I DON’T WANT TO BE A DESIGNFLUENCER
It seems that being just a designer isn’t enough anymore.
I’m sorry. I don’t want to be a designfluencer okay? That shouldn’t be such a crime.
It’s rough out here. Super rough. I’m a brand designer and I’ve built my entire career around helping businesses show up with intention, deep strategy, and a visual identity to match. But in 2026 that’s not enough.
To have any solid authority in this space apparently I have to also be some kind of a designfluencer who posts themselves online just to be visible enough to grow a following and get clients.
And there’s a big part of me that feels pretty uncomfortable about doing that.
But not because of anything like front-of-camera nerves or anxiety. Because of cybersecurity.
The world we live in is pretty fucked. AI’s capabilities have moved faster than any of us have been able to keep up with, but not in an AI-is-going-to-steal-your-job kind of way. More in a someone-on-the-internet-could-steal-your-identity kind of way. Because things like face recognition, voice cloning, and deepfakes are now apparently easily-accessible software, and I hate it here.
I don’t know if other people in this industry aren’t talking about this because they’re not thinking about it, or maybe they just don’t care. And perhaps I’m more conscious of this because I’ve quite literally had my identity stolen, so all of these fears in fact are very real.
But still, here I am voluntarily posting my face and words on the internet. Incredibly contradicting, I know.
Cyber-safety aside, I also just don’t want to make content.
I don’t want to do it. Simple as that.
I don’t want to share my life online. I don’t want people to know the suburb I live in and where I get my morning coffee and where I go for walks and which gym I go to and what time of the day I’m normally there and what I eat for breakfast and what my OOTD is.
Also the storage on my phone is eternally fucked and recording anything beyond about a 1 minute video requires at least 20 minutes of sifting through my phone and camera roll to see what I can delete to free up more space and if this sounds like my idea of torture, it’s because it basically is.
And as much as I don’t want to, here I am.
Because what’s the alternative? Quit my dreams, shut down my business, go get a job at an agency or an in-house role and work for someone else just to keep my identity safe and to avoid an online presence?
We live in such a bizarre modern world where the advice is simultaneously: get off your phone, have less screen time, protect your mental health, be present, we only have one life so make sure you live it to the fullest.
But also: have content pillars, have a social media strategy, post 5+ reels a week, stay consistent, show up online every day because if you don’t your business is doomed and you are destined for failure.
It’s an impossible balance. On paper, those two things should not coexist. But in today’s world, somehow they do.
I became a designer because I wanted to design incredibly strategic and beautiful brands, and to solve problems for businesses that deserve way better than mediocre branding. I never signed up to be a content creator. And I certainly never expected that marketing myself would become as demanding as the design work itself.
I can’t even imagine how the creatives feel who have been in the biz for 25+ years.
And so here we are. Existential crisis mode well and truly activated. And reluctantly trying my hand at content creation. Heavy on the ‘reluctantly’.
I am completely and utterly defeated by an algorithm, so I’m sending my biometric data out into the abyss just in an attempt to have a more successful business. The whole thing is a bit absurd really.
So I guess we’ll see how this goes.
