← Notes

10-11-2026

On the role of the designer

Giving form to possible futures — Dunne & Raby, Speculative Everything

  • The designer helps people imagine futures, generating ones that “act as catalysts for public debate and discussion about the kinds of futures people really want.”
  • Designers can facilitate a dreaming that unlocks people’s own imaginations: seven billion little utopias from the bottom up. The challenge is to give them form.

Culture generators — Objectified (2009)

  • In France, philosophers are the culture generators (people want their thoughts on the cheese war with Italy, or the price of gas). Designers could be the culture generators all over the world—the intellectuals of the future.

A good host — Charles Eames

  • The role of the designer is to be a good host.

Keeping the question open — Rosanne Somerson, RISD

  • The designer’s role is to keep the question open longer than anyone else will. The result is things that matter—things that haven’t existed or been imagined before.

Designing for the future — Objectified (2009)

  • The job of the designer is to look into the future, not to use any frame of reference that exists now.
  • Make products fundamentally non-disposable: things you want to keep that stand the test of time.
  • Design thinking is a way to be systematically innovative.

A moral responsibility — Tuhin Kumar

  • As designers, we are charged with what should come into existence in the world. That is a moral responsibility.
  • We talk business metrics and stakeholder alignment, but design was brought into existence because we needed a function to fight for the user.
  • Early on, the designer has the most influence on the shape something can take. That is what separates a designer’s signature from doing something just because it seems cool.

Knowing what is desirable — Tuhin Kumar

  • Design is knowing what is desirable.
  • You can fulfill the jobs to be done, but that alone isn’t sticky: one day a better business model comes along and people switch.

The expert who explains why — Tom Greever, Articulating Design Decisions

  • The designer’s role is to be the expert who can explain why: making the case for the user to the people who decide what ships.