work flourish is vital. There’s nothing fluffy about nurturing the freedom that encourages ideas, opportunity, and creative excellence. It calls for rigorous leadership, intentional processes, and consistent listening.

Creating the conditions for creativity to thrive

One lazy assumption, particularly regarding those at the start of their careers, is that people are lucky to have a job in design. Unpaid internships harm our industry and negatively impact company culture. They have to stop.

Design leaders should also be aware of the propensity for creatives to suffer mental health issues, such as anxiety and depression. Design isn’t always a walk in the park. It’s intense, hard work with a constant feedback cycle that requires a thick skin. Even the greatest, most successful designers lose their confidence at some point in their career. Losing a significant pitch always stings. A “no” to your creative offer lands worse at some times than others. For freelancers, dry spells are fraught with angst.

The creative industries have many lessons to learn from how society has adapted to changes in people’s values and ways of working. This includes recognising quieter talents and neurodivergent designers. Inclusivity should now be hardwired into every studio’s recruitment practices. There are different ways to achieve this, but investing in the right leadership is key. Take time to understand how your team functions to help build a healthy company culture. Gut feel is important, but there’s a case for head alongside heart. At Craft, we use psychometric testing to ensure we a) get the right balance of personalities across the business, and b) help them fulfil their ongoing potential.

Room to breathe

When client budgets are tight, timelines tend to shrink too. Clients come to expect instantaneous feedback, and an always-on, Zoom-enabled comms culture can exacerbate this. Designers can get stuck on a hamster wheel leading nowhere except to burnout.

So, how can leaders help people cope? Time out can make individuals more productive, and it can also make businesses more productive. So have the courage to step away, then step back in recharged.

How that looks in practice will vary by agency, and may involve off-site days or implementing a four-day week. Encourage people to pursue passion projects, or just have some space to breathe. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a degree of challenge and friction, it’s a key ingredient of great work, but it does need to be properly managed and steered. 

Practise what you preach

Great leaders model respectful boundaries, both to teams and clients. That means out of office notifications go on and stay on for Christmas. They also know that having trust and the right values in place breeds autonomy and confidence. What you don’t want at your agency is a bottleneck where everything goes through leadership.

An obvious but sometimes overlooked way to understand your team is to listen to them. Really listen. Try not to assume anyone’s perspective. Rather, define a clear strategy around feedback: what type of feedback to use and how you’ll gather it, based on understanding of your team. Radical feedback sessions work well for more vocal personalities; structured, written formats like anonymous surveys may be preferred by others. It comes down again to being aware and respectful of everyone in the company.

Creating a healthy workplace starts with knowing your values and getting the right people in. From there, build intentional structures and processes that support them. Finally, even when economic conditions are tough, encourage playfulness. It’s what makes our industry fantastic.