Juniors still have a role in our industry
A majority of designers move through the same hierarchy: junior, to mid-weight to senior.
It looks like a hierarchy of experience but it’s actually a hierarchy of production capability.
A senior has strategic instincts and years of hard-won production skill — they can see the idea and physically produce it. A junior has no strategic voice yet, but useful hands.
Somewhere in between is a midweight, picking up speed on the tools while still waiting to be trusted with the thinking.
Reality is, that whole structure only makes sense if production skill is scarce and takes years to earn. That was true for about sixty years but it stopped being true sometime in the last eighteen months,. I don’t think anyone’s actually redesigned the studio to reflect it.
The democratisation of design didn’t just speed up production. It flattened it. The skill gap separating a junior’s first mockup from a senior’s polished package has mostly closed. That’s not because juniors got better, it’s because the tools stopped caring how long you’d been using them. So, the ‘thing’ our entire hierarchy measures — years of production skill — isn’t scarce anymore. It’s not a senior advantage. It’s not even a differentiator.
This makes a load of difference.
So what is a studio actually organised by now, if not production skill?
Maybe future design agencies will be organised by contribution-type, not tenure. A 23-year-old might out-contribute a 15-year veteran when production proficiency is no longer the benchmark.
That raises a question I don’t have the answer to: if “junior,” “midweight” and “senior” are primarily labels for a production-skill ladder, and that ladder just disappeared, what are we actually measuring when we hand out titles? What should we be calling people, or more importantly, do we even need to differentiate?
I don’t know yet. But that’s what I’m thinking about. And here’s what I do know:
- the median age of Australians is currently 38 years. Millennials (born 1981–1996) represent the largest share of the population
- millennials combined with Gen Z (born 1997-2912) make up 36% of the total retail spend in Australia
- as more Gen Z enter the workforce, their scale of retail spending is projected to skyrocket to 48% by 2030
- against the assumptions, emerging designers actively want jobs. They are looking for employment and seek to be loyal employees. I know that because that’s what over 50 graduates from our Never Not Creative Never Not Finishing school said in end-of-program surveys. Similarly, the National Australia Bank research revealed over 85% of Gen Z are actively saving. And Westpac Home Ownership Report found 35% plan to buy their own home.
- Gen Z are entering the share market – they’re not yet got much funds but they’re outpacing Baby Boomers in trading platforms like Commsec.
The why
Gen Z are the audience your clients and customers want. It makes sense to employ them. Not as ‘junior’ designers but as emerging designers embraced for their fresh ideas and exuberance. The bliss of ignorance, the lack of baggage. The ‘why can’t it be done?’ attitude.
Of course, I know graduates don’t have the life skills, the problem-solving strategic muscle nor the client management acumen of mature creatives, and that’s understandable, but thinking all young designers will fall under the AI bus is based on ‘old ways’ of working. Irrelevant ways
What do you think?
What have I got wrong?
As always, happy to discuss further, just email Carol
Carol Mackay
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About Carol
After 30+ years running a design studio, I accumulated a pretty special network of fellow designers. One thing most have in common: a need for more information about the ‘business’ side of design. Most are impatient with any task competing for time spent doing what they love – designing so they wanted more info about how to work more efficiently and effectively.
Not me. I love that intersection between design and business. I built a career working with Ombudsman schemes, the Emergency Services sector and the Courts. My special power has always been an ability to use design to translate the difficult to understand or the unpalatable message.
I now use exactly the same skills with creative business owners. I translate the indigestible into bite-sized chunks of information. I share insights, introduce tools and embed processes to help others build confidence business decision-making skills. More confidence makes it easier to grasp opportunities. More confidence makes it easier to recognise a good client from the bad.
Outside DBC I have mentored with Womentor, AGDA The Aunties, and most recently Regional Arts NSW.
And I’m a proud volunteer and board member of Never Not Creative.
Always happy to chat, I can be contacted here.
