D&AD’s Paul Drake: “human craft will win out” isn’t enough reassurance

Paul Drake, Foundation Director at D&AD

A big question at an uncertain time, which means I’ll no doubt look back on this article with a glow of embarrassment.

But for emerging talent, the uncertainty is already very real: from where and how creative opportunities will appear to the impact AI may have on the work and the opportunities available to them. Over the next three years, starting a creative career may well feel more nebulous than ever.

The comforting response is to say that ‘human craft will win out’. Maybe it will. But those starting out in the next three years will need more than reassurance.

They will need to hold on to what makes their work distinctly human: taste, imagination, judgement and empathy, while learning how tools, old and new, can help amplify it.

And uncertainty will bring opportunity. Careers will become less linear. Creative people will apply their skills to bigger problems, start businesses rather than wait for briefs, move between disciplines, and create roles that don’t yet have names.

To make the most of these opportunities, creatives will need a new way of approaching their careers. I like Ricardo Semler’s description of careers as gardens rather than ladders. Some things flourish; others die back. Entire patches lie dormant before suddenly blooming. Unexpected things grow where you never planted them. The gardener doesn’t control every outcome; they pay attention and respond.

So, a few hopes over the next three years:

That we’ve remembered why creativity matters, our industry’s belief has returned, and we have got much better at explaining its value.

That entry-level roles have been redesigned not around efficiency, but around how new tools can help raise the creative bar.

And that, instead of simply telling emerging creatives that their taste and judgement will save them, we’ve actually helped them develop both.