Regardless of cultural or religious context, when I see a swastika, my lizard brain tenses. A primordial, generational part of my amygdala activates. Neural pathways formed during Sunday School lessons and trips to the National Holocaust Museum switch on. Images flash across my mind’s eye: black and white photographs of swastika-emblazoned arm bands; a man’s swirly eyes as he throws his arm up in a Nazi salute; piles of human bodies.

For much of the western world, the swastika represents something deeply sinister. Yet, this symbol predates Nazi appropriation by roughly seven millennia. It’s a sacred mark in Eastern theology. The swastika symbolizes prosperity and good luck in Hinduism. It represents the footsteps of Buddha. It’s prominent in Jainism, Shintoism, and further to the west, in ancient Norse religion.

This auspicious mark of happiness, fertility and wellbeing is as common in domestic and municipal contexts as it is in places of worship. Overhead and underfoot, swastikas are ubiquitous across Asia. Clearly, I needed to evolve my relationship with this symbol to avoid feeling triggered every time I came across one while traveling through Asia. For me this was easier said than done. Symbolic associations, it turns out, are not easily broken.

Context and nuance

Understanding the intended meaning of a symbol, be it abstract or representational, is hardly straightforward. Symbolic interpretation is informed equally by one’s internal, subjective perception as well as external, objective factors. To understand the true intent behind a symbol’s use, we need to remove bias from the interpretation.

With symbols, context is a critical indicator of meaning. A swastika imprinted onto the chest of a serene Buddha statue in Vietnam means something wholly different than a swastika flag on the back of a pickup truck in Charlottesville, Virginia. Then there are design nuances that distinguish Nazi swastikas from auspicious ones: the direction of the mark, the 45-degree tilt, the positioning within a circle, the use of color.

Sometimes, context gets muddled. Such was the case when I spotted a Nazi flag on a car bumper in Thailand. Was this a dyed-in-the-wool Neo-Nazi, or a person unaware of the symbol’s vile meaning? Southeast Asian curricula includes little to no Holocaust education and ignorant use of Nazi symbolism is alarmingly common among young Thai people seeking to be edgy, but not necessarily hateful. In 2019 a Thai pop idol wore a Nazi swastika on a televised performance provoking international scorn, a tearful apology, and finger pointing at Thailand’s educational system. But little has changed in the wake of such incidents. Spotting Nazi flags on the highway and Hitler tee shirts at a night market in Bangkok left me confused and deeply unsettled.

Thailand aside, every other swastika I encountered throughout Asia was of the benevolent, religious variety. And there were heaps of them. So I set forth, equipped with an awareness of my own bias, an understanding of historical context, and an eye for design nuance. Still, I found my attention lingering on the auspicious swastika. My eyeline baited by its dynamic geometry. It’s four barbs hooking my subconscious into assigning sinister meaning where it didn’t belong. It was only through abundant repetition — months, day after day — of seeing auspicious swastikas, that these dark associations started to abate.

Symbols, pattern recognition, and illusory manifestations.

To understand why the swastika possesses such power, it helps to consider the unique role of symbols across human history.

Anatomically modern human brains developed at least 100K years ago. Around that same time in Southern Africa, our early ancestors began etching symbols into cave walls. These symbolic representations evolved into proto-writing and then into written language — ancient Sumerian being the earliest known form around 3100 BCE. This evolution in the sophistication of symbolic systems mirrors the development of human intelligence and distinguishes us from every other known species.

…the development of the capability to create and share symbols was a key moment in human evolution that underpins our capability to communicate and store knowledge through language, to think abstractly about problems, and to live and work together effectively in large groups.

~ Nelson Phillips, Christine Moser, The Biological Basis of the Symbolic

In this way, symbols and symbolic systems are intrinsically tied to human intelligence, advancing in parallel with our species and stagnating during periods of cultural and intellectual inertia. We see such progress today with quantum computing. Qubits, mathematical units symbolizing a superposition of multiple possible states, represent a quantum leap (no pun intended) in computing power over classical binary computing systems. With this advancement, our capacity as a species advances.

Homo Sapiens’ unique ability to create, systematize, and share symbols is built into our very biology. The human brain is a pattern-seeking machine and my brain, evidently, has a particular knack for spotting swastika-embellished patterns. I’ve seen them printed on intricately dyed batiks, etched into lacquer snuff boxes, and cast into municipal manhole covers. Some of these patterns are so delicately produced — miniature lattices of densely interlocking swastikas — that they dissolve into pure texture. Pointing one such example out to my fiancée required me to capture a photo and zoom to several times its actual size for her to grasp the finely painted symbols that were so obvious to me. Evidently, she didn’t grow up attending Synagogue, Hebrew School and Sunday School at the JCC.

Did all the swastikas I kept finding really exist, or were some manifestations? Could they have been illusory pattern perceptions triggered by the global rise in antisemitism and anxiety about my Jewish identity? Indeed, the swastikas themselves did exist. All except for the one I manifested looking down onto a curious traffic intersection in Osaka. Swastikas are a common motif in the region and I was primed to spot them. What didn’t exist was the sinister, antisemitic meaning my brain was attempting to manifest.

How sad: to be misguided by fear and bias into an antisemitic hallucination of my own making. To flatten a region’s cultural and historical complexity under the weight of rigid misconceptions.

This example of the swastika vividly illustrates the danger of appropriation. It takes from one culture and gives to another. The meaning of that which has been taken is, at best, diluted. At worst, it’s distorted beyond recognition. In either case, some amount of cultural ownership is stolen. What symbolized well being and fertility to eastern cultures for thousands of years, came to represent Aryan racial purification by the Nazi party. While Hindus and Buddhists still revere the swastika in spite of this appropriation, they must now navigate bumbling misinterpretation by western tourists like myself, and mind the nuances that distinguish benevolent from hateful swastikas.

The relativity of symbols

Perhaps the premise of this entire article is flawed. Could the tension I felt at the sight of Hindu and Buddhist swastikas just be an Aaron problem, isolated to me alone? Have other western travelers across Asia gotten caught up on this symbol like I did? Perhaps not. While symbols intend to convey a specific meaning, the way we interpret them is highly personal. What the swastika means to a Buddhist is a far cry from what it means to a white supremacist, which is starkly different from what it means to a Jewish American graphic designer. This relativity is part of what makes symbols such fascinating graphic assets. As effective as they are at underpinning culture, they’re also quite dynamic.

Take, for example, the American Flag. Consider how its meaning and our relationship to it evolved during the moon landing, the Vietnam War, 9/11, the January 6 insurrection. Consider how different groups of Americans claim righteous ownership of the flag, flip it to express dissent, and remix it with some thin line or another. Symbols are created to transmit meaning without language. But symbols also ask the viewer to look beyond their graphic representation and consider more deeply the person or group flourishing it.

Over the past few months, I’ve been the viewer staring down a symbol that challenged my very sense of safety. What once triggered constriction in my chest, slowly but surely relaxed its grip. Reflexive recoiling became informed curiosity, which became cultural familiarity. Empathy requires practice, and that’s what it took: for me to practice empathy.

A typographic call to action in the age of product design.

Relax your gaze and let your vision blur. It may help to squint. Now, with defocused eyes, take in one zoomed-in word at a time on the display before you. The letterforms become abstracted into fuzzy monoliths without meaning or sound. They exist only as shapes. Your job is to nudge them, ever so slightly, into perfect typographic distribution. To optically balance each oddly proportioned link in the chain of nebulous light and dark. You shift your softened, Magic Eye® gaze to the tooth-gaps between characters. Like an abacist nudging heaven and earth beads into an elegant calculation, you ⌥ + arrow the fuzzy shapes and voids into right relation. A little more to the left. You allow your vision to snap back to its natural acuity. Aaand… typographic equilibrium is reached.

This trick of kerning with a soft gaze was taught to me as a young intern. It was the early aughts. The waning twilight of the print era. My creative director was shaping me in his image, which meant belaboring the fundamentals of design. Applying a typographically discerning eye to every task was paramount, from a pithy strapline to the hundreds of pages of aeronautical history books I formatted in my early career. Every line of text was expected to be faultless. A Hatori Honzō sword of sharp, hardened letterforms and ligatures. Every paragraph free of rags, rivers, widows, and orphans. Every hyphen, dash, apostrophe, and curly quote expertly applied.

Kerning became a meditation. A way for me to transcend this mortal coil 1/1000 of an em at a time. There’s no mathematical formula for perfect letter spacing. Kerning is itself a creative act. An optical illusion that magnifies a word’s legibility. The word’s meaning is modulated into a conceptual expression greater than the sum of its letters. The word becomes art.

The subsequent two decades of my career have been a gradient ramp from solid print to pure digital. CMYK to RGB. This arc mirrors the digitization of all things, from billboards to books to brochures to billing statements. A super bloom of digital design specializations occurred. With it, the focus for many designers morphed from deep typographic expertise to deep expertise in design systems, user research, spatial computing, and other niche disciplines. Any use of ligatures or smart quotes is now automated as built-in font characteristics. Tracking is a broadly applied CSS property. Kerning is left to the type designers who set the font defaults. Digital designers, meanwhile, have other problems to apply themselves to.

Besides, widows and rags are impossible to police in most digital mediums. Responsive design, dynamic type sizing, pixel densities, and the superabundance of viewports that product teams must accommodate have forced designers to cede a great deal of typographic control. Today’s challenge for digital designers is to create type systems that extend elegantly to as many devices and situations as possible. Still, many typographic best practices remain deprioritized in digital experiences: hyphens substitute en and em dashes; apostrophes are used in place of primes (and vice versa); double spaces abound; justified paragraphs form gaping rivers the size of the Ganges.

The comprehensibility of written content hinges on clear, compelling, and targeted writing bejeweled in masterfully applied punctuation. Of course, this responsibility doesn’t fall solely on designers. Copywriters, content strategists, product managers, even developers also shoulder the burden. Basically, If your role touches text in the content management workflow, it behooves you to take a keen interest in the typographic arts. To think like a typographer. To care like a typographer.

Typographer.

It’s a nice title, yes? Virtuous. Would make an excellent addition to your list of LinkedIn endorsements.

When I was coming up, graphic design generalists were the gold standard. Unicorns who could craft corporate identities; typeset bookshelf-worthy annual reports; design web experiences and style CSS to pixel perfection. Maybe they dabbled in flash, for good measure. There wasn’t a UX/UI distinction — they did it all. Today, product designers have taken up this mantle of mythic marketability. They are the new unicorns, cantering gracefully between research, strategy, prototyping, testing, analysis and visual design. I’ve heard the product design role described many times in many ways, but I’ve yet to hear typographic mastery included in that definition.

I’d like to submit, for your consideration, that typographic aptitude be canonized as an essential product design expectation.

Typography, like language itself, is a dynamic continuum increasingly shaped by digital mediums. At their best, Product Designers are today’s digital design vanguard, forging new patterns of interaction and influencing how we connect with brands and one another. To meet this opportunity, Product Designers benefit from a grasp of classic typographic movements, engagement in contemporary trends, and audacious curiosity for typography’s next evolutionary step. Understanding, play, and invention. Jeffrey Keedy, Director of Graphic Design at CalArts, said it best:

“Typographers need to lighten up, to recognize that change is good (and inevitable), to jump into the multicultural, post-structural, post-modern, electronic flow. Rejection or ignorance of the rich and varied history and traditions of typography are inexcusable; however, adherence to traditional concepts without regard to contemporary context is intellectually lazy and a threat to typography today.”

To every designer who takes pride in a headline well kerned; who sweats the leading; who pairs fonts of complementary characteristics; who passionately champions typographic excellence: I salute you. Your painstaking perfectionism matters. You bear the torch of modern typography that’s been aflame for nearly six centuries — bridging technologies of the past, present, and future. It takes skill to be a designer. Masterful typography augments that skill with craft and timelessness.

The role of ubiquity in Western spaces across Southeast Asia

I fashion myself an adventurous person, open-minded and heart-forward. But the months I’ve spent traveling across Southeast Asia have rubbed the shine right off this idealized self image. I’m writing this, sweaty, pungent, and contorted around an overstuffed roller-duffel, from the swaying top bunk of a Vietnam Railways sleeper cabin. Below me and all around are the sounds of people speaking languages I don’t understand: children’s glee projected at unnecessary volumes; plosive sales pitches of cabin-to-cabin hawkers; social content loudly pouring out of devices. Does nobody here use headphones? It’s a dissonant symphony as cognitively exhausting as it is exhilarating.

This and many other intensely sensory experiences have frayed my edges and heightened my nervous system. The pungent aroma of durian in sweltering heat. The crush of humanity in Bangkok’s Chinatown during the Lunar New Year. The visceral overload of a wet market in Vietnam. Even a ramen franchise at an upscale mall when I haven’t learned Japanese etiquette was a lesson in humility. The silky ramen was well worth the shame of being corrected multiple times by the wait staff.

I was drawn to Southeast Asia in pursuit of these vibrant experiences. Yet, amidst the unknown, moments of familiarity have captured my attention, acting as a salve for my travel weary psyche. These moments have been curated through design and crafted with an understanding of our human need for ease. The things western travelers consider standard comforts—a bedside reading lamp for example—can feel like extravagances when you’re traveling SE Asia on the cheap. In the poor, under-resourced destinations throughout this region, spaces designed for western comfort stand out and are worthy of consideration.

Take, for instance, a backpacker homestay, restaurant, and dispensary nestled in the jungle of Khao Sok, Thailand. A dimly lit space webbed with hammocks that beckons adventurers with an air of camaraderie among likeminded travelers. A laid-back ambiance and communal spirit permeate the space. The bric-a-brac interior resembles a sprawling tree fort adorned with whimsically hand painted slats of wood, calling to mind global signposts pointing to far flung destinations in all directions.

In bustling Siem Reap, nostalgia takes center stage at an urban barber shop. The thrum of Wu Tang Clan rattles from a tired set of speakers recessed into an exposed brick wall. Edison bulb sconces elevate the whole affair, transporting patrons from the dusty, itinerant landscape of Cambodia to a trendy loft in Brooklyn.

Among the rice paddies on the outskirts of Hoi An, a café fuses the multi-ethnic history of the region with California Cool design. Spanish-style stucco walls give way to a pagoda roof. Shabby-chic furniture compliments a sunken cement koi pond. Large glass windows and abundant swathes of minimalist white play backdrop to a medley of flora in modern, geometric planters. Oxidized brass verdigris contrast traditional gold accent walls. All the western-friendly indicators are at work in this refuge for expats and digital nomads in Vietnam.

Back in Colorado, I might be inclined to avoid this restaurant, deeming it an affront to the eclectic character of my hometown. “Keep Boulder Weird” means resisting the influence of California and Texas real estate developers bent on architectural homogenization. But in Asia, I find myself oddly drawn toward the California aesthetic. These indicators—white walls, minimalist cement, oxidized finishes—signal ease to my lizard brain. They’re ubiquitous in American interior design. Practically banal. But for the weary Western traveler, they offer a soothing sense of continuity amidst the flux of foreignness and serve as anchors of comfort in an often overwhelming landscape.

As travelers convalesce in the comfort of these curated spaces, it’s important to acknowledge the cultural implications of catering to Western sensibilities. While tourism undoubtedly bolsters local economies, there exists a delicate balance between preserving cultural authenticity and succumbing to the homogenizing forces of globalization. The risk of catering to Western tourists, such as myself, threatens to dilute the very essence of what makes these destinations unique.

As I reflect on my travels, I’m struck by the profound role that ubiquity plays in shaping our perceptions of comfort. In the interplay between tradition and modernity, familiar and exotic, memory and imagination, lies the essence of what makes these spaces of Western comfort compelling—a testament to the enduring power of design to transcend borders and evoke a sense of shared humanity.

Milk. Just the word — the very sound of it — makes my brain curdle. It’s bland, off-white, and texturally questionable. What could be worse than drinking a tall glass of it? Reading a 1,400 word rumination about it. Nobody asked for this. Nevertheless, milk is a fascinating study in branding. While the growing set of alternative milks is doing nothing to differentiate one “ethical” brand from the next, Big Dairy (anticipating their potential obsolescence) is doing everything in its power to invalidate their alternative milk competition. The role branding plays in this drama is surprisingly complex. I know I’m asking a lot of you, dear reader. Have faith.

What makes milk, milk?

Does it need to come from mammal, or can any drink of a particular color, flavor, texture, and nutrient combination be categorized as milk? I’m of the opinion that the latter is true. Words are dynamic little creatures. As our understanding of milk shifts, so too does its definition.

The dairy lobby disagrees. Their latest brand campaign attempts to fasten the meaning of milk securely to a cow’s utter. Ouch! Their claim is that milk, the word, belongs to the dairy industry. But milk is not a copyright of Big Dairy. So rather than pursuing a legal strategy, the Dairy Farmers of America have devised a clever marketing strategy.

To differentiate itself from alternatives like oat milk, Big Dairy is invalidating the competition by halting the natural flow of linguistic progress. Their ongoing get real campaign appeals to people’s common sense that “real” milk can only come from a cow. Their claim that nowadays “everybody wants to be milk” pits good old-fashioned cows milk against outlandish alternatives like “octopus milk” and “alien milk”. This cheeky, well produced campaign belies an antagonistic, Roman Roy, culture war subtext. It mocks progress and chides us for indulging the ever changing nature of language.

Ultimately, this isn’t about Big Dairy protecting the sanctity of words. It’s gaslighting as a brand differentiation tactic, and it illustrates the tremendous value of words in the branding realm. It is said that the pinnacle of brand recognition occurs when a trademark — Coke, Xerox, Band-Aid, Kleenex — becomes widely accepted as a category name. When it leaps from a brand’s property to an everyday word. The dairy lobby is attempting to reverse engineer this phenomenon, claiming the word milk as their brand property when they have no legal right over it.

Meanwhile…

Compare one oat milk brand to the next and you’ll find woefully little differentiation at all. It’s a sea of sameness out there, folks. This past year I’ve traveled between the United States, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, and Thailand. My fiancé, a Barista mind you, has quested for coffee shops that offer oat milk in each new destination. The varied oat milk brands we’ve seen along the way haven’t been varied at all. In fact, their design aesthetic, typography, and brand messaging are very nearly identical.

Branding is the process through which companies actively shape their identity. It happens in ten thousand ways, big and small, from the design of the logo, to the tone of the copywriting, to the sustainability of the packaging, to the loftiness of the mission statement, to how they engage customers on social media, to how they handle a PR crisis.

Well executed branding has the magical ability to turn a cold corporation into something warm and far more human.

A brand can be an aspiration (Lexus), a partner (Vanguard), or a friend (Southwest). It can be the change you want to see in the world (Chipotle), or express the future you want to step into (Apple). At the center of this magic trick is that idea of identity. The unique fingerprint that makes your brand identifiably you in the minds of customers.

Cultivating and sustaining a compelling identity takes vision, resources, coordination, and commitment. Beloved brands don’t happen passively. Partnering with Landor, Pentagram, or some other legendary branding agency isn’t an option for most startups, and hiring an internal design team can be equally improbable. But I don’t think this alone explains the homogeneity of the oat milk category. Some other factor is at work. A Google image search of oat milk brands feels like a client asking for several variations on a single concept, and turning up Oatly, Otis, Oatside, and Oatbedient — all slight tweaks on the same basic formula.

What is it about oat milk that begs for hand lettering, rough-doodled illustration, and pulpy craft paper textures? Why is the tone of voice always one part cheeky, and one part grandiose? Why does every carton invite me to join them in saving the world? Why is there always some pithy blurb reversed out of a lopsided circle? Why is there often a whimsically illustrated character smiling back at me?

The blanding of branding

For better or worse, design as a craft has grown increasingly focused on trend spotting. It’s March already and my Medium.com feed is still teeming with trend forecasts for 2024. These run the gamut from trusted and insightful, to mildly infuriating AI-generated schlock. But for every 20 Trends for 2024 article I browse, cringing, there are dozens of comments and 1.3K+ claps. These lists surely engage the creative community, but at what cost? I’d argue that our enthusiasm over these reductive trend lists stifles design innovation. It slows our collective creativity by elevating mimicry, tutorials and templates above fresh conceptual thinking.

Double-tapping into specific industries reveals even more niche design trends. Brushed metal details emanating corpuscular beams of light in razor blade ads. Gleaming chrome ovals in automotive branding. Restaurants named [this] & [this]. The blueing of everything in the medical space. The pervasiveness of Gotham font in American politics. The folksy aesthetic of oat milk packaging. Given the right conditions, micro trends organically spring up around specific product categories with a Jeff Goldblum, “life finds a way” tenacity.

If brands shirk these industry-specific design trends, taking a completely novel approach instead, will customers feel confused? Alienated? I don’t think so. Customers are more sophisticated than we often give them credit for. While some connective thread with industry norms provides familiarity and trust, customers often gravitate to the new, the daring, the differentiated, and the disruptive. Its on us designers to find and advocate for that sweet spot between familiar and far-out.

Consider Liquid Death. Its heavy metal name, blackletter typography, and psychedelic liquefied skull graphic would befit the raddest 90’s skateboard deck. Instead, they make clean, wholesome mineral water. Their humorously ironic choice of branding subverts expectations, while tying back to their core values: “murder your thirst” and “death to plastic.” Is their disruptive approach working? Just look at their stratospheric sales growth: $2.8M in 2019, $45M in 2021, $130M in 2022. More than the numbers, their bold approach to branding catapulted them to the zeitgeist — a place inhabited by few other mineral water brands, ever.

The highest form of flattery

Among oat milk brands, Oatly is considered by many to be the original and the undisputed best. I reach for it every time because of its balance of nutty to sweet flavor notes, its creamy mouthfeel, and its ability to sustain a delicate suspension of froth. As good as their product is, Oatly’s brand formula is what attracts the most imitators. Their stippled textures, quirky typography, cut-paper illustration, and heroic mission statement quickly became the template for the industry. Oatly owns this identity. By choosing to imitate them, the other brands only prop Oatly up further. Perhaps it’s enough for the competition to be chosen when their best-in-class rival isn’t an option.

So while Big Dairy wages a marketing war on alternative milk, how does Oatly handle its copycat competition? They just keep doing business as usual. Is there an inherent benevolence to oat milk that causes these brands to avoid offensive posturing? Is there a hippie ethos that makes Oatly complacent in the face of brand identity theft? Or are all the imitators actually doing Oatly a favor? I know that when I saw Otis in New Zealand, Oatbedient in Singapore, and Uoat in Thailand, I thought to myself, man, I wish they had Oatly here.

Glimpsing the future by reflecting the past

The year was 1991. The first wave of aberrated images from the Hubble telescope were exploding our awareness of the cosmos, the internet was born at the CERN Laboratory, and I rocked a killer mullet at my Bar Mitzvah. As far as I was concerned, my hairdo was as modern an innovation as Super Nintendo’s 64-bit graphics. Little did I know, hipsters throughout history, from Viking warriors to Native American hunter gatherers, were business up front and party in the back. Jump cut to 2024. I’m cruising New Zealand from the Catlands up to Cape Reigna. The most notable constant throughout this 6,543 kilometer journey were the omnipresent mullets of Zoomer Kiwis. That and the countless 60 Songs that Explain the 90’s podcast episodes we binged along the way. Now a cheugy bald man well into my forties, I wonder if today’s Gen Z style gatekeepers appreciate the cyclical nature of their drip.

Everywhere you look, 90’s nostalgia is driving popular culture. Nostalgia marketing, retro branding, product reissues, film and television reboots, vintage clothing, brand collabs. Like resurgent dad jeans, this wave of the past informing the present is not a new phenomenon. The nostalgia pendulum drives the 30-odd year continual nostalgia loop whereby consumers mature into taste makers, draw inspiration from memory and thereby make old trends relevant again.

Cultural ripples generated by the nostalgia pendulum are often seen in marketing campaigns where, when used strategically, they help drive the emotional connection between brands and consumers. But in the technology transformation realm, referencing the past can feel contradictory. Digital UX and UI designers need to be progressive in their use of nostalgia to best support their products.

Let’s explore some ways nostalgia manifests in digital experience design and how we might use it as an agent for product innovation rather than a mere UI exercise.

The nostalgia + innovation dilemma

Innovation is a necessary aspect of digital product design. Even when products actively avoid being disruptive, they exist within a broader technological and cultural continuum of evolution punctuated by bursts of innovation. In the tree of human-computer interaction, new platforms and interaction patterns grow like shoots from the boughs that preceded them. And occasionally entirely new branches emerge. Spatial computing heads-up displays like Apple Vision Pro are one such branch experiencing its own nascent growth process.

There is an inherent tension between the accelerating force of innovation and the rear view gaze of nostalgia.

Yet, dismissing nostalgia entirely is also detrimental. Users seek moments of familiarity and comfort within evolving digital environments. When used in the right cultural context, retro typography, jeweled 90’s color palettes, and 16-bit iconography create emotional resonance in users, bolstering adoption and engagement.

To navigate this dilemma effectively, designers must once again rely on a human-centered mindset. Thorough user research becomes paramount to strike the right balance, ensuring that nostalgic references target the intended audience and enhance rather than impede the user experience. Successful design requires a thoughtful approach, where familiar notes of the past harmoniously blend with progressive experiences of the future.

Examples of nostalgia in product design

B2C and B2B digital products often inherit nostalgic assets and copy from brand and marketing teams. But UX and UI designers have their own methods of incorporating nostalgia that are often more specific to digital experiences. Here are some common examples:

Retro typography captures the vibe of times past through vintage fonts and typographic motifs. Retro fonts are abundantly available and run the gamut from classic typeface knockoffs to decidedly modern fonts with voluptuous forms reminiscent of vintage hand-lettering. The overwhelming variety of options make this one of the lowest effort ways for designers to play in the nostalgiasphere.

Skeuomorphic design involves UI elements and layouts that replicate the tactile aesthetic and physicality of familiar, real life objects. This includes transitional animations like page flips, and is often enhanced with haptic feedback. This UI approach was heavily applied in the early days of iOS before flat design put an end to it. Skeuomorphism is now making something of a comeback, but in a more nuanced way that balances flat design with moments of 3D-rendered, monochromatic physicality. Neumorphism, as it’s now called, has a distinctly neo-retro vibe that feels simultaneously of the future and the past.

Digital doubles of analog classics take skeuomorphism to the logical extreme, faithfully replicating fan favorite analog products of yesteryear in modern digital experiences. Micky Mouse faces for Apple Watch, Flipclock, and Moog are some such examples that successfully cross the uncanny valley from physical product to digital avatar.

Pixel art captures the low fidelity look of early 8 and 16-bit systems. Even as pixel density and processor performance skyrockets in modern devices, users are continually charmed by the seeming timelessness of low-fidelity graphics. This aesthetic is particularly popular in iconography, typography and, naturally, gaming. Related to this are other low-fi image formats including GIF animations, halftone images, dithered artifacts, and glitch art.

Easter eggs developed into digital products can evoke nostalgia by incorporating hidden features, games, or inside jokes that often reference the past. These discoverable gems create delight and connection, fostering a deeper bond between the user and the product. Google Doodles, iconic illustrations on the search engine’s homepage, often feature interactive and nostalgic games and animations that tap into collective memories, eliciting a warm sentiment that enhances the user experience and establishes a memorable identity.

Sound design is an effective way to extend nostalgia beyond the purely visual. Apple’s iconic startup sound serves as a prime example of nostalgia at play. The iconic chime when turning on a Mac triggers a deep sense of familiarity for users who have been part of the Apple ecosystem for years. This auditory cue not only signifies the device’s readiness but also serves as a comforting link to the user’s history with Apple products.

Photo filters that downgrade your iPhone’s brilliant 48 megapixel captures to moodily reproduce the tone of film photography come standard on almost all social image-sharing apps. Vintage photo chromas and filmic borders were a key feature of the original Instagram app, and remain relevant to this day with tone-shifted profiles nostalgically named after global cities (New York, Jaipur, Melbourne) and photographic anomalies (Color Leak, Zoom Blur, Moiré). The very name, Instagram, is a nostalgic combination of “instant camera” and “telegram.”

Delayed gratification is a UX reaction to the immediacy of modern technology, where an artificial waiting period is introduced for a process to complete. We see this in the Lapse app where photos take several hours to develop. The multi-layered psychology behind this approach is interesting. By making users wait to view their captures, a sense of preciousness develops alongside the images. Rather than snapping a capacity-clogging multitude of shots, they’re forced to compose their images thoughtfully — to make each photo count — as a professional might.

While these examples showcase the effective use of nostalgia in UX/UI design, it’s crucial to emphasize the delicate balance required. Products that successfully integrate nostalgic elements do so while maintaining modern functionality. Striking this equilibrium is essential to avoid a design that’s derivative or relies too heavily on sentimentality.

The aspirational prescience of the past

Retrofuturism, the nostalgia-fueled creative genre depicting futuristic visions from earlier eras, provides a wealth of inspiration for designers and technologists looking to create transformative experiences. Ideas that not so long ago existed only in the speculative realm of science fiction, continually develop into tangible products and new forms of human-computer interaction.

Chat GPT, smartwatches, and virtual reality all link back to vintage sci-fi concepts: artificial intelligence units, wrist communicators, the Holodeck. Voice-activated UI and wearable technology have become seamlessly woven into our daily routines, showcasing how yesterday’s aspirations inform products that resonate with present-day users.

Consider the Cyber Truck, Tesla’s Bladerunner-inspired offering. Its minimalist dashboard, touchscreen controls, autonomous driving, and brutalist exterior echo the interfaces, capabilities and concept design of mid-late 20th-century narratives. Yet it’s objectively modern in both form and function. However you feel about the Cyber Truck, it slots perfectly into this retrofuturist collision and illustrates the potential success of brands who play boldly in this space.

A balance of aspiration and pragmatism is vital for today’s creative technologists. In UX, UI, and product design, exploration of retrofuturist approaches exercises our aspirational capacity, propelling our ideas into forward-thinking territory, and inspiring new user experience solutions.

Retrofuturism is a provocation. It challenges us to dream big. It reminds us of our place in the innovation continuum. It invites us to contribute.

Challenges and ethics of nostalgia

Incorporating nostalgia in the digital product design process is not without potential pitfalls. Designers need to be mindful not to clutch too tightly to nostalgic concepts. Retrofuturist ideas are intended to be an aspirational jumping-off point, not the complete solution. Modern platform patterns, UI trends, and design paradigms need to be fused together with retro accents using discernment and intentionality. Striking the right balance of old and new is critical to avoid having the product be perceived as campy, derivative, or a one-trick pony. The goal of nostalgia in UX, UI, and product design is less about replicating a look and more about exuding a vibe while maintaining the modernity of the experience.

As with all things in product design, a rigorous approach to nostalgia is necessary. Designers need to possess a strong cultural understanding of their users, informed by research, interviews, and a testing strategy to vet their designs at the appropriate level of fidelity.

Nostalgic design also involves unique ethical considerations that extend beyond the standard unconscious bias training many UX, UI, and product designers receive. Appropriation and misrepresentation are consequential aspects that demand scrutiny when incorporating nostalgia in any creative endeavor.

In the context of digital design, appropriation contains two meanings. The often positive business interpretation occurs when users put a product to use in a novel way for which it wasn’t intended. For instance, Slack was designed as a business communication tool, but its been appropriated in a domestic context for family group chats.

The other, more fraught type of appropriation results from the insensitive borrowing of elements, concepts, or intellectual property without consent from the creator or an understanding of their cultural significance. This can lead to problematic representation that alienates users and puts brands at risk. A notable example is the insincere use of Queer symbols and messaging by brands during Pride month. Without authentic allyship, these brands undermine the very sentiment they’re trying to project.

Misrepresentation occurs when nostalgia is wielded to create false perceptions. Taken to an extreme, misrepresentation can be weaponized for commercial or political gain. Designers must tread carefully to avoid distorting historical realities or cultural contexts. The MAGA movement is a prime example, where selective nostalgic narratives are being used to manipulate public sentiment, stoke culture wars, rewrite history, and question our very reality. Balancing the evocative power of nostalgia with cultural respect, fairness, and historical multiperspectivity, is an ethical responsibility for designers.

Looking back to look forward

In digitial experience design, a sort of symbiosis exists between the past and the future. Nostalgia has a way of arousing our ambitions, inspiring new solutions, and stimulating innovation. Meanwhile, the further we innovate, the more sophisticated our tools become at connecting us to the past. Just watch how the metaverse and spatial computing open up entirely new forms of nostalgic engagement.

As sure as the nostalgia pendulum continues to swing, what’s new today will soon become dated, and in 30-odd years, will swing back into relevance. Let’s make our contributions matter, so they too are worthy of being revisited.

Seat belt low and tight? Check. Lumbar pillow properly positioned? Check. AirPods, charging cord, and peanut M&Ms at the ready? Check, check, check. This dispatch is coming to you from economy plus, seat 24D. We’ve wrapped up the first leg of our trip: 5 weeks cruising the shoulder-less highways and relentlessly winding roads of Aoteoroa New Zealand. Before we left the States, Kate assembled a rough roadmap with help from an expat friend and a book eccentrically titled NZ Frenzy. We very nearly followed her itinerary to the letter, and it delivered daily doses of natural splendor. New Zealand was the perfect jumping off point for our 6 months abroad. English speaking, comfortable climate, easily navigable by rented camper van. We encountered surprisingly few challenges along the way with one noteworthy exception. Early into the trip I very nearly killed us by taking a right turn without a thought for oncoming traffic. Of course, when you’re driving on the left side of the road you can’t freely hook a right — but my brain reverted to its default mode in that moment. Kate saw the sedan speeding towards us at 100+ km per hour, screamed, I slammed the brakes about 20° into the turn, and the sedan swerved to avoid us. It was harrowing and humbling and very nearly extremely devastating. Kate’s awareness saved the lives of four people that day, and I henceforth drove with extraordinary caution.

I’ve long wondered if “Van Life” is something we’d enjoy. The abundance of tactically outfitted Mercedes Sprinters in our home state has piqued my curiosity if this is a viable alternative to a stratospheric Boulder mortgage. 5 weeks in a Nissan cargo van made it clear that this is not a long term living solution for us. Although, I did frequently find myself daydreaming about how we’d personalize a camper van if we owned one. I’m picturing retro futurism vibes with folk art execution. Rainbow guts paintjob with a Alexander Girard interior.

New Zealand generously delivered camper van inspiration to fuel my imagination around every bend in the road. Hand painted camper culture there is thriving, and it’s powered by basic public services like free restrooms and showers. Many cities are meshed in Wifi networks freely available to all. Municipal water refill and waste dumping stations are abundant. And freedom camping areas are typically available within a 10 kilometer or so radius. Contrast this with America, where free public restrooms are rare or non-existent, NIMBY citizens and police actively patrol their streets for lived-in vehicles, and nomads have to scrape together gym membership fees for reliable access to a hot shower.

The sense of civic generosity so freely given in New Zealand was mirrored on a more personal level by the welcoming nature of the Kiwis we encountered, from camp hosts, to grocery store clerks, to passing strangers. I was struck in particular by the abundance of gas station attendants who exuded good vibes. Interacting with so many seemingly happy and fulfilled service industry employees felt uncanny. New Zealand’s homelessness crisis was almost completely hidden from sight until we got to Auckland, where it became more apparent—but not on the scale of even medium-size American cities landscaped in boulder fields to prevent tent encampments from springing up. So, I was shocked to read that the homelessness rate in NZ is significantly higher than in the States. This statistic is difficult to comprehend given the towering scale of homelessness in the US, even factoring in the population delta between our two countries. I’d go on, but I’m not at all qualified to provide informed analysis on this issue. So, I’ll nudge this dispatch back toward comfortable territory.

Kate and I fashion ourselves as novice birders and Aoteoroa is an avian paradise. That’s a large part of what drew us to New Zealand. We often found ourselves enveloped in a cacophony of song, without a single bird clearly in view. Over the course of our trip, I noticed myself getting incrementally better and spotting feathered friends. Like scanning the pages of a Where’s Waldo book or gazing deeply into a MagicEye poster, I’d have to engage my sense of vision in unfamiliar ways. Flexing my area of visual awareness to the edges of my field of view. Parsing large volumes of visual information against the generic silhouette of a bird in real time. Remaining sensitive to any sort of motion distinct from fluttering leaves and swaying branches. Using my two ears and some unknown third factor, instinct perhaps, to triangulate the source of its birdsong. With a lot of patience and a bit of luck, we’d spot one. And then another.

It occurred to me that spotting birds among towering old growth forests and dense bush is not unlike hunting for brilliant ideas in any creative endeavor. You’re looking for this beautiful, ever-moving expression flitting about your awareness. You’re searching for the signal among the noise. Look away for a moment, get distracted, and it flies off. The longer you can sustain that patient state of open awareness, the greater your sensitivity becomes. The idea signal differentiates more clearly from the noise long enough to be identified. Weird? Just wait. Like birds, ideas have a will of their own. Curious creatures that easily startle. But they also flock together, one idea leading you playfully to another. Rather than actively searching for the ideas, binoculars at the ready, try gently being among them without pretense. Allow them to come to you. Creatives experience this all the time — the emergence of novel ideas on a run, in the shower, behind the wheel of a car, or listening to engaging music. The longer you sit patiently in the aviary of your mind, the more likely they are to reveal themselves freely.

I want to talk about cooking, and creativity, and design, and some lessons that apply fluidly between the kitchen and the design studio. But before I do, I’d like to talk about a canned vegetables salesman named Alvin Klein and his wife, Roslyn — my grandparents. Alvin was a deeply creative man. Creative down to those last long wisps of gray hair that circumnavigated his sun spotted dome. Some of my earliest memories of him are of marveling as he used these precious remaining threads of hair to engineer a double-layered combover. First, he would painstakingly distribute this hair into a fine sheet that he would lay across his bald head. The image of a Venetian artisan applying a delicate film of gold leaf to a palazzo plasterwork comes to mind. He would then crease this sheet of overlong hair, deftly folding it around the pointed handle of a cheap plastic comb, laying it back across a second time. There must have been some sort of product involved to give the whole affair structural integrity — this detail I can’t clearly recall. But the overall event, one he repeated daily, is seared into my brain. A core memory. Unfortunately for me, I inherited Alvin’s head of hair, or lack thereof. I like to think I also inherited his kind heart and his creative nature.

Alvin lived life with a playful curiosity that left an indelible mark on me. After moving to Florida, as Jewish grandparents do, he took up collecting small sea rocks and painting endearingly disfigured faces onto them. Jars full of these rough, misshapen mugs could be discovered throughout their home. One of my very earliest memories of old Al is of sitting on my parents pleather sofa and playing with Legos together. I recall stressing over what our Lego collaboration should become. He encouraged me not to plan, but to simply begin — to take one lego block and attach it to another in whatever fashion I felt compelled toward. Then to do that again, and again, and see where this additive process took me. “Yes. And…” What resulted was the world’s ugliest, most fantastical microscope — a lego abomination that I could peer into and witness microscopic flights of imagination. I can draw a direct line from that memory to my career now as a Creative Director.

And then there was Roslyn, the matriarch of the family, but often in the shadow of Al’s charisma. My memories of my her are less vivid than those of my grandfather. At the time (and for a long time after) I saw him as the creative force of the family. Ros was kind and loving, but less playful, less engaged, less intrepid. In hindsight, this couldn’t be more wrong. Roslyn’s maker space was the kitchen. Her paint brush, a spatula. Her palette, a spice rack. Her kiln, the oven. Transforming a can of green beans into a moan-worthy casserole is inarguably as much a feat of creative vision, craft and execution as painting sea stones into googly-eyed faces. Ros was working against constraints while Al was unconstrained. Think of those slimy, out-of-a-can green beans as business requirements, back-end limitations, and user experience patterns. Rather than being limited by that can of green beans, she made magic with it. Product designers, take note. We should all be as good as Ros Klein.

I invoke Ros and Al because they were creatives in the purest sense. They showed me that creativity isn’t some rarified thing belonging exclusively to artists, chefs, and musicians. Humans are creative beings. It’s our birthright. It belongs to us all and it manifests in hundreds of minor and even mundane ways throughout our day. Where I personally feel creative satisfaction most often is not at my work desk in my garage-converted studio. It’s not at the easel that I use far too infrequently. It’s in my kitchen.

My current sabbatical circumstances, however extraordinary, have my fiancée and I living in a van with a camp stove for a kitchen. With over five months to go before we’re back home (not complaining), reunited with my good friends Staub, All-Clad, Victorinox, and Vitamix, I feel somewhat upended. Bereft of my creative touchstones. Designers often feel this way as they climb the corporate ladder, ascending to loftier titles where management responsibilities usurp creative delivery. Such was the case for me as I advanced from Senior Designer to Creative Director to GCD. Each step up taking me further away from my foundation in the design day-to-day. Ungrounding me. Of course I still get creative satisfaction leading teams and growing young talent, but it’s less visceral, less immediate. It’s a slow build. A sleeper satisfaction. It’s an awesome feeling, but it’s not the carbohydrate burst of designing a killer interface and basking in its beauteous glow. To remain inspired, I need to taste the fruits of my own creative labor daily.

Fortunately, there are other ways. The kitchen has become the place where I feed this need to create. Mind you, I’m not an exceptional in the kitchen. I’m perfectly average — okay, slightly above average. Let’s just say I’m not creating James Beard Award worthy works of culinary art. But that doesn’t matter. As I learned from Ros and Al, even small acts require vision, careful execution, and provide creative satisfaction. Creativity doesn’t need to yield something never before seen, a texture never before tasted. It doesn’t need to be precious. Just as product design endeavors to create novel solutions that are accessible, functionally-focused, and human-centered, casual at-home cooking is much the same. After all, what’s more human-centered than a hot, nourishing meal you prepare for friends and family? With that in mind, I’ve collected some lessons that are easily transferable between the kitchen and the design studio.

First, learn the fundamentals

Beginner cooks start simple and gradually build their skills: learning knife techniques, understanding the right temperature to cook staple ingredients at, discovering how various flavor profiles combine to elevate one another. I’ve been an amateur cook for years and I’m still terrible at whisking. Hey, it’s harder than it looks. Certain techniques require repetition and sometimes the simplest techniques are the hardest. There’s a reason that making the perfect omelette is a critical test of skill in French cuisine, or why the path from preparing rice to becoming a sushi chefs is said to take 10 years.

Similarly, novice designers must prioritize their mastery of the basics — balance, contrast, hierarchy, layout, typography, accessibility — above elaborate prototyping and complex screen transitions. I’ve met so many promising young product designers with a wealth of interesting ideas, who butchered the basics. It’s hard to take a good idea seriously when there’s a massive typographic faux pas river dancing on your retinas. Foundational execution will make or break the most brilliant concept. A focus on the fundamentals first will unlock your ability to realize big ideas and have them taken seriously.

Make your design kitchen work for you

Mise en place, a French culinary term, translates to “everything in its place.” It’s a concept that emphasizes the importance of preparation. In cooking, having all ingredients chopped, measured, and organized before the burners are ever ignited ensures a smooth and efficient process. Designers who adopt the mise en place mindset with an organized file structure that enables fast, intuitive access to working files, linked assets, and source materials, get more work done with less churn.

Yes, mise en place requires an investment of time up front setting up the structure and continually maintaining the file and layer naming conventions, but the efficiencies gained more than make up for it. This approach minimizes distractions and allows designers to focus on the creative task at hand, improving one’s ability to maintain a flow state.

Beyond the ingredients, a well-organized space enhances productivity and joy in the kitchen — having frequently used tools within arm’s reach, spices organized with their labels facing forward, and an efficient layout between the prep surface and the cooktop. Likewise, a designer’s workspace should be optimized for creativity, with easy access to tools, devices, reference material, and inspiration. Designers should also consider the ergonomics of their workspace, ensuring it supports long hours without discomfort. Investing in your workspace pays dividends in terms of creativity and productivity.

Expand your palate and refine your taste

Just as a renowned chef refines their palate over many years by tasting different ingredients in different combinations prepared different ways, a designer expands and hones their visual language by exploring patterns, styles and trends. The tasteful designer is at least somewhat familiar with myriad aesthetic genres, from bric a brac to bauhaus. Swiss modernism to skeuomorphism. They can pull from these different influences as needed like a Oaxacan cook layers spices into a complex and seductive mole.

Designers should continually expose themselves to a wealth of design inspiration, observe the nuances — the textures and tones, the line quality, accents, and distinctive touches — and consider how these new flavors can expand their own design palate. What makes them successful? What feels uniquely relevant, unexpected, exciting? Build your pantry of creative inspiration and play with the ingredients. Make experimenting with techniques and trends part of your workflow. Surprise yourself with new stylistic fusions. You’ll expand your repertoire, refine your taste, and develop your design identity along the way.

Ingredients are more important than tools

You know what makes a pomodoro sauce exemplary? A few, high quality ingredients does. It’s a simple formula: ripe tomatoes (preferably San Marzano), fresh garlic, aromatic basil, sea salt, and the finest olive oil you can justify spending your hard earned money on. You know what doesn’t make pomodoro exemplary? The 5-ply copper core sauce pan that I have to talk myself out of buying every time I step foot into Peppercorn. It’s the ingredients that matter. Sub out the fresh garlic for the jarred stuff and the sauce goes from 🤌 to 👎 . Also, shame on you for using jarred garlic.

In design, quality concepts and attention to execution are more critical than the tools used in the process. Research, ideation, testing, design, validation — these are the ingredients that make a project successful. Software is secondary. Figma, XD, Sketch — sure, some design tools are more efficient and less buggy than others, but fundamentally these applications are all the same. I’m not suggesting that designers settle for inferior software, but the focus for any design team should be on honing their ideation and problem-solving skills first and foremost. Creativity and innovation should always take precedence. When software becomes more important than ideas, when we hide behind our tools, humans lose our centrality to the design process. That tipping point may be coming for us eventually — let’s not devalue the human factor voluntarily.

Product oriented designers, I’m talking to you. The inherent focus on digital experience and interface patterns in this craft make product designers particularly vulnerable to the siren song of software, the pull of plugins, the allure of early adoption. Yes, you should absolutely get good at the tools you have — explore the new feature, memorize the quick keys, become a power user. But remember, the latest software won’t make you an exceptional designer. Only you can do that.

Don’t be precious

Not every dish is going to be a banger. You can follow a recipe to the letter, and still it falls short. Perhaps it’s under seasoned or simply uninspired. I rely on the NYTimes cooking app for most of my culinary inspiration, but I’ve learned to read the comments and incorporate user feedback into my preparation. Even professionally developed recipes require tweaking sometimes.

Just as a chef developing a new menu seeks notes from her sous chef, designers must actively seek constructive criticism and plan for cycles of revisions. This requires humility and the acceptance that design isn’t precious. A Gollum-like coveting of one’s work is a sure path to disappointment and a defensive posture in design reviews will alienate stakeholders and team members alike. Of course one should stand behind their work, present it with passion, and back it up with reasoned decisions. But welcoming all perspectives — the ones that challenge the approach as well as those that validate it — is at the core of human centered design.

I’m no stranger to the deflated sensation that comes from critical feedback I was unprepared to receive. I experienced this acutely in my early career. By my measure, the designs I was showcasing were sheer perfection, and pivoting to accommodate peer review notes was a difficult bite to swallow. The confident designer can sometimes become blind to objectivity. Incapable of envisioning a better solution than their own. It’s recalls the Greek myth of Narcissus, who fell in love with none but his own reflection. We break this infatuation through the intervention of respected feedback providers. By humbly heeding the notes of those we trust, we realize designs that are more impactful than we previously thought possible.

Know when your design is cooked to perfection

Knowing the exact moment to take a burger off the griddle to achieve a perfect medium rare is both a science and an art. When to apply the cheese so it’s perfectly melty but not runny. Factoring in how much the patty continues to cook while it rests. Picture Zach Galifianakis encircled in formulas and calculations.

As a designer, knowing when to stop is equally essential. Designers need to trust their instincts and experience to recognize when a project has reached its optimal state. Over-engineering can dilute the essence of a concept, jeopardize looming deadlines, and grow a rot of disdain between the designer and their work. The concept becomes confused, lost beneath too many decisions, the magic drained from it. This intuitive understanding comes with experience and a keen sense of taste. The tendency to overcook a design in this way typically wanes with experience.

But there’s another, more slippery way to overcook your design tenderloin — one that experienced designers often fall prey to. It’s the plight of perfectionism. At a certain point, the tedious pixel pushing and the subtle tweaking of hex codes become an exercise in diminishing returns. When you’re the only user who will notice the differences in the details, it’s worth calling it complete. Perfectionists often don’t want to recognize when a design is good to call done. Just the term “good” makes my hackles stand on end. If I’m putting my name on a design, it needs to be better than merely good. But the pursuit of perfection is a an endless loop. A snake eating its own tail. It’s a thankless pursuit fraught with peril — late nights, weekends, hours spent that you can’t justify billing to the client, details you’re especially proud of that not a single other person will ever recognize. Do yourself a favor: call the thing done and go spend time with your family.

Finally, remember to savor your creation

Thinking back to the Covid lockdown, the cooking I did for myself stands out as a silver lining. It was a slow, methodical act of self care. I experimented with new recipes, drawing out my evenings with languid preparations assisted by a stiff Negroni, loud music, and occasional dance intermissions. I have vivid memories of this time colored by all those delicious meals I cooked alone. And then I fell for the woman who would become my fiancé. The satisfaction of seeing Kate’s enjoyment of a meal I prepare for the two of us eclipses my self-care cooking in solitude. Nourishing the people I love is a sort of drug. And to have that gesture received with gratitude and delight is itself a thing to be savored.

The words “human experience” are used so often, scrawled across so many pitch decks, that they become drained of their impact. We talk of being experts in it, we research it at length, we iterate upon it, and we promise to elevate it. But when we actually witness a focus group using an app we’ve designed with excitement, or talk to an enterprise user whose productivity has skyrocketed by way of our streamlined interface, suddenly those words regain their impact. These moments, and all the successes along the way, deserve to be savored. They’re sustenance to fuel our creativity and strengthen our work satisfaction.

Roslyn Klein understood this. She reached her target audience of neighbors and grandchildren, elevating their human experience with the products she crafted: blintzes, stuffing and of course, green bean casseroles. As much as we relished her cooking, I like to believe she savored our enjoyment of it even more.

Car culture and national identity

Air brushed ribbons of gold emblazoned against a sea of crimson. A grid of Māori inspired illustrations stippled in sharpie across the hood of a dusty Toyota Previa. A meticulous recreation of the Scooby Doo Mystery Machine. The hand painted motifs of New Zealand’s camper vans are as varied and charming as the Kiwis who adventure in them.

As of writing this, my fiancée and I have been on the road in New Zealand for two weeks. Our home, a rented Epic camper van, sports an understated livery, as do many of the RV rentals here. Jucy vans are the obvious exception, clad in loud green with whimsical typography imploring you to “Find Your Happy!” Judging by the playful automotive graphics around every turn, the pursuit of happiness is to Kiwis what strident liberty is to Americans.

Kiwi camper van designs get extra charming when you begin spotting older models belonging to locals. Unlike the decals adorning American F150s — matte black American flags or Punisher skulls carefully distressed by a graphic designer for greater patriotic effect — Kiwi graphic embellishments are often hand painted celebrations of native flora and fauna rather than political or religious dogmas. Common are painterly designs that evoke traditional Māori symbolism. There’s a folksy looseness to the rendering that says these vehicles aren’t precious, they’re merely a means to adventure. New Zealand’s national parks are well funded, with a beautifully maintained network of roads and trails. So, access to remote wilderness isn’t limited to lifted, kitted behemoths. And with no entrance fees at the parks, they’re available to all. Your run of the mill 90’s era van with 350K kilometers on it is more than capable of reaching most trailheads.

The interiors of these lived-in locals’ campers often has a cobbled together quaintness. Drawers from an old dresser, Nana’s curtains, a camping stove for a kitchen, vintage store odds and ends. Imagine taking a bric-a-brac mountain home and concentrating it into a 5 foot by 9 foot cab. Every sliding door left open becomes a diorama of a life lived adventurously. A little Hobbiton home mounted on a chassis, maybe with a surfboard strapped to the roof.

Living in America, I’ve become desensitized to the big dick energy that pervades the automotive genre. The blocky grill of a GMC like the maw of a Pitbull. The typographic talons and shredded embellishments of the Ford Raptor logo. The bright as a supernova in your rear view headlights of a V8. The imposing hood of a modern pickup truck like a decorated Army General standing at attention. And don’t get me started on American vehicle nomenclature: Ram, Challenger, Titan, Powerstroke, Defender, Gladiator. These specific examples target a largely cis-male demographic, and yes, there are more benign options on the market: Chevy Malibu, Ford Focus. But the bigger, burlier rides represent the largest category of vehicles sold in America: pickup trucks and SUVs. By sheer numbers, these truly are exemplars of the industry. And these brick shithouse examples all come stock off the showroom floor.

It’s when we advance to the aftermarket that we shift from hypermasculine into toxically masculine high gear. Diesel truck mods to belch plumes of black smoke (rolling coal). Catalytic converter deletes to make your pickup roar at a pavement shaking volume, with the added bonus of emitting even more carbon into the atmosphere. Saggy rubber testicles that dangle from trailer hitches. Driving in America is a reflection of modern life in America. Every ‘roided-out pickup truck feels like a threat just as every NRA member at the grocery store with a sidearm and tactical gear induces anxiety — for me, anyways.

Kiwis love their rides every bit as much as Americans. And why not? With the whole of Middle Earth to explore, the open road is as inviting here as it is anywhere. There’s a thriving classic car scene, a Japanese drift scene, heaps of accessorized utility vehicles, bagger motorcycles, and RV culture galore. On the surface, New Zealand is quite like the States, and yet it is starkly different. Amid the rugged mountain landscapes and 4X4 tracks so familiar to this Coloradan, vehicles range from artistically embellished campers to capable Land Cruisers, but very rarely do they veer into ostentatious displays of power. Having spent a couple weeks now cruising alongside the benign, non-gendered, vehicles of New Zealand’s highways has been refreshing. Every hand painted minivan is a palette cleanser. Every jalopy camper, a delight.

Welcome to the world of consulting. It can be a strange and unfamiliar landscape for a designer, but as more and more consultancies acquire boutique design firms, the odds that you’ll land in this very different working environment tick ever upward. As a designer navigating a Big 4 consulting firm, you’re a curiosity in a world of analysts. The expectations of you supersede that of an average creative professional. In addition to mastery of your craft, you need soft skills, business instincts, and charisma. You need to be a damn good designer, as well as a technologist, a salesperson, a deft communicator, a facilitator, and a mediator all rolled into one. Keep your wits about you — here’s your guide to thriving as a designer in the strange new world of consulting.

Get comfortable with discomfort

As a consultant, you’ll often find that you’re the only designer in the room. Rather than being discouraged by this, allow yourself to be emboldened by it. It’s your differentiator. Use your talent for visual problem solving to add value in those uncomfortable spaces. Boldly grab a marker, pull up a whiteboard, and get sketching. It’s a simple power move that immediately energizes the room.

Consultants can be a competitive lot. A common tac you’ll find in this environment is for people to speak up not because they have something additive to contribute, but to be the loudest voice in the room. Such an environment can be stifling to a young, thoughtful designer. Remember, your perspective matters. Anchor yourself in your areas of expertise and speak up on behalf of the user. You bring a critical perspective that’s necessary to enhance the human experience and drive business results. And don’t be afraid to ask questions. A poignant question that stirs ideas in others is an assist to everyone present.

Consulting will provide you with a wealth of opportunities to learn, adapt, and shine. Join a cross-functional project in an unfamiliar industry or volunteer to help facilitate a workshop outside your domain to broaden your skill set and stretch your comfort zone. Challenging moments are often a chance to put your creativity to use in new, unexpected ways.

Cultivate your creative identity

Joining a consulting firm as a designer is frequently accompanied by an uneasy sense of not belonging. You’re flying among a flock of suits who speak in acronyms. Your creativity is your superpower, and by embracing this unique identity you have an immediate platform for differentiation.

One piece of advice you’re likely to receive is to define your own personal brand. I’ve heard this one a hundred times. As designers, we have a deeper understanding than many of what constitutes a brand. This unique understanding can render such advice debilitating. Defining a brand is no small feat, especially when it’s your own. Instead, simply focus on what you love about design and look for ways to embody it that are uniquely yours. Start here and your brand will manifest naturally over time.

I work for a Big 4 consulting firm complete with their own university campus where new hires go to be onboarded, and experienced consultants refine their skills through rigorous, multi-day trainings. The first time I visited our campus, I stood out like a sore thumb. My idea of business casual involved brightly colored pattern clashing and dope kicks. Certainly nothing subversive, but I felt like a scarlet macaw lost in a murder of crows. My lizard brain immediately activated — should I buy a branded polo to blend in? But just as soon as I became self aware, a stranger approached me and complimented my fit. Then another. Standing out became a tool that I could use to break the ice, grow my confidence, and build my network. Far from being my brand, the way I dressed was simply an expression of my design sensibilities and a catalyst for meaningful conversations where my passion for creative problem solving could be revealed.

As a designer you can get away with things that other consultants can’t. Your title gives you room for self expression, and your creativity gives you a competitive edge that you can embody in any number of ways — from the Zoom background you set to the elegant narrative you weave throughout an otherwise stuffy pursuit deck. The consulting world rewards those who champion themselves. So be bold, and showcase how your design expertise enriches the broader business capabilities of the firm. Scarlet macaws have talons too.

Collaborate with your lead

Nailing that performance review often starts with developing a trusted relationship with your project lead, be it a Creative Director, Engagement Manager, or Partner. Let them know your career development goals early into your project. Want more client exposure? Want to flex your Scrum Master muscles? Want more leadership experience to help you get that promotion? By collaborating with your lead on a plan to chip away at these goals, you’ll develop a structured approach to your growth, and they’ll become invested in your success along the way.

Your success is often linked to the success of your manager. When you have the capacity, consider how you might help them be successful. Try anticipating their needs, taking some tasks off their plate, or straight up asking where they could use extra help. Use your eye for detail to streamline team processes, improve workflows, manage sprint timelines, or deliver polished presentations. Time is a currency you can leverage to advance your career. Strategically spend some of your time giving them back some of theirs. This generosity demonstrates ambition and positions you as a trusted ally — ensuring they give you a glowing review and inclining them to look to you first when they’re staffing their next project.

Of course, this comes with a caveat. Don’t give away your time to the detriment of your life. Maintaining balance is an essential part of delivering inspired work and not growing to hate your job. Knowing when to say no is vital to avoid burnout and protect your sanity. Practice saying no tactfully and offer alternative solutions to maintain your strategic relationships.

And what if your manager is a wretched prick? In certain cases, no amount of goodwill that you show to your lead will turn them in your favor. In my experience, these managers are far more the exception than the rule. Again, this is where knowing when and how to say no is valuable. Gather intelligence from other designers who have worked with that manager before and listen to your gut. Your time is precious, so make sure you invest it wisely.

Develop your business fluency

Don’t worry, you don’t need to enroll in night school. But you do need to understand certain business fundamentals to speak the language of consulting. As designers, we tend to focus on the details of the human experience. But client stakeholders often need you to go a level higher — to educate them about the business value of your design approach and set the minutiae aside.

When showcasing your work, draw the connection between the design solution and how it will drive product performance. Don’t just present your simplified information architecture, explain how it will improve adoption. Cite usability benchmarks to demonstrate how your CTA redesign will grow conversion. Find case studies to illustrate how your design system will bolster brand loyalty. Practice articulating your design decisions in terms of quantifiable benefits and outcomes for the business. Key performance indicators are a powerful tool for building design consensus, so factor them into your narrative.

If you remember nothing else, remember to know your audience. Few things are more tragic than having your brilliant design land with a whimper because you presented it the wrong way. Most stakeholders simply don’t care about the pixel perfect nuances of your design. In fact, presenting work with this focus can actively alienate self-confessed “non-creative” types. Rather than speaking to all the details, focus on humanizing the design. Choose one or two key decisions and succinctly articulate the impact to users and the business. Focus on the broad arc of your approach, but be prepared to go deep if prompted. Extra points if you can do this with feeling.

Be your own biggest fan

To stand out at a consulting firm with a headcount in the thousands, you need to be an outspoken advocate for yourself. You’ll need to discover what differentiates you from your peers, build your network, create awareness of your achievements, and tell a compelling story at performance year end.

Of course, many of us don’t want to stand out. Receding safely to the background is far more comfortable. But in times of austerity and layoffs, the background can be the most vulnerable place to linger. Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and into the limelight is vital to securing and advancing your position. Volunteer to showcase your work in an all hands meeting, host an educational brown bag in your area of expertise, or own a new initiative to advance the design craft within your organization.

Record your successes in the moment rather than waiting for performance year end to creep up. Recalling the details of the impact you made is much harder in hindsight. Keep a document that you build over the course of your year. Copy the accolades you receive from clients and managers, record any metrics quantifying your successes, and begin writing your impact narrative early.

Thinking of your performance year as a story that you write every day is a powerful framework for success. Make the conclusion of your story the achievement of your goals and then draw the connection between here and there through your daily actions.

Perks abound — collect ‘em all

It’s likely that your choice to work in consulting was influenced by the generous benefits packages they offer. But there are more perks to working at a large, resource rich firm that often go untapped.

I’m writing this article from a camper van on the South Island of New Zealand while on a six month sabbatical. This program pays me a reduced salary while providing time away from work to develop a new skill and refill my creative tank. As you may have guessed, I chose to focus on writing. Our sabbatical program is available to a large swathe of my peers, but only a scant few take advantage of this gem of an opportunity. Many more grind until they’re completely drained of their creative life-force and then take a mental health leave of absence out of necessity. Fortunately, there are options to support either approach.

Beyond the leave of absence options, you can find myriad training opportunities, attend industry-shaping conference, get support earning a second degree, submit work to coveted design competitions, sit on an esteemed panel, or find your next great mentor. Go ahead — be a little greedy! Make the most of your time here by seizing every chance you get to enhance your work experience, even if that means taking several glorious months away from it like I am.

Make your mark

A sure way to build your eminence is to initiate a pilot project that provides value to the firm. Identify an area where your expertise shines uniquely. Maybe you lead a culture initiative, pioneer a new design capability, or build a community of practice around an emerging technology. Consulting rewards those who pursue lofty ambitions, so go big. Whatever you choose, it’s a good idea to get buy-in from leadership before diving in fully. Articulate the impact your initiative will provide to the firm and socialize it with a member of leadership who you trust.

Find ways to hold yourself accountable. You could set recurring checkpoints with a mentor, start a Slack channel devoted to your initiative, or preview your early progress at an all hands meeting.

Yes, this project is your baby, but you don’t need to raise her alone. Recruiting others to help deliver your vision will bring additional perspectives into the mix, reducing bias and providing you the space to remain engaged in billable work. It will also give you the opportunity to manage and delegate, and provide others with the chance to make a meaningful firm contribution. Taking ownership showcases your leadership and affords an opportunity to influence the consulting landscape you now find yourself in.

Congratulations. If you’re a strong enough designer to get hired into consulting, you already possess the most illusive thing of all, talent. This talent makes you a valued member of the practice. It sets you apart from traditional consultants. It enables you to view problems through a different lens, envision novel solutions, and then bring that vision to life. It equips you with empathy, attention to detail, and taste. Consulting may be a strange new world, but it’s also a fertile incubator where innovation thrives and your particular talent can blossom. Now go forth and create.

As of writing this, I’ve been a design professional for half my life. 22 years. Half of that time has been at my current gig. 11 years. One quarter of all my trips around the sun have been spent in consulting 🤯. Consulting is a weird place to be a designer. Sales margins, restricted entities, managed revenue. The administrative aspects of consulting tend to grate against the creative aspects. That tension is something every designer working in consulting has to navigate.

Not long into my tenure I found myself in a room full of MBAs with a particularly polished Brooks Brother at a podium lauding our firm’s Q3 mergers and acquisitions. I thought to myself, I studied pottery in college. How did I end up here? But then something unexpected happened amid the frequent travel, the head-scratching acronyms, and the meetings about meetings. I found that as part of a big consulting firm I could reach tens of millions of humans through the experiences I design. I could help shape some of the world’s most coveted brands and collaborate with people far more clever than myself. Generally speaking, I could be more creatively satisfied than any prior time in my career.

Another thing that’s true of consulting whether you’re an analyst, a designer, or a certified public accountant, is that burnout is an ever-present threat. The weight of client expectations and superhuman deadlines will smother even the most hardened Creative Director eventually. I’ve seen it happen more times than I can recall. Preventing burnout takes discipline, and nobody teaches you how to get good at it. Often, burnout hits right as people reach their greatest achievements professionally—when stepping away feels the most fraught.

That’s where I find myself: newly promoted to Senior Manager and leading one of our largest accounts. A rising star, but feeling threadbare and bereft of inspiration. Less of a creative director and more of a middle manager. Lucky for me, the monolithic consulting firm I work for offers a generous sabbatical program. Good luck finding that at a boutique design agency.

So it is that my fiancée, Kate and I will soon set off on the travel experience of a lifetime. Nine countries in six months: New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan. Throughout this sabbatical I’ll be writing about design, technology, and the arts. I’ll be devouring as much cultural inspiration as my senses can collect, integrating it into my professional views on design, and attempting to provide fresh ruminations via Medium for your reading pleasure.

Working in consulting for 11 years has a way of turning plainspoken creatives into buzzword generators. In emails and pitch decks I catch myself slipping in phrases like bleeding edge, paradigm shift, and lean in, and I hate myself a little for it. Through six months of concentrated writing, I hope to re-discover my unique voice as a design observer and deprogam the corporate lexicon that usurped my vocabulary. I hope to hone my skills of observation, my authoring speed, and the acuity of my insights. I hope to challenge my default notions of design, spark new ways of seeing the world, and open new depths of curiosity. And I hope that when I return to work six months from now, I feel like myself again—like a damn good creative director.