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What is the design hill you would die on?
13 May, 2025
We asked a range of designers to share their most deeply-held design belief, and their responses ranged from designing feelings to embracing mistakes.
Every designer has deeply held beliefs that shape the way they think, and the way they work.
We asked a range of designers what is their absolute non-negotiable when it comes to their profession, and they provided an enjoyably eclectic set of answers.
Pete Hawkins – “Print it out, mock it up”
Design hills can be lonely places.
And truthfully, I’ve made sacrifices, this is a service industry after all.
But my “hill” is more of a range.
At the summit is, ‘Unique, relevant ideas, executed with artistry.” It’s the guiding principle, the DNA of every project, shaped by everything I’ve learned from colleagues to role models who’ve inspired me.
But let’s face it, that sentiment isn’t rare.
So I’ll stake my flag a little lower.
In the foundational foothills of composition, colour and typography lies the forgotten Mount Piomiu which stands for, “Print it out, mock it up.” A modest peak, often overlooked, but vital.
And I’ll defend this one with conviction!
Pete Hawkins is creative director of Chase Design Group.
Leon-Anthony Smith – “Make it work, then make it shine”
Most users just want to get something done.
If someone can move from A to B without swearing, squinting, or solving a puzzle, that’s good design.
The impact isn’t in big reveals or clever flourishes – it’s in the boring stuff actually working.
Set the bar at clarity first.
Respect people’s time, reduce noise, and make the path obvious.
Then, if there’s room, add the charm.
Stop designing for awards.
Design for real people doing real things, that’s what actually impresses.
Leon-Anthony Smith is head of design at Atomic.
Brigid McMullen – “Walk away if the trust isn’t there”
Powerful brand strategy is profound.
Brand definition captured in a matter of words, not pages.
No fluff.
No filler.
Distilled to its very core.
Meaningful.
Creatively loaded.
When it lands, everything else flows.
When it doesn’t, it’s literally just blah.
And essential to any significant brand programme is client and designer’s genuine openness to ideas, challenges, & uncomfortable conversations.
Brave organisations are open-minded with their agency.
Their trust deserves care, so our job is to guide, not bulldoze.
Transformation demands collective curiosity, cut-and-thrust debate, plus a willingness to be wrong in pursuit of what’s right.
Great brand design isn’t born from ego or tunnel vision but intellectual rigour, honesty and the courage to walk away if trust isn’t there.
Sacred cows? Off the table.
Preconceptions? Questioned.
Every.
Time.Brigid McMullen is founder and managing director of The Workroom.
Tassia Swulinska – ”Make mistakes and embrace the chaos”
I like making mistakes on purpose.
I’ve always believed that creativity needs space to be messy.
Something designed within an inch of its life risks becoming sterile – overworked and lifeless.
The approach may seem chaotic from a distance, but that chaos weaves together spontaneous connections and unexpected moments.
You have to short-circuit the rational brain to tap into instinct.
Design it, kill it, remix it, then place it in a random space to give it new meaning.
Let it break and glitch, then refine it.
I think there’s something vital in the mess.
Creativity isn’t a clean process because we are not robots – it’s intuitive, looping, non-linear.
Embrace the mistakes and trust that your gut and taste will get you to the sweet spot.
That’s a beautiful, chaotic design hill I’d happily lay to rest on, and watch the flowers grow across my perfectly typeset gravestone.
Tassia Swulinska is design director at DixonBaxi.
Bobby Burrage – “Always strive for simplicity”
“Get rid of everything that doesn’t need to be there.” I find myself saying this a lot as a creative director.
This isn’t an indulgent pursuit of pretentious minimalism – it’s about revealing what truly matters: the idea.
What’s the design hill I would die on? Fighting against decoration, embellishment and the all-too-common over-designing that weakens brand impact.
As creatives, we’re tempted to include multiple thoughts, references and elements in our work.
The real skill is knowing how much to leave in versus remove.
Deciding on what’s important and what’s just noise is a battle.
This requires confidence and conviction – there’s a fine line between a clever twist and a forced concept.
In branding, clarity cuts through noise.
The most powerful message is often the simplest one.
Simple is complicated!Bobby Burrage is creative director of The Click.
Sarah Fairhurst – “Design should make life better”
As designers, we could and should pub-rant every design detail.
Vertical type? Only runs from top to bottom.
Drop shadows? Should be illegal.
Faux neon? Incomparable to the real thing.
For none of these would I “die on a design hill.” Deep down I’m motivated by the belief that design should make life better, on purpose.
Be transformational and uplifting!
We don’t need more vanilla-coloured so-so, or so-what.
We all need design for a better, lighter life – be that easier, more colourful, engaging, simpler or smilier.
Design is a powerful weapon, and I’m fighting for more smiles.
Sarah Fairhurst is creative director at Dalziel & Pow.
Richard Taylor – “Don’t get caught up in the craft”
My first love affair with design was born from something that fell off the back of a car.
I was 16, and the Porsche 911 Carrera badge had fallen off and landed on the road.
It was the most beautiful curvaceous type I’d ever seen.
That badge was Blu Tacked to my bedroom wall for years.
Skip forward to today, and I use design as a tool to achieve a commercial objective; to bring brands closer to the people they serve and drive transformational growth.
As an industry, we often get caught up in the craft and can lose sight of the idea.
But ideas and design are like yin and yang.
Form and function.
They need to be good bedfellows to truly move people, to break us humans out of our ritualistic buying habits.
Whilst my passion for beautifully crafted typography will never wane, design thinking is what motivates me.
And it should you.
Richard Taylor is founder and CEO of Brandon Consultants.
Lucy McKenzie – “Aesthetics are felt, not seen”
The design hill I’d die on is that aesthetics are felt, not seen.
Design isn’t just visual – it’s sensorial.
Form, shape, and colour don’t just communicate; they provoke, they influence how we interact with the world and feel.
These elements can spark something deeper and more innate – they evoke the senses and emotional responses that live in our subconscious, bypassing what’s rational.
Like David Lynch builds feeling before story, design should evoke something intrinsic to the human condition before igniting a meaning that is something deep and relatable within us that we can all connect to.
Working on a haircare brand, we weren’t just designing for function — we were designing for feeling.
A sensorial experience demonstrating how the product smelled, flowed from the bottle, and felt on the scalp and hand.
This mattered just as much as how it performed.
Ultimately, design is not just about what a product does or enables us to do or how it fits within the cultural zeitgeist, but how it makes you feel.
The design I believe in goes beyond what is in vogue, to something visceral and human, to something that is memorable and lasting.
Lucy McKenzie is associate director of forpeople.
Lee Roberts – “Fight the good fight for the guest experience”
Although it is imperative that design is efficient and functional, the absolute priority has to be the user experience.
At Zebra, we work extensively in the hospitality sector and there is often pressure to compromise on customer space for the operational aspect of a facility.
Sometimes this is unavoidable, however I will always fight for the guest to ensure their overall experience is not diminished.
The customer journey, from order to seating should always be exemplary – we strive to never have a bad seat in the house!
Lee Roberts is creative director at Zebra Projects.
Industries in this article
What to read next
Source: https://www.designweek.co.uk/what-is-the-design-hill-you-would-die-on/" style="color: #0066cc;">https://www.designweek.co.uk/what-is-the-design-hill-you-would-die-on/
#what #the #design #hill #you #would #die
What is the design hill you would die on?
13 May, 2025
We asked a range of designers to share their most deeply-held design belief, and their responses ranged from designing feelings to embracing mistakes.
Every designer has deeply held beliefs that shape the way they think, and the way they work.
We asked a range of designers what is their absolute non-negotiable when it comes to their profession, and they provided an enjoyably eclectic set of answers.
Pete Hawkins – “Print it out, mock it up”
Design hills can be lonely places.
And truthfully, I’ve made sacrifices, this is a service industry after all.
But my “hill” is more of a range.
At the summit is, ‘Unique, relevant ideas, executed with artistry.” It’s the guiding principle, the DNA of every project, shaped by everything I’ve learned from colleagues to role models who’ve inspired me.
But let’s face it, that sentiment isn’t rare.
So I’ll stake my flag a little lower.
In the foundational foothills of composition, colour and typography lies the forgotten Mount Piomiu which stands for, “Print it out, mock it up.” A modest peak, often overlooked, but vital.
And I’ll defend this one with conviction!
Pete Hawkins is creative director of Chase Design Group.
Leon-Anthony Smith – “Make it work, then make it shine”
Most users just want to get something done.
If someone can move from A to B without swearing, squinting, or solving a puzzle, that’s good design.
The impact isn’t in big reveals or clever flourishes – it’s in the boring stuff actually working.
Set the bar at clarity first.
Respect people’s time, reduce noise, and make the path obvious.
Then, if there’s room, add the charm.
Stop designing for awards.
Design for real people doing real things, that’s what actually impresses.
Leon-Anthony Smith is head of design at Atomic.
Brigid McMullen – “Walk away if the trust isn’t there”
Powerful brand strategy is profound.
Brand definition captured in a matter of words, not pages.
No fluff.
No filler.
Distilled to its very core.
Meaningful.
Creatively loaded.
When it lands, everything else flows.
When it doesn’t, it’s literally just blah.
And essential to any significant brand programme is client and designer’s genuine openness to ideas, challenges, & uncomfortable conversations.
Brave organisations are open-minded with their agency.
Their trust deserves care, so our job is to guide, not bulldoze.
Transformation demands collective curiosity, cut-and-thrust debate, plus a willingness to be wrong in pursuit of what’s right.
Great brand design isn’t born from ego or tunnel vision but intellectual rigour, honesty and the courage to walk away if trust isn’t there.
Sacred cows? Off the table.
Preconceptions? Questioned.
Every.
Time.Brigid McMullen is founder and managing director of The Workroom.
Tassia Swulinska – ”Make mistakes and embrace the chaos”
I like making mistakes on purpose.
I’ve always believed that creativity needs space to be messy.
Something designed within an inch of its life risks becoming sterile – overworked and lifeless.
The approach may seem chaotic from a distance, but that chaos weaves together spontaneous connections and unexpected moments.
You have to short-circuit the rational brain to tap into instinct.
Design it, kill it, remix it, then place it in a random space to give it new meaning.
Let it break and glitch, then refine it.
I think there’s something vital in the mess.
Creativity isn’t a clean process because we are not robots – it’s intuitive, looping, non-linear.
Embrace the mistakes and trust that your gut and taste will get you to the sweet spot.
That’s a beautiful, chaotic design hill I’d happily lay to rest on, and watch the flowers grow across my perfectly typeset gravestone.
Tassia Swulinska is design director at DixonBaxi.
Bobby Burrage – “Always strive for simplicity”
“Get rid of everything that doesn’t need to be there.” I find myself saying this a lot as a creative director.
This isn’t an indulgent pursuit of pretentious minimalism – it’s about revealing what truly matters: the idea.
What’s the design hill I would die on? Fighting against decoration, embellishment and the all-too-common over-designing that weakens brand impact.
As creatives, we’re tempted to include multiple thoughts, references and elements in our work.
The real skill is knowing how much to leave in versus remove.
Deciding on what’s important and what’s just noise is a battle.
This requires confidence and conviction – there’s a fine line between a clever twist and a forced concept.
In branding, clarity cuts through noise.
The most powerful message is often the simplest one.
Simple is complicated!Bobby Burrage is creative director of The Click.
Sarah Fairhurst – “Design should make life better”
As designers, we could and should pub-rant every design detail.
Vertical type? Only runs from top to bottom.
Drop shadows? Should be illegal.
Faux neon? Incomparable to the real thing.
For none of these would I “die on a design hill.” Deep down I’m motivated by the belief that design should make life better, on purpose.
Be transformational and uplifting!
We don’t need more vanilla-coloured so-so, or so-what.
We all need design for a better, lighter life – be that easier, more colourful, engaging, simpler or smilier.
Design is a powerful weapon, and I’m fighting for more smiles.
Sarah Fairhurst is creative director at Dalziel & Pow.
Richard Taylor – “Don’t get caught up in the craft”
My first love affair with design was born from something that fell off the back of a car.
I was 16, and the Porsche 911 Carrera badge had fallen off and landed on the road.
It was the most beautiful curvaceous type I’d ever seen.
That badge was Blu Tacked to my bedroom wall for years.
Skip forward to today, and I use design as a tool to achieve a commercial objective; to bring brands closer to the people they serve and drive transformational growth.
As an industry, we often get caught up in the craft and can lose sight of the idea.
But ideas and design are like yin and yang.
Form and function.
They need to be good bedfellows to truly move people, to break us humans out of our ritualistic buying habits.
Whilst my passion for beautifully crafted typography will never wane, design thinking is what motivates me.
And it should you.
Richard Taylor is founder and CEO of Brandon Consultants.
Lucy McKenzie – “Aesthetics are felt, not seen”
The design hill I’d die on is that aesthetics are felt, not seen.
Design isn’t just visual – it’s sensorial.
Form, shape, and colour don’t just communicate; they provoke, they influence how we interact with the world and feel.
These elements can spark something deeper and more innate – they evoke the senses and emotional responses that live in our subconscious, bypassing what’s rational.
Like David Lynch builds feeling before story, design should evoke something intrinsic to the human condition before igniting a meaning that is something deep and relatable within us that we can all connect to.
Working on a haircare brand, we weren’t just designing for function — we were designing for feeling.
A sensorial experience demonstrating how the product smelled, flowed from the bottle, and felt on the scalp and hand.
This mattered just as much as how it performed.
Ultimately, design is not just about what a product does or enables us to do or how it fits within the cultural zeitgeist, but how it makes you feel.
The design I believe in goes beyond what is in vogue, to something visceral and human, to something that is memorable and lasting.
Lucy McKenzie is associate director of forpeople.
Lee Roberts – “Fight the good fight for the guest experience”
Although it is imperative that design is efficient and functional, the absolute priority has to be the user experience.
At Zebra, we work extensively in the hospitality sector and there is often pressure to compromise on customer space for the operational aspect of a facility.
Sometimes this is unavoidable, however I will always fight for the guest to ensure their overall experience is not diminished.
The customer journey, from order to seating should always be exemplary – we strive to never have a bad seat in the house!
Lee Roberts is creative director at Zebra Projects.
Industries in this article
What to read next
Source: https://www.designweek.co.uk/what-is-the-design-hill-you-would-die-on/
#what #the #design #hill #you #would #die
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