20th Anniversary Official White Paper  The 20th Anniversary, Redefining the Defining Question of Design In the evolution of the design industry, … More

Chris Saunders of Right Aligned Academy joins Lefteris Heretakis to explore why the gap between design education and industry has become a void. Together, they examine the anxiety facing young creatives, the disappearance of junior roles, the rise of AI, the loss of practical skills, and the failure of institutions to keep pace with real creative practice. But this is not only a critique. It is also a call for new, humane models of learning built around community, craft, imagination, local hubs, professional honesty, and shared responsibility. For educators, students, designers, agencies and anyone concerned with the future of creative culture, this conversation asks what must be rebuilt before the next generation is left behind completely.

AI didn’t break education, it revealed that we had quietly stopped requiring the thinking and started accepting the product in its place. When a student submits AI-generated work, they haven’t skipped the homework; they’ve skipped the development, the confusion, the cognitive muscle the assignment was designed to build. We are handing out shoes to people we have never let touch the ground.

Design has been domesticated into a polite, portfolio-friendly profession—sanitised, aestheticised, stripped of its teeth. But design was never meant to be safe. It was meant to expose, to question, to disrupt.

Apple used to speak softly, now it shouts. The iPhone 17 Pro’s new typography is bold, extended, and loud. But in chasing power, has Apple sacrificed the restraint that made its design language timeless? Our latest article unpacks this visual shift and critiques how the company’s typographic voice has grown too heavy for its own harmony.

A manifesto for mindful design education. It calls for a return to craft as the foundation of judgement, ethics, and creativity in an automated world, reminding us that true innovation begins with care, reflection, and human discernment.

Contemporary education for prioritising compliance over creativity, reducing students to passive recipients of knowledge. Influenced by thinkers like Ruskin and Freire, we argues that this mechanisation makes AI appear intelligent while genuine creativity suffers. To reclaim education, we must foster imagination and critical thinking in learners.