The Snowflake Effect: Title Economy in Design

In the 1960s and 1970s, holding a graphic designer title awarded you the impression of being rare, exotic, and distinguished. This held true even into the early 2000s, when the number of active graphic designers had already grown substantially. However, from that point onward, the profession became more prevalent and its distinctiveness began to wane. Today, in nearly every major city around the world, and in every cultural hub, it seems like every third person is some kind of designer.

Above all, the archetype of the designer—as an artist and a creative persona—looms large, portraying someone whose individuality is a core driving force. Returning to the timeline, we find that the sociological traits attributed to Millennials and members of Gen Z  often characterized by their heightened desire for individuality—have significantly shaped this landscape.

This sense of the graphic designer's uniqueness and differentiation gradually eroded over time, seemingly calling to be reinvented. And indeed, it was reinvented—oh, how it was reinvented.

On every job board for designers, on LinkedIn, or in any conference program, you’ll find dozens of different titles. You don’t always know what they actually represent, what the role truly entails, or the seniority of the person holding it—but it’s hard not to be impressed by the sheer variety. It’s as if, at some point about ten years ago, there was a Big Bang of job titles.This “big bang” of titles was primarily an organic process, but it’s still difficult to pinpoint its exact trajectory. Was it a bottom-up movement driven by designer communities, or was it a top-down phenomenon driven by industry and academia?  We will attempt to analyze this phenomenon through the lens of designers and design communities. Let’s explore the perspective of market forces and academia. And what about the responsibility of academia and the industry for this runaway proliferation of titles you ask? That alone is worth a separate discussion.

Growth Axes

Every leader in a design department is familiar with the challenge of mapping growth paths for designers. Like other professionals, designers seek “professional development” and “career advancement,” which are crucial to their sense of value, often influence their salary level, and, to a large extent, determine their place within a culture that venerates progress and success.

However, as in other fields, the higher one climbs vertically in the pyramid, the fewer vertical growth opportunities remain. There are fewer managerial roles—team leads, department heads, etc.Sometimes, in design professions, upward mobility is even more difficult.

Mobility, Knowledge, Passion

Mobility: While graduates from disciplines such as engineering, law, and business administration can often lead business units or execution teams across different fields, design managers typically manage design teams exclusively.

Knowledge: Even extensive seniority and experience as an IC (individual contributor) rarely expose designers to managerial dilemmas, business aspects, or HR-related issues. This is a structural issue within organizations and among design leaders, who instinctively “shield” designers from the noisy business environment to give them the space and freedom to create and explore creatively. However, this protective approach inadvertently imposes a professional glass ceiling on designers.

One more point worth emphasizing is that the more niche a designer’s discipline, the further they drift from vertical advancement opportunities, even if they possess inherent leadership qualities. Structurally, it’s always preferable to have a generalist team lead who can monitor, guide, and help all designers professionally develop under their supervision.

Passion: Who among us hasn’t encountered a super senior, highly talented designer who expresses a desire to manage? Who among us hasn’t gone to great lengths to enable that transition? They deserve it; they’re strong, senior designers who have earned the promotion. But—and it’s a big “but”—who among us hasn’t witnessed such individuals struggle in a managerial role, lose their spark, and ultimately realize that their passion lies in designing? Naturally, there are exceptions, and those will be your strongest managers. However, experience teaches us that focusing on our passions is always worthwhile.

A smart and non-trivial methodology that I highly appreciate in our organization, is that salary level isn’t necessarily tied to hierarchy. A team lead and their strongest designer can earn the same salary; in some cases, the designer might even earn more. By removing salary level from the equation, there’s more room to focus on “what truly works for me” or “what genuinely makes me excel at what I do.”

Designers have many opportunities for lateral growth but fewer opportunities for vertical growth.

Lateral growth basically means becoming a stronger designer, advancing in seniority, acquiring additional knowledge and tools, influencing beyond one’s team, leading projects, mentoring new designers—all meaningful and significant aspects of growth. Yet, none of these changes a designer’s title. None of these allows them to declare a shift, to signal progress to their immediate surroundings, or to feel unique and distinct.

Let’s not forget that we’re dealing with creative people here—both the designers and their managers. So if what’s missing in the growth process is the designer’s sense of distinction, their symbol of progress, or their ability to receive positive feedback from their environment—all things embodied by a title, which in this context serves as a kind of trophy—then, more often than not, those creative souls will simply invent a title. They will create a role.

And this, at least at the employee-manager level, is the mechanism that, through a process akin to alchemy, succeeds in creating titles from nothing. Whether it’s the worker-manager dynamic or a bottom-up approach, the result is the same. In the sphere of the graphic design profession, there are now hundreds of different roles, and not all of them, to say the least, have enough distinction to enable real success.