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Its easy to get swept up in headlines predicting the end of the design industry as we know it. Its true: AI tools can now generate in seconds what once took days for teams of designers. So its no longer a question of whether these tools will be usedbut how, why, and by whom. If design as we know it is being automated, what remains? And what becomes more valuable? In the 1930s, cultural critic Walter Benjamin argued that mechanical reproductionphotography, film, the printing presswas transforming not just how art was made, but how it was perceived. His concern wasnt just about losing originality or craft; it was about losing aurathe sense of presence that comes from a works connection to time, place, and purpose. When something can be reproduced endlessly, that connection starts to dissolve. And in the post-internet world, its all but collapsedcontext has become slippery, distributed, and flattened. The role of creative direction, then, is to restore that lost dimensionalityto place things, to anchor them in context. The craft of execution is no longer a differentiator. For surface-level visuals, speed and quantity now rule. But this shift reveals something deeper: When production is automated, the designers role becomes less about making and more about meaning. Ive felt this shift firsthand. At the outset of my career, I spent hoursdaysin Photoshop extending backgrounds, removing objects, and meticulously cutting out product images for e-commerce sites. It was repetitive, yesbut also meditative. There was a quiet satisfaction in working with images by hand, pixel by pixel. That kind of technical work is now (thankfully) almost entirely automated. Although I miss blocking off an afternoon to push pixels, the ability to delegate those tasks means I no longer need to dedicate time to erasing shadowsI spend that time deciding what the image should say in the first place. Not all design disciplines are equally affected by AI. Those who work with material, scale, and spacebook designers, muralists, sign painters, mosaicistscontinue to operate through tacit knowledge and touch. Their work still resists automation because its rooted in place and presenceit has aura. But even in brand design, something similar holds true: The more a designers value is bound to personal taste, knowledge of context, and aesthetic judgment, the more durable it becomes. Its tempting to hold onto the idea of the designer as auteur, untouched by context. But that belief overlooks how meaning is actually made: not by the author alone, but in conversation with culture, with tools, with audience. Mistaking authorship for authority leads to stagnation. If you’re a designer today, your ability to thrive depends on shifting your creative identity from executor to editor, and from technician to translator. The cost of not adapting isnt just irrelevance. Its being indistinguishable from the tools themselves. As Chris Braden, my former CCO at Public Address, has said: In nature, things that don’t move are dead. Virgil Abloh, Pyrex Vision Rugby Flannel (2012). Abloh bought Ralph Lauren shirts from outlet stores, screen-printed PYREX 23 across the back, and sold them at a premium, reframing authorship through minimal intervention. [Image: Pyrex Vision] Which is why creative direction matters more now than ever. If designers are no longer the makers, they must become the orchestrators. This isnt without precedent. Rick Rubin doesnt read music or play instruments. Virgil Abloh was more interested in recontextualizing than inventing. Their value lies not in original execution but in framing, curation, and translation. The same is true now for brand designers. Creative direction is about synthesizing abstract ideas into aesthetic systemsshaping meaning through how things feel, not just how they look. This opens up a new kind of opportunity for ideas to come from more rigorous placescritical theory, art history, cultural analysiswithout being stripped of their richness. AI can absolutely help translate complex ideas into accessible ones. But its the designer who chooses which ideas to bring forward, how to apply them, and why they matter in a given moment. Thats not just a function of intelligenceits a function of intuition, authorship, and taste. Taste isnt just personal preference. Its an evolving, often unstable frameworkshaped by experience, exposure, and the cultural momentthat informs how we make aesthetic judgments. Its not fixed, nor is it singular. What feels resonant in one context may fall flat in another. Taste is less about knowing whats right and more about understanding whats relevantwhat aligns, what disrupts, what works now. In a world of infinite possibilities, taste becomes less of a crown and more of a compass. Top to bottom: Thorlo by High Tide NYC (2023), Artworld by Mouthwash Studio (2020), Ilford by an unknown designer (1997). Theyre nearly identical, yet each feels novel within its own context. [Image: courtesy of the author] Its no longer enough to know whats trending from scrolling your various feeds. As Abloh understood, when originality becomes obsolete, novelty comes from recombination, from juxtaposition: from having a point of view. If your value lies in how you seeand how you help others seethats not just algorithm-resistant. Its literally irreplaceable. AI is a toolbut like all technologies, its not neutral. It reflects the choices of its makers and transforms every system it touches. It influences markets, media, and belief. It expands whats possible while quietly reshaping how meaning is made. And its impact on creative work is especially complex. Its a medium, a system, a collaborator. It can generate, iterate, and surprise. But it cant decide what mattes. It cant assign meaning. It cant make a choice. AI responds to input. Creative direction is that input. This shift raises real questions for the future of design education and hiring. What does a portfolio look like when visuals are no longer enough? Increasingly, it might look less like a finished book and more like a screenplay: a series of prompts, iterations, references, and decisions that show how a designer directed a process, not just executed an outcome. The goal isnt to hide the machine but to show how its been used with intention. Were moving into an era where synthesis and judgmentnot just executionare the creative differentiators. AI will continue to evolve, and yesit will replace certain tasks and even entire roles. But it wont replace curiosity. It wont replace intuition. And it wont replace the ability to decide what matters.
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E-Commerce
These days, when you head to a shop to buy clothes, most brands package your purchases in a recyclable paper bag, which looks more eco-friendly than plastic. But behind the scenesin back rooms that most customers never seeevery single clothing retailer has enormous piles of flimsy plastic bags (sometimes called poly bags). These bags keep clothes clean as they travel across the complex global supply chain before arriving at the store. We need to keep clothes in good condition as they move from factories to shipping containers to trucks, says Candan Erenguc, chief operations officer at Anthropologie. [Photo: WM/Anthropologie] Most local recycling facilities don’t have the equipment to recycle poly bags, which are more complicated to break down than more solid plastics like water bottles. So most retailers simply send them in the regular waste stream where they will end up in a landfill. Since plastic does not biodegrade, these bags will break down into tiny fragments of microplastic that will end up in our waterways and food. Anthropologie has been on a mission to find a way to recycle the poly bags it collects across its 215 retail stores. Over the past 18 months, it has partnered with Waste Management (WM), the largest recycling company in the United States, to develop a solution. Now, store associates collect these bags and send them to special facilities that are equipped to recycle them into other plastic products, extending their life. Anthropologie has already recycled more than 60,000 tons of poly bags, which have been transformed into pellets that will be used to create other plastic items, including trash bags. It has been a very seamless process, and we want to make sure other retailers know they can do it as well, says Erenguc. That said, things like trash bags cannot be further recycled, so they will eventually end up in a landfill. So it is still incumbent on brands to find ways to reduce the amount of plastic they consume and discard. For decades, flimsy plastic bags have been a challenge for municipal recycling facilities that collect household waste. If you accidentally put them in your curbside recycling bin, they can clog up the recycling equipment, shutting the system down. As a result, people have been encouraged to simply dispose of these bags in the regular waste stream, where they will be landfilled or incinerated. However, recycling technology is quickly improving, according to Tara Hemmer, chief sustainability officer at WM. For one thing, WM is now investing in robotics and computer vision technology that can better catch plastic bags that end up in the waste stream and separate them from the rest of the trash, so they don’t cause a major disturbance. And perhaps more impressively, there are now several industrial recycling facilities across the U.S. that are specifically designed to recycle poly bags. Some of these plants are owned by WM. But there are also independent recyclers that partner with WM. We work with our customers to make sure they can direct their waste to the right facility in our third-party network, says Hemmer. [Photo: WM] Erenguc wanted to find a way to collect poly bags and ship them to these locations. However, as a major retailer, this presented a logistical challenge. It was also important for the process to be easy for employees to understand and follow. Each of Anthropologie’s 215 stores is staffed with dozens of employees who must be trained on best practices when it comes to waste disposal. Moreover, it was unclear where the nearest recycling facility would be for each store. We didn’t want to be transporting poly bags back and forth across the country, because that isn’t good for the environment either, Erenguc says. But this is where WM could help. Anthropologie brought in members of the WM team to study the situation and come up with a solution that would be easy for retail employees to adopt. WM identified the address of the closest recycling facility for each store. Retail associates now collect plastic bags and when they have achieved a certain volume, they ship them out to a designated facility. The recycling plants turn poly bags into pellets that can than be used to create other products. It’s such a streamlined solution, Erenguc says. It was so easy to execute, but we’ve already managed to divert 60,000 pounds of plastic from landfills. [Photo: WM] Hemmer says that many retailers are eager to divert waste from landfill. While there’s been a narrative that companies have abandoned their sustainability goals, that hasn’t been her experience. We’ve found that companies still have goals and are marching towards them, she says. And consumerproduct companies are trying to increase the amount of recycled content that goes into their products. Hemmer says that recycling technology is improving every year. WM is currently working to make it possible to recycle plastic bags in residential areas, beginning with a plant in Chicago that will reach about 3,500 households. But often the obstacle to bringing about change at scale isn’t technologicalit’s logistical. People, as well as companies, are more likely to adopt new processes if they’re simple. Part of our job is to help troubleshoot, says Hemmer. But diverting waste from landfill is actually a lot easier than you’d imagine.
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E-Commerce
Elon Musk’s foray into government has proven disastrous for his business life. Since taking up work for President Donald Trumps’ so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk’s electric car company Tesla has seen sales slide and has become a target for protests. Now some believe that damage could be terminal and that Musk poses a risk to companies outside of his own. The Reputation Risk Index looks at reputational threats facing companies and organizations. It recently found that being associated with Musk posed the second biggest threat to companies, between the harmful or deceptive use of artificial intelligence and backtracking on DEI. The index, which is based on a survey with 117 public affairs leaders and former heads of state, found it’s not just being associated with Musk that’s risky, but being singled out and publicly criticized by him. In an aerial view, brand-new Tesla cars and Cybertrucks sit parked in a lot at a Tesla dealership on April 02, 2025, in Corte Madera, California. [Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images] With his controversial omnipresence in the media landscape, 28% of the council identified this association as a top reputational risk, highlighting Musks impact on businesses that extend well past his own, Global Risk Advisory Council chair Isabel Casillas Guzman said in the report. Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives predicted in a note Sunday that even if Musk were to quit DOGE and get back to his car company there will be permanent brand damage.” And if Musk stays in government, brand damage could grow for Tesla, calling it a code red situation for the company. Musk “needs to leave the government, take a major step back on DOGE, and get back to being CEO of Tesla full-time,” Ives wrote. Musk’s hard turn to DOGE has shown that mixing business with politics can backfire, especially for a public CEO of a company that relies on customers who in large part don’t share his views. If Musk wasn’t planning on leaving his post as a special government employee after the 130-day limit comes up, he might find a more persuasive business reason that it’s time to get back to his day job.
Category:
E-Commerce
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