Caterina Bianchini: we can’t ask where the good designers are if we won’t help anyone become one

It’s a tough time for people starting out in the creative industry right now. Together with Creative Lives in Progress we asked 27 people to predict what starting a creative career will look like over the next three years.

Words: It's Nice That
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Date: 9 November 2026
Tags: Career Predictions

Starting a creative career has rarely felt harder. Junior roles are disappearing, budgets are tightening and AI is taking over much of the work that new starters once learned on. So we asked studio founders, recruiters, educators, organisations and emerging creatives themselves to predict what they think starting a creative career will look like over the next three years. What skills will matter most? How will the pipeline work? And what can people do to take advantage of new opportunities? Their answers will help shape how Creative Lives in Progress can best support emerging talent through this period and beyond.

Contributor specific paragraph.

Caterina Bianchini, Co-Founder and Executive Creative Director at NARI

I keep reading that AI will take the entry-level work, so young creatives need to arrive with taste, judgement and a point of view. That’s a lot to expect from someone the industry hasn’t given a chance yet.

At NARI, we will keep hiring juniors. I think using AI to replace the first rung of a creative career is short-sighted, particularly when so much of becoming a good designer happens on the job.

Some of that learning comes through work that looks fairly unremarkable from the outside. Reworking a layout, trying different crops, preparing a presentation. You start to understand why something works because you’ve spent time getting it wrong, discussing it with someone more experienced and working through it together. Sitting in a client meeting teaches you things you wouldn’t discover by making work on your own.

If we remove those opportunities, I’m not sure how we expect people to become the experienced designers we’ll want to hire a few years later. Most of us benefited from someone being willing to spend time on us before we were particularly useful.

“You start to understand why something works because you’ve spent time getting it wrong, discussing it with someone more experienced and working through it together.”
Caterina Bianchini, Co-Founder and Executive Creative Director at NARI

And juniors contribute well before they’ve mastered the job. They bring references into the studio that I would never have found myself. I want to work with people whose interests take the work somewhere I wouldn’t have thought to go. Giving them room to contribute is part of keeping a studio interesting.

AI will change what junior designers spend their time doing. We’ll need to rethink how we teach, and make sure there’s still room to experiment and make mistakes. That takes effort from the people running studios.

For anyone starting out, I’d still say: keep making things. Follow what interests you and get used to explaining your decisions. Your judgement develops as you work.

For those of us hiring, we have a responsibility here too. We can’t keep asking where all the good designers are if we’re unwilling to help anyone become one.

This series has been put together in collaboration with It's Nice That's sister company Creative Lives in Progress; a creative careers resource, on a mission to transform the way emerging talent access, understand and connect with the industry. Find out more at creativelivesinprogress.com