If you’re going to run a design-led business, it’s inevitable that you will need to talk strategy with your clients. Here are some of the types of strategies you might create as a design businessperson, plus some thoughts on how these different strategies might support the efforts of your clients.

Despite the connectedness of the current business world, aspiring design professionals face new challenges in the age-old problem of getting noticed, especially by the elite practitioners. George Nelson’s wit and insights helped me understand design as both a serious profession and a creative adventure. Here are a few of his choice observations and some thoughts on the special relationship we know as mentoring.

As a mother of two and a full-time art director at Savage, I regularly battle the ups and downs of being a mom in a designer’s world. Although it can be overwhelming at times, it can also be highly rewarding. As everyone handles the balance in their own way, I’ve assembled some thoughts and advice for creative working mothers.

If instances of self-questioning about working in-house become a catalyst for self-doubt, why not redirect some of that energy toward constructive self-evaluation? We can’t count on having control over everything that affects our design careers, but we can establish focus, build accountability and develop a newfound sense of assurance about our professional trajectory in-house.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about design’s power to do good and foster change on a mass scale. Sure, I drink that Kool-Aid, serving it up to my clients and students, too. Sometimes, though, the best “good” design is for a small audience of the people closest to us. Pentagram partner...

I’ve been an AIGA member since I moved to Raleigh in 2009, and in that time I have gained so much through what I have given to the chapter. As a chapter, our mission is to create a place where design thrives. What I found through my involvement with AIGA Raleigh is a place where I thrive, too.

Creative professionals with a concept that has the potential to ignite positive change are invited to apply for a “Design Ignites Change | AIGA Fellowship,” which provides seed funding and professional guidance.