Templo’s Pali Palavathanan on design school privilege – and why AI could be the equaliser

Pali Palavathanan, Co-Founder and Creative Director at Templo

As we all know, starting a creative career over the next three years will take place in an industry still under real pressure and in a state of flux.

We’ve watched well-established agencies shut down, scale back or rethink their models, often driven by clients losing confidence as they navigate shifting markets, tariffs and geopolitical uncertainty. All of this is amplified by media that feeds into the doom and gloom. All of this context means junior roles have become rarer and the competition for those that remain is daunting.

That’s the wider context, which we’re all well aware of, but what’s often not talked about is how much energy nurturing junior talent actually requires for agencies.

Hiring a junior is a symbiotic, two-way relationship: the agency takes on the responsibility of sharing knowledge, showing the ropes and providing briefs that allow young talent to express themselves creatively, while the graduate brings fresh thinking and the willingness to learn.

It is a process that takes time and patience. Neither of which we have any more. This means there’s a massive pressure on graduates to prove a higher level of finishing and thinking than ever before. With so many creative tools now free and widely accessible, they’re expected to be as reliable as more experienced freelancers. It’s not fair but it’s the reality of where we are.

These external pressures are compounded and interconnected with the socio-economic factors of who actually gets to acquire design education now.

It’s no secret that design education, especially in and around London, has effectively become a private school. I hate that it’s become a space of privilege for those who can afford it, almost completely wiping out working-class people from coming up in the industry. Growing up on council estates as a refugee, there’s no way I would have been able to afford a creative education at a major London university now (without a lot of financial help), and even if I did manage it, in order to survive, I would have needed an industry job immediately. Unheard of these days.

All of this means we’re seeing a cohort of graduates who have the know-how, pre-existing connections, networks and general confidence to adapt to the changing landscape of the design industry. So they’ll be ok but what about everyone else?

Another complication that’s emerged this year, which we’ve noticed first hand, is big brands within the design space trying to act as a bridge between graduates and design studios, subsidising the first few months of internships on behalf of agencies.

This seems to be creating a false sense of hope and salary expectations for graduates as these opportunities don’t seem to lead to jobs. It also feels like a massive gate-keeping step back for the industry as these opportunities are reserved for a select few universities without strong connections to industry.

So what next? I can see future young creatives bypassing formal creative education altogether as AI becomes more capable. Yes the ethics and environmental costs need addressing but maybe AI can act as an equaliser, especially for those who now can’t afford higher education. If I was 18 now, I could imagine doing this myself. The narrative is often about agencies no longer needing younger creatives but I think it’s just as likely graduates won’t need agencies in the same way too.