The brand landscape is not just competitive right now, it is brutal. Attention is the scarcest resource on the planet (thanks to social media, influencer culture, and the speed of tech) and every brand on earth, from a Fortune 500 to a one-person Etsy operation, is fighting for the same three seconds of it. Most of them are losing.

The brand landscape is not just competitive right now, it is brutal. Attention is the scarcest resource on the planet (thanks to social media, influencer culture, and the speed of tech) and every brand on earth, from a Fortune 500 to a one-person Etsy operation, is fighting for the same three seconds of it. Most of them are losing.

Designers are in full Darwinian survival mode right now, and it is palpable. Do or die, adapt or perish. We are rapid-iterating technology in real time — monetizing it, stress-testing it, selecting the best tools for the herd — all while trying to make our workflows tighter, faster, instantaneous. We are relearning what design even means while simultaneously being asked to produce more of it.