I recently had a great conversation with a friend of mine about design authorship in the context of generative AI.
Her point of view was that a designer can’t claim a project as their own if AI was used to come up with the core concept.
That’s hard to argue with.
What’s fascinating is that this isn’t so different from the process used by many of the designers we most revere.
Thomas Heatherwick’s studio has over 200 staff. While I’m sure he’s heavily involved in most projects, there’s no chance he’s the only person dreaming up the big ideas that guide the firm’s work.
So what does the creative part of his job really entail?
My guess is it boils down to prompting and selection.
Rather than working out the details, or even the main concepts, people in Heatherwick’s position are responsible for helping their teams understand what “good” means, and making judgments about whether the things people create in response approximate that personally defined standard.
I call this “head-of-the-firm design”.
It’s a way of working that precludes fair claims to sole authorship, but offers the possibility of credit over the unifying character that defines a body of work. Heatherwick’s team is probably talented enough to produce almost any stylistic or functional output, but it’s Heatherwick’s own taste and point of view that makes the office’s designs so identifiable. He steers the ship.
What I find tremendously exciting is that while “head-of-the-firm design” used to be reserved for an incredibly small group of people, generative AI is now opening the doors for everyone to design as though they run a big team — design through curation rather than direct creation. Since nobody has unlimited imaginative energy or technical skills, this could be extremely empowering.
As my friend pointed out however, the price of entry will be giving up the ability to truly claim projects as your own. For the chance to practice design as “head-of-the-firm” without actually having a firm, it’s a tradeoff I’m willing to entertain.
Designable.blog 