Industrial Design Is Having an Identity Crisis* Right now, the world doesn’t quite know what to do with industrial designers.

You’re not “tech” enough to sit comfortably in the Silicon Valley scene. You’re not “strategy” enough to hold space in the boardroom. You’re not “engineering” enough for R&D, and not “branding” enough for marketing. So what does that make you?

Too often, it means you're sitting through meetings trying to prove your value. Submitting portfolios into silence. Watching generative AI mimic work you spent decades honing. Still explaining what you do — to people who really should understand by now.

Meanwhile, design schools continue recruiting. Graduates keep graduating. And corporations love to say they "care about design." But where are the roles? Where are the career paths? Where’s the future?

One thing is clear: it’s not in the old playbook. Not in job boards. Not in the outdated “junior-to-senior” ladder.

Industrial design isn’t dying — it’s changing. The future belongs to those who adapt: who take hybrid roles, work across disciplines, build solo practices, productize services, and show their thinking publicly.

The ones who’ll make it aren’t clinging to perfect renders. They’re the ones who build real connections between design and impact. They speak clearly. They move fast. They make it obvious why design matters.

It’s fair to grieve what’s fading. But don’t wait for it to come back.

It won’t.

So start sketching the next version — the one only we can build. Because design doesn’t need saving.

It needs momentum.

*AI Generated Content

I got curious.

This is what ChatGPT thinks we need to hear right now.

What do you think? Does it hit home?

Are you one of the many who’s been asking this?

AI Prompt:

“Write a post based on what you are currently hearing from Industrial Designers around the world, and what you think they need to hear. And come up with an image too.”

ChatGPT:

“Here’s the kind of post I’d write if I had total freedom to talk to the industrial design community on LinkedIn”And that still starts with us.

Industrial Designers International - https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13176226/