Today, I went to a Berlin design meetup once again and came back cautiously optimistic, something I haven't managed to say in two years.
Events I used to enjoy very much have not recovered to the same extent as before following the Covid-related slump in Berlin and many other cities (Damian's Berlin Product Designers Meetup, which always sells out quickly, is rather the exception here). However, I have also noticed recently that such events often reflect developments in our industry: the gold rush atmosphere of the last 15 years has given way to a little more realism. This is particularly evident in the fact that juniors are finding it harder to find good jobs, design thinking is no longer being thrown at everything, and even designers (!) are no longer always optimistic about the future.
But what I took away from today is cautious optimism:
- It is clear that the tech industry (like so many sectors of the economy) has recently experienced a phase of market consolidation. Budgets for innovation do not have it easy in economically challenging times.
- The line-up of companies, business models (e.g. of start-ups) and the structure of the tech industry may change in some respects, but the fact remains that value creation in products today happens more than ever through user experience design.
- At the same time, almost as many designers from companies as from agencies now attend such meetups. Design as a means of value creation and methodology for (product) innovation has long since arrived at the big tables.
The model that captures this best is the Design Ladder, a four-step maturity scale developed by the Danish Design Centre. It ranks companies from 'design as decoration' (Step 1) all the way up to 'design as strategic driver' (Step 4). The further up the ladder a company sits, the more resilient and innovative it tends to be in a downturn. Companies that still struggle with digitalisation or do not see innovation as a continuous part of their work (keyword: design ladder) will have a hard time.
More than ever, it is up to us agencies to be more innovative, methodically better and faster than large and small companies could be on their own – and to take our customers with us.
As someone who has never fully understood the gloomy mood of recent years, I can now say more than ever: I am looking forward to the time ahead. I look forward to the further development of my discipline, to the exciting methodological challenges that lie ahead and, above all, to all the great products that we will continue to develop with our clients in the future.
My move to Executive Director was a logical next step in that belief, and I wrote earlier about why a European approach to design might be one of the better answers to the platform decay so many of us have been watching. Events like the Service Design Jam Berlin and Usability Testessen show that this community-driven, hands-on energy is alive and well.
Read next:
- Antifragile by Design — how innovation capacity turns downturns into fuel
- Why I'll never get tired of facilitating innovation — what cross-functional teams ship in 48 hours
- New chapter, same passion — why I stepped into an Executive Director role
FAQ
Is the design industry in a downturn in 2024?
Not exactly, but it is going through a phase of market consolidation. The gold rush atmosphere of the last 15 years has cooled into something more realistic: investors are pickier, junior designers are finding it harder to land their first good job, and innovation budgets at large companies have shrunk. What that means in practice is a shift, not a collapse, and the underlying value creation through user experience design has not gone away.
What is the Design Ladder?
The Design Ladder is a four-step maturity scale developed by the Danish Design Centre in the early 2000s. It ranks companies by how they engage with design: Step 1 treats design as a purely cosmetic, post-hoc layer, Step 2 treats it as styling or identity work, Step 3 treats it as a structured problem-solving process, and Step 4 treats design as a strategic driver embedded in business decisions. The further up the ladder a company sits, the more resilient and innovative it tends to be in a downturn.
Why is design thinking no longer being thrown at every problem?
Because companies have learned the difference between running a design thinking workshop and actually building the conditions for continuous design work. The first produces posters; the second produces a Design Ladder step of 3 or 4. As innovation budgets get tighter, fewer companies are willing to pay for the workshop version. The practice that survives the consolidation is the practice that has been embedded into how the company operates.
What is the role of design agencies in a mature market?
To be more innovative, methodically better, and faster than their clients could be on their own, and to bring those clients along. In a market where product companies are building serious in-house design teams, agencies that want to stay relevant have to compete on methodology and on the ability to ship outcomes the client could not have produced alone. That is the bar the post-Covid design scene is now sorting itself around.
Why are junior designers struggling to find jobs right now?
Because the entry-level pipeline shrank during the post-2022 market consolidation, and the design roles still being hired are mostly mid-level and senior, where companies want someone who can hit the ground running. The honest answer is that the gold rush is over and the junior market is not going to return to what it was in 2018-2021. Junior designers today need to invest in a specific, demonstrable skill (accessibility, AI-era product design, vibe coding, motion) to stand out from the rest of the queue.