As you can tell by all the media coverage on websites like Fast Company, Forbes and others,
designers are quite popular today. The importance of their work in our beloved society can’t be underestimated: as industries opt-in for design-driven innovation, their skillset is needed as never before. Those particular designers who were able to open up,
evolve their soft skills are now frolicking around joyfully, practicing their art on more impactful levels, and are finally a subject of public appreciation.
What the future of these currently thriving creatures brings is however unclear. Amid the merriment, they sense a new threat to their way of life with the rise of machine learning and AI. Some observers even think, most designer subspecies will be extinct in a few years.
Other, more radical voices say they should be
killed right away. Perhaps, the term ‘designer’ will dissolve completely. As their instinctive purpose is to make things better (or simply challenge the status quo), their mentality is usually well received, copied. Their methods and workflows already
started to influence other flocks, making design a more democratised tool and morphing the role of current designers even further.
So next time you see a designer in a dark little coffee shop snuggled up against a MacBook, working on some mockups,
give them a big hug! They rarely engage in conversations on their own, buy them a tipsy cake first and then encourage them a bit! Shifting their focus from simple makers to innovators, facilitators, or even public activists is well within their reach. They have to come out to the light more regularly, adapt as many of them already did.