Event Takeaways
- Design as Practice, Not Discipline – Exploring design beyond rigid categories to reflect personal, lived experience.
- Fear as a Creative Signal – Using fear not as a barrier but as a prompt for growth and direction.
- Learning Through Doing – Valuing hands-on experiences and real-world engagement as essential to developing design intuition.
- Designing with and for People – Honouring dignity, listening deeply, and building systems that respond to human needs.
- Taste, Uniqueness, and Differentiation – Encouraging designers to cultivate their own voice to differentiate themselves in a field of sameness.
Moderated by Michael Dila, the conversation featured three creative leaders—Helen Kerr, Tina Santiago Keenan, and Dominic Ayre—whose design paths have spanned industrial design, immersive experiences, UX, brand systems, and beyond.
Following a Winding Road
Each panelist began with stories of how they got into design, and it wasn’t a straight line. Helen studied environmental science before stumbling into graphic design, then circled back to industrial design and eventually shifted her focus to sustainability and futures work. Tina started as a curious, entrepreneurial eight-year-old and moved through psychology, documentary film, UX, and immersive escape room design. Dominic’s journey began with graffiti and hip hop in England, which led him to graphic design and eventually to co-owning a creative agency.
These origin stories revealed a theme: design practice is something that evolves, shaped more by curiosity, side hustles, and the desire to make things than by a pre-determined track.
The Tools and Experiences that Shape Designers
One question asked what percent of a designer’s skills come from formal education. The answers? Mixed. Helen and Tina both emphasized the value of community and learning how to learn. Tina said the biggest takeaway from school was “going into the trenches” with classmates. Helen noted that the most lasting lessons came not from content, but from working with others.
Dominic was more direct: “None,” he said—though he later clarified that his teaching career has taught him what he shouldn’t pass on. His point: a lot of real learning happens after graduation. The message? Experience, not curriculum, is where creative identity takes shape.
Working in Post-Normal Times
Helen shared how her work has shifted from making physical products to designing strategies for complex global challenges—like regenerative agriculture across 27 Pacific nations. She referenced the concept of “post-normal times,” marked by high levels of chaos, contradiction, and complexity. In this space, she explained, the old ways of problem-solving don’t work anymore. Designers need new approaches—and new mindsets.
Tina described how her team uses ChatGPT to turn customer feedback into design insights more efficiently. Tools like these aren’t just time-savers; they’re reshaping how designers close the loop between experience and iteration.
Dominic described working with a food bank in Midland, Ontario, where the challenge wasn’t creating a visual identity, but designing for dignity. “…understanding how you design for somebody to put them in a place of dignity when they're at times, in their lowest spot.” That project shifted his understanding of design’s purpose.
Making Room for Taste and Differentiation
Much of the discussion focused on taste—how it’s cultivated, how it’s shared, and how it’s constrained. Tina broke it down into a formula: attention, time, and sensitivity. She explained how her husband’s ability to detect berry notes in coffee stems from repeatedly paying attention to flavour. For designers, the same applies: “You want to experience 100 things before you make one.”
Helen and Dominic both reflected on how current tools may streamline design but also flatten it. Many students, they noted, conform to trends out of fear. “People are afraid to do something wrong,” Helen said. In essence, she inferred we’ve all been taught to polish instead of provoke.
Dominic argued that the perfectionism taught in many design programs actually stifles creativity. He encouraged students to “just absorb”—to walk, to observe, to stay open. “Graphic design is one of the worst programs,” he quipped because it teaches one how not to take risks.
Fear, Love, and Showing Up Anyway
When asked how they deal with fear, all three panelists offered vulnerable reflections. Tina talked about transforming fear into love; how to make decisions out of love, not fear. How to run to something, not away from it.
Helen spoke about being the only woman in industrial design spaces early in her career, always feeling she had to be twice as good. Her mantra now? “Do good. Dream big. Spread joy.”
Dominic admitted his default is anxiety. But over time, and with therapy, he’s found connection to be the best antidote, explaining that at 2 a.m., he catastrophizes. At 6:30, his wife wakes up, and they talk and that helps.
Fast Work, Deep Work, and Choosing the Right Pace
Time became another key theme. Helen shared that some of her projects take years—including a seven-year furniture project. Tina reflected on building her first escape rooms in less than a year, “a lot of them were broken, and they are still broken today. But the trade-off there is, we learned a ton and we learned a ton fast, so we're still making improvements 10 years later.”
Sometimes, speed delivers quick insight; other times, depth demands duration. Knowing when to go fast and when to slow down is part of the practice.
Closing thought: A Practice in Progress
If there was a single takeaway from this Café Talk, it was this: design is a lifelong, adaptive practice, always shifting, always incomplete, always personal.
To stay relevant, the panelists agreed: get out into the world, absorb everything, ask questions, and never stop learning. Run toward the thing that scares you. Make space for joy. Take a field trip with strangers every now and again. Ultimately, care about what (and who) you’re designing for.
And maybe, just maybe, let your fridge be a little messy.
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About Design Meets
Proudly sponsored by Pivot Design Group, founded by Ian Chalmers, DesignMeets is a series of social events where the design community can connect, collaborate, and share ideas. Join us at a DesignMeets event to network, learn, and be inspired.
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Thank you to Ethica Coffee Roasters and Rotman Business Design Initiative (BDI) for sponsoring this event.