New Rules is an ongoing series from WePresent that explores how to thrive as an artist in creative industries whose future remains uncertain. The third installment dives deep into the world of design and is created in partnership with It’s Nice That’s in-house research team, Insights. By harnessing perspectives from leading voices—including Erik Carter, Maya Man and Special Offer’s Brent David Freaney—this report seeks to make sense of industry shifts that are often hard to put into words. It serves as a comprehensive companion piece—a manual of sorts—providing answers to basic questions in a time of great change when the rules are constantly being rewritten.
For designers, uncertainty seems to exist everywhere you look. As a career, the role of “graphic designer” is under threat, predicted by the World Economic Forum to be one of the fastest-declining job roles between 2025 and 2030. This market scarcity places additional pressure on designers to upskill and stay up to date with ever-evolving design programs. But even as a creative practice, uncertainty manifests just as strongly. With graphic trends tearing across visual culture at breakneck speed, designers face yet another task each time they sit down to work or research: be original but make sure your work caters to Instagram’s ever-shifting tastes.
Against this backdrop, WePresent decided to focus its second installment of New Rules on the amorphous state of design. For It’s Nice That, the platform that serves as guest editor of this edition, there were three key areas of a designer’s workflow that needed the most investigation: trends, research and new roles and responsibilities. To tackle these areas, this report offers firsthand insights into the inner workings—or “inputs”—of today’s design industry, as told by the studios, graphic designers and creative voices who are not only navigating this state of creative flux but mastering it; and who are staking a claim for originality in the process. This is a chance to find guidance and clarity, but also an invitation to interrogate, to follow in the footsteps of the rule-breakers featured and ask one of the most fundamental questions for designers working in the industry today: what are we all working towards?
