The “Business as Usual” Dogma in Design

May 02, 2025

Hello again friends,

I hope that this letter finds you well and that you’ve felt the sun on your skin recently. The past month has been one of the busiest ones yet, and although this level of workload has its ebbs and flows, it’s during these busy times that I noticed a few things. Particularly about what being ‘busy’ or even ‘successful’ as a designer can mean.

person using computer on brown wooden table — Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash

Ok, so you know how like, a bunch of companies are getting boycotted right now? Whether it’s about DEI efforts getting rolled back, or where their funding comes from, or any other reason, boycotting works when done long enough. But I can’t be the only one who’s noticed some of these companies doubling down and operating as “business as usual”. How peculiar it is to see these very same businesses and companies increase their advertising budgets while this is all happening.

I personally have seen more Target and Starbucks ads over the past month than maybe ever, which could be a coincidence, but I find this really interesting from a design perspective.

Designers and creatives are often caught in the middle of these situations. I mean, someone has to be making these ads, (unless they’re AI which is a topic for another day) and often creatives are at the whim of their clients, no matter how big, small, “good” or “bad” they are.

turned on LED projector on table — Photo by Alex Litvin on Unsplash

This results in people that are caught between a rock and a hard place, often told to be grateful to have work at all in an increasingly competitive job market. While design as a profession has become both more accessible and more recognized, allowing designers to voice their opinions in spaces that were not as available before, there’s still seemingly a large gap of what’s considered.

That gap, I believe, comes from this “business as usual” ideology. Designers, creatives, and marketing people at-large who have a metric to achieve; a means to an end. Many creatives, even outside of design have had to adopt to this as well, from being overworked and underpaid to just trying to get by, there’s little room for questioning.

a sign that is on the side of a hill — Photo by Hadija on Unsplash

So what’s the role of the designer here? Is there a morality to design? Is the notoriety that we attribute to “big clients” a valid idea? Is the busy nature of ‘just get it done as fast as possible and don’t ask too many questions’ a symptom of this entire thing? Is the busy-ness just a distraction? Is design sometimes just a job and that’s all?

Is it a privilege to consider this in the first place? Most definitely.

I don’t have the answer, although I do think that there’s room for improvement. Creatives probably care too much about their jobs, regardless of the deeper moral questions. Meanwhile, we all need to get paid at the end of the day. Is there a middle ground?

Let me know what you think in the comments.