• Getting your business to the stage of maturity when you can confidently decline requests for free creative work isn’t a quick fix – but there were plenty of valuable tips shared.
• These included developing your own client engagement policies, having a clear perspective on the issue to help to educate clients, collating evidence to prove your worth (the DBA Design Effectiveness Awards can help you to build solid case studies) and establishing core values that act as guiding principles. 
• Having a policy in place that pushes back on free pitches shows the creative team internally how valued they are – it reinforces the culture you’re trying to foster and underlines that you’re operating as a professional consultancy.
• Asking yourselves internally ‘When are we at our best’ can support you as a team to build your own relationship agreement from the outset. Include this in your credentials/capabilities deck. 
• Building strong, authentic relationships can help you bypass the pitch all together – the latest ‘What Clients Think’ Report can support with this. 
• There are trade offs: RFP’s still take time to compile. But if you’re not giving away creative work or ideas, you’re more likely to attract better-aligned clients.
• Clients might request free work if they aren’t seeing much differentiation between agencies – specialist firms tend not to have the free pitching problem. 
• Blair Enns’ Win Without Pitching is a great source of advice on this topic, and the 2 Bobs podcast comes highly recommended. 
• One member talked us through how they turned around a request for free creative with a meeting to understand the clients exact deliverables, which they answered with a proposal of the amount of time that would take to deliver and the associated costs. 
• Our very own Adam Fennelow, Membership Director at the DBA shared a clear illustration of why giving away free creative doesn’t make financial sense. Download the slides for the hard data behind the case.
• One important note is the amount of fee revenue vs your total income – large clients won’t want to make up more than 15-20% of your income, any more makes it risky for all involved – perhaps a question for the very beginning of the process.
• The DBA’s guides on this topic are all easy to find in the resources section of our website. From specific advice for agencies, information you can share with your clients and an example response to requests – we’re here to support you get paid for all the work you do. 

The 11th annual ‘What Clients Think’ report by Up to the Light was launched recently in a DBA webinar. Based on 680 in-depth client interviews, the report gives you a unique view into client/agency relationships. 

The ‘What Clients Think’ report is a valuable tool for agencies and clients alike. It helps agencies put themselves in their clients’ shoes and predict reactions and objections before they are raised. For clients, it enables them to benchmark the issues they face, their approach to design and the relationship they have with their agencies.

The report is divided into three sections: ‘Client World’, ‘Winning Clients’ and ‘Retaining & Growing Clients’. It particularly helps agencies plan new business approaches, assess their client servicing and improve relationships, because as report author Jonathan Kirk highlights, “client/agency relationships rarely break down due to creative work, it is usually around a servicing issue”.

Here are my top five take-outs from the report and launch event:

Agencies need to better understand potential clients

Be clear on what you do

Websites can work harder

'Value for money' is rarely about money

Case studies need a closer look

2025 'What Clients Think' report

Up to the Light’s 11th annual report is based on 680 client interviews conducted on behalf of creative agencies. It is not to be missed by anyone involved in client/agency relationships and is packed with invaluable feedback and insight. Download your copy. 

DBA members can watch a full recording of the DBA webinar launching the report.

• At each stage of your marketing journey, there’s a risk that your customers start hesitating before purchase – cost of hesitation trend. This could be because there is now so much AI and sponsored content in response to their searches, before they reach the natural search content they’re looking for, that a lack of trust creeps in to what they’re seeing online, and if it’s real; there are question marks around safety. 
• Hesitation in your marketing funnel is going to have an associated cost. We’ve worked so hard to make digital interactions seamless but this has impacted trust. If people move from hesitation to abandonment, that’s a very real cost that will seep through to margins and volumes.
• If anything, growing economic uncertainty may increase the impact of this trend, as people become choosier / more careful about where and how they spend their money.
• The parent trap comes from a rise in wanting the best for children and young people, but understanding that those things may also be harmful. A rise in both ground-up action and top-down legislation around reducing smartphone and social media use by children and adolescents may make them and families hard-to-reach audiences. If a proportion of your target market disappears in this way, how do you reach them, and how do you do that ethically?
• A growing impatience economy means people are increasingly looking to influencers and people online to shortcut them to things that really matter in their lives around health, wealth and happiness. This is shifting views on where authoritative content is coming from, with people choosing advice delivered in a relatable and attractive format over guidance from sources that are traditionally more reliable, e.g. banks or newspapers. Relatability of content is winning out.
• The value exchange between employer and employee is at risk at the moment and it’s fracturing. Culture is near impossible to create in remote environments leading to the ‘dehumanisation of work’, where the emphasis placed on metrics and productivity, before employees hear or see anything about being human or culture, is affecting the way people feel about their work. Increasingly things that people care about, such as DEI and sustainability, are being deprioritised, and this can have a knock-on effect on employee engagement, which is going to be an increasing concern for CEO’s.
• AI has the potential to further erode the dignity of work if the way it is used decreases, rather than enhances, someone’s dignity at work – e.g. using AI to review someone’s work. AI is not a colleague so don’t call it Susan – it’s a technology.
• There is a growing trend towards rebalancing our lives from overuse of digital – social rewilding. People are increasingly wanting to get out more and see people more. The unit value and novelty of digital experiences is going down because they’re overabundant, particularly with the rise of AI. Versus real life experiences, with texture, locality and culture.

Chief Executive of the DBA, Deborah Dawton, also talked through some observations and insights gathered at her recent attendance of three conferences: ‘The Future Of…’ in Chicago in March, the national conference for CHEAD (The Council for Higher Education Art & Design establishments) and the Design Management Institute’s annual European conference last week in Amsterdam.

• We all know the spotlight is falling on cutting costs and driving optimisation in business. However, for designers the opportunity lies, as it did during COVID, in the value creation space. Think about the now, the near, and the far timeline that your clients’ are working to – consider where you could be making an impact – have their horizons flipped to very near term and meeting this quarter’s targets? How can you help? Can you prioritise your efforts?
• Also, be prepared to start with evidence before selling in a major strategy. What do I mean by this? We often try to sell the really big picture which requires a lot of trust to be placed in us. So go in with a couple of quick wins that evidence your ability to deliver what’s needed so that you instil confidence in your ability to deliver against the strategy that you have up your sleeve!
• And of course, it’s never been more important to evidence the impact of what you do. That’s why the DBA is giving every member a free entry into the DBA Design Effectiveness Awards this year. Even if you don’t actually submit a case to us this year (although we hope you do and are here to help), use the guidance in this pack as a template on how to articulate the value of your work. There has perhaps never been a more important time to do this given the context most of us find ourselves operating in today.

Coming up

There was much, much more covered in the hour. Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 6 May, 4-5pm BST with further details to follow.

Keep:

1. Putting the value of design on a stage, ensuring it’s seen as a strategic force to drive the business forward.

2. Focusing on improved efficiency and effectiveness.

3. Nurturing a strong design culture – ensuring we’re doing the right things with the best talent, and processes aren’t getting in the way.

4. Being tightly integrated with cross-functional business and agency partners for deep understanding, collaboration and agility.

5. Staying human-centered, putting customers and human language first.

6. Synthesizing emerging insights to solve complex problems, create clear frameworks, and put new and innovative ideas forward.

7. Building trust through diplomacy and politics to move design forward.

8. Ensuring the entire end-to-end customer journey creates the brand.

9. Infusing design with AI, as a tool in service to humanity.

Stop:

1. Being a victim, complaining; lacking empathy for business leaders.

2. Tearing each other down instead of lifting each other up.

3. Giving no/little feedback, or failing to give feedback in an empowering way.

4. Using dated terminology that diminishes the value of design.

5. Trying to do too much with fewer people – a recipe for mediocrity.

Start:

1. Recharting the mandate for design in your organisation to reflect the need today.

2. Being a constructive change agent within your organisation, expert at bringing people with you.

3. Pausing to think beyond daily demands – you’ve got to collect the dots to connect the dots.

4. Being involved in building the business strategy, speaking the language of business with expert fluency.

5. Defining skill sets for the future of design and training for them.

6. Building clear metrics into every brief to reinforce the value design will bring.

7. Having and reporting qualitative and quantitative ways to measure design impact.

8. Rewarding people for winning behaviors, those that will help the organisation achieve its growth strategy.

9. Choosing where to put our time and energy – where can we bring an elite level of excellence? Where can we be world-class? Where are we not really qualified?

The Future Of… conference was created to inspire conversation and dialogue on the present path and trajectory of design. Where are we now? How did we get here? What might we learn with, and from others? What might we do together to reshape The Future Of… Design.

Speakers at the conference included the DBA’s Chief Executive, Deborah Dawton, GE Healthcare’s Chuck Jones, 3M’s Brian Rice, Whirlpool’s Ken Musgrave, Newell’s Kris Malkoski, and current and former heads of Design from Verizon, PepsiCo, Duracell, J.M. Smucker, Colgate-Palmolive, Procter & Gamble, Burger King, McKinsey, BP, and more.

The conference took place in Chicago, USA on 12 and 13 March 2025 and was hosted by David Butler, Fred Richards and DBA Board Director, John Gleason.

Reinforce the value design brings

The DBA champions the role of effective design in the creation of business growth.

If you want to convincingly demonstrate and prove the effectiveness and impact of the design work you and your team produce, the unique accreditation of winning a DBA Design Effectiveness Award gives you the ability to do this.

Download an Entry Pack and enter by 5pm BST Monday 14 July 2025.

Events, Programmes and Marketing Coordinator

This is a fast paced, details orientated role in a dynamic and creative industry. Your role will be to administer, coordinate and support our programmes of events, training, member services, marketing and communications. Reporting into the Events and Programmes Manager it will be an important part of your role to ensure that quality is maintained at a very high level. You will also be a point of contact for the DBA’s membership, answering enquiries and providing an excellent level of customer service across the business. And finally, you’ll provide essential support with tasks across the business, as and when needed.

This integral role will support other team members, and as we’re a small team, you’ll quickly be immersed in the design industry and gain exposure to all parts of the business and how we operate. You’ll learn a lot in a short amount of time and be able to contribute ideas and use your initiative, whilst maintaining and developing key processes.

Download the full job description. 

Key details and benefits

Salary: £30k per annum

Salary sacrifice pension: 5% employer contribution

Fully paid Vitality medical insurance

Contract type: Full time, permanent, flexible working environment (see below for further information).

While many of our events are online, we run a series of regional events around the UK which you will be expected to attend, so you would need to be able to get into Central London easily, whilst being willing to occasionally travel throughout the UK.

Reporting to: Events and Programmes Manager.

Download the full job description for further information including how we work.

How to apply

Please email Sally Lukins, Managing Director at the DBA at sally@dba.org.uk attaching your CV and a covering letter which explains why you want this job and outlining how your skills and experience match what we’re looking for.

Please use the subject line: DBA Events, Programmes and Marketing Coordinator application.

CVs without an explanatory cover letter will not be reviewed.

We will not be using any form of AI to shortlist or review your application. Please use your own thoughts and language to construct all parts of your application. Applications constructed by AI will not be considered.

Deadline for applications: Friday 28 March 2025.

Interviews will take place in person in central London.

First stage interviews on Monday 7 April and second stage interviews on Thursday 10 April.

• Measuring productivity in the creative industries is complex, while traditional KPIs and OKRs are useful to see how we’re doing, over-monitoring can stifle creativity and make people feel they are under surveillance.
• There’s no need to reinvent how you measure productivity – simple tools like weekly surveys with just two key questions can provide valuable insights without overcomplicating matters.
• Creativity thrives on both structured and unstructured time. Routines matter, and Alex highlighted the importance of layering deep work sessions (90-mins to 2-hours) with 30-minute breaks whether a walk or a bit of gardening – to allow for reflection. This balance increases the chances of generating fresh ideas.
• As leaders, we need to strike the right balance between where we do our best creative work and be more thoughtful about how we design good routines that enable individuals to thrive.
• Creating an environment that gets the best from people means balancing individual agency with clear expectations. Setting core in-office times for collaboration – rather than scheduling unnecessary meetings – helps teams work more effectively together.
• Efficiency gains, through automation or AI tools, should create space for deeper thinking rather than simply making room for more tasks.
• Meetings should have a clear purpose and an agenda and while AI tools like Otter or Fathom can capture notes, writing things down remains a powerful way to follow through. 
• Rest is critical – don’t wait until it’s forced upon you. Make time for breaks, use your holidays fully, and properly switch off. Investing in rest now will pay off in the long run.
• Alex’s book Work Less, Do More, explores how companies and individuals can better integrate rest, creativity, and focus into their work and lives – well worth a read if this resonates with you.

Coming up

There was much, much more covered in the hour. Our next meeting will be on Monday 7 April, 4-5pm BST where we’ll be joined by Mark Curtis, Head of Innovation and Thought Leadership at Accenture Song. Mark will take us through their latest Accenture Life Trends 2025 Report which highlights how people’s behaviours and attitudes are shifting in relation to the world around them and how these shifts are impacting our businesses. 

The Future Of… conference was created to inspire conversation and dialogue on the present path and trajectory of design. Where are we now? How did we get here? What might we learn with, and from others? What might we do together to reshape The Future Of… Design.

Speakers confirmed alongside the DBA’s Chief Executive, Deborah Dawton include PepsiCo’s Mauro Porcini, GE Healthcare’s Chuck Jones, 3M’s Brian Rice, Whirlpool’s Ken Musgrave, Newell’s Kris Malkoski, and current and former heads of Design from Verizon, Duracell, J.M. Smucker, Colgate-Palmolive, Procter & Gamble, Burger King, McKinsey, BP, and more.

Brands and companies due to join the conference conversations include Frontier Airlines, Gallo, Georgia-Pacific, Haleon, Johnson & Johnson, W.K. Kellogg, Kimberly-Clark, KraftHeinz, Mars, McDonalds, Microsoft, Mondelez, Nestlé, Nike, SJ Johnson, United Air Lines, Weber Grills and others.

Agencies, consultancy, research firms and suppliers will also be in attendance. 

The first day of the conference on 12 March is exclusively for corporate/brand-side design and business leaders, while the second day, 13 March, is open to all client-side design and business leaders, as well as senior leaders in agency, consultancy, and supplier organisations (although the conference requests no sales or business development leaders, please).  

Friends and members of the DBA receive a 10% discount off bookings made by 28 February. Use promo code DBA2025 when securing your place.

The conference is hosted by David Butler, Fred Richards and DBA Board Director, John Gleason.

Says Gleason, “This is not a traditional Design conference. We are not talking about the artifacts that we create, of how brilliant we all believe ourselves to be. We do plan to talk about the things that we often do not say out loud, so that we might, then, do something about them.” 

More information about the conference programme and speakers can be found at thefutureof-conference.com and if you have any questions, contact John Gleason at john@GetABetterView.com 

The Future Of… conference will take place at REVEL Motor Row, Chicago, IL 60616 USA on 12 and 13 March. 

AI in productivity and practice 

• One thing AI can immediately support with is productivity: Fathom and Otter AI were mentioned as note takers that can not only summarise actions points but also enable people to re-watch meetings. Other tools mentioned included Motion (for planning and productivity), Perplexity (for research), Claude AI (for brainstorming).
• Agentic AI was highlighted as an emerging area of AI development to keep an eye on. 
• One member shared their 5 laws of AI and reinforced that human creativity remains central – AI can be the ‘filling in the sandwich’. 
• Another member described how they have integrated an AI brand manager into their internal Slack channels, demonstrating innovative ways of working with AI.
• If you’re looking for specific training in this area for your team, there are of course a multitude of options but Seedily, Pratt and Spark were recommended on the call. And a great point was made about training for all – try and build a studio-wide enthusiasm for this and how it could help in all roles – even the sceptics were enthused at one member agency.

Legal and IP considerations

• The IPO has a consultation open until 25 Feb on copyright and AI – do take part, it’s an important consideration for our industry. We at the DBA will talk to Anti Copying in Design (ACID) about a joint response.
• If you’re concerned about your work being used to train AI without explicit consent, ACID has published an open letter with recommendations. Contact Laura for further details on ACID’s work in this space, and to contribute your thinking.
• From a legal perspective, consider updating your T&C’s, Privacy Policy and internal policy as a triple lock.
• If there is collaboration between employers and employees in designing and building AI systems, ownership and IP rights of such systems should be set out clearly in the employment contract. Perhaps it’s time to review some areas of HR.

Finally, if you’re wondering whether AI is going to take our jobs? Remember what designers can do that others can’t – watch this webinar with Kevin McCullagh from last year.  

Coming up

There was much, much more covered in the hour. Our next meeting will be on Monday 3 March, 4-5pm GMT when we’ll be joined by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, author of ‘Work Less Do More: Designing the Four Day Week’ to challenge the ways that we think about productivity. 

The forward-thinking, dmi:Design Management Conference “SHIFT: Transformations in Design & Innovation Leadership” will address evolving challenges, emerging frontiers, and the future of innovation, equipping design leaders with the insights needed to navigate change and lead with agility in a dynamic landscape.

The conference will take place from 1 to 2 April 2025 at Oosterdokskade 163, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

There is also an optional workshop on 31 March from 2 to 6pm. 

Conference attendees will: 

• Explore and share how Design Leaders are embracing or plan to embrace AI as a catalyst for transformation.
• Share or gain insights into new methods, processes and tools, essential for navigating the shifting business landscape.
• Hear how leaders are driving innovative solutions to meet evolving market changes and disruptions.

Browse conference topics, speakers and registration fees.

Access the DBA member discount code for 10% off the conference registration fee.