Reports on design trends multiply by the year, yet most focus on surface-level discussions, from upcoming typefaces to color forecasts. Fewer efforts unpack the context we design in: the social, economic, and emotional realities beneath the surface. A research-based project for and by the creative community, Design Threads attempts to unravel some of those big knots together.

Weaving together research, quotes, insights, visual content and interactive elements, the digital report is organized into four different ‘threads.’ Each is centered around a different set of realities that designers face today: from dismantling Eurocentric design standards to the moodboard effect, infographic activism to AI-insecurity.

Instead of providing answers, the report brings a series of urgent questions to the surface: What is good design? Who gets to decide? How are designers feeling right now? Are we tasked with too much? Are we doing enough? How is our role changing? Where does design go from here?

Installed at the Wix Playground across from The Whitney in Manhattan, the Design Threads exhibition brought the insights from the report to a wider public. Making space for new dialogue, the work encouraged viewers to engage with design in a different way — not only in visual terms, but in the context of our shared atmosphere.

Whether calling out the inequities of the design world or praising the democratizing power of Dall-E — we found that people wanted to talk (about more than Pantones or font preferences). Creatives shared what kept them up at night and the real problems they couldn’t design themselves out of. We learned that if you make space for people to share, they will do so honestly, and that taking our collective temperature could be a necessary step to understanding what it means to design today. While this is our first attempt, if the goal is to unravel the state of design the task doesn’t end here — it’s for all of us to make spaces of our own.

To read the full report, visit www.designthreads.report