Things are looking quite familiar these days. From online shops to social apps, even streaming TV, much of our online ecosystem feels like copies of copies. We may have mastered the science of making things easy-to-use and highly efficient for conversions, but the resulting effect is a pervasive sameness that isn’t good for business or good for people.

How did we get here? When did our collective attention shift away from designing and creating things that were original and great and focus instead on optimising and scaling existing ideas towards the median?

This phenomenon isn’t isolated, but rather is just one example of a cyclical pattern in business: as industries scale, creativity often takes a backseat. But when did this particular cycle begin? Let’s wind the clock back 10 years.

In hindsight, it seems a torch was passed – from a period of design that was fueled by creativity and originality to one of structure and predictability

It’s 2014 and Facebook – one of the great design innovators of the preceding decade has retired its ‘move fast and break things’ motto. Flawed though it may have been, the ethos at least encouraged the pursuit of something different and better. That same year, Google, another trailblazer, introduced its open-source Material Design, a system of pre-built design components for creating consistent, scalable digital experiences.

While the two occurrences were unrelated, perhaps they signalled a broader shift. In hindsight, it seems a torch was passed – from a period of design that was fueled by creativity and originality to one of structure and predictability.

In the subsequent decade, the mass of digital experiences we use every day has become awash with homogeneity. But when everything is the same, the greatest opportunity is to zag when the world zigs – to create new things, to make things so much better and different that our averaged-out digital world gets a little brighter. This is how we can break free.

THE RISE OF BEST PRACTICES AND DESIGN SYSTEMS

In the 2010s, digital business — paced by companies including Google, Facebook, Netflix and Amazon — expanded rapidly. To manage the explosive demand from consumers for digitally delivered value and to ensure consistent, performant experiences across a growing number of devices, organisations needed a streamlined approach to design. Solutions came in the form of scaled design orgs, off-the-shelf best practices and internal company design systems.

These systems and practices, which relied on an adherence to predefined structures, empowered designers to quickly and efficiently create easy-to-use, predictable, scalable products. The aforementioned Material Design and Microsoft’s Fluent Design System were just a few of the era’s influential examples. However, while these internal systems allowed for consistency, they came at a cultural cost. Focus inherently shifted away from creativity, originality and experimentation and we edged toward a design monoculture.

This shift didn’t just affect the design of digital products — it went upstream. It transformed how designers were trained. As rapidly scaling tech companies needed to expand their design capabilities, bootcamps and fast-track programmes emerged to meet the demand. Noted examples like General Assembly and Designlab trained tens of thousands of new professionals to fit right into these scaling design orgs, with the allure of high-paying careers.

It feels as though the prototypical design professional is no longer a creative problem-solver, but an implementer of templates and frameworks

Programmes like these did their job well, quickly preparing designers to meet the needs of future employers. The problem was, those demands were for scale, efficiency and optimisation. As a result, some have argued that these training initiatives abandoned core design fundamentals. No longer was there an emphasis on the role of creativity in design, discussion and debate around taste, nor the formative experience of developing individual styles.

Today, the role of the designer has gradually shifted. It feels as though the prototypical design professional is no longer a creative problem-solver, but an implementer of templates and frameworks. A case could be made that we’ve entered a feedback loop, where industry demand shapes design education, and design education, in turn, shapes the industry’s preference for efficiency over originality.

BREAKING FREE: MOVE FAST AND MAKE THINGS

But perhaps now is the time to break the cycle we’re in. Just as 2014 may have signalled a shift away from creativity, 2025 presents a chance to revisit what worked in years past, with a twist for where we are today.

More than a decade ago, Facebook’s ‘move fast and break things’ mantra encouraged bold innovation — an ethos that led to the development of new, exciting ideas. Today, we should reclaim the creative essence of that philosophy (minus the recklessness) to help us build better, more thoughtful and more creative digital experiences. Instead of ‘move fast and break things’, it’s time to ‘move fast and make things’.

Design is not just about activity; it’s about progress. Design’s primary role should be about creating a thing that solves a problem towards achieving a goal. Picture a car’s wheels spinning in the sand – there’s plenty of activity, but without traction, there’s no forward momentum.

Instead of ‘move fast and break things’, it’s time to ‘move fast and make things’

Similarly, ‘optimising’ or ‘scaling’ doesn’t move one in a direction. It just more firmly establishes an existing position. This is not a bad thing, but movement requires change to recognise new opportunities, find new wells to draw from or proverbial fruit to squeeze.

Companies must move fast to survive. But in the pursuit of speed, there’s a paradox: moving too quickly can slow one down. The essence of speed lies in doing things the right way. Rushed approaches lead to costly mistakes, as seen in the case of Sonos, where a hurried app launch cost millions to fix.

Speed comes from thoughtfulness, precision, focus and rigour. In design, this means that ‘fast’ isn’t about getting things implemented and scaled as quickly as possible – it means taking the time to fully understand a goal, explore and craft ideas so well that they quickly beat existing solutions, with speed becoming the natural outcome.

Design’s role should be about making something new, pushing beyond existing solutions and best practices. It’s about adding to the world

Design’s role should be about making something new, pushing beyond existing solutions and best practices. It’s about adding to the world’s known set of ideas and doing so in a way that is concrete and beautiful. Doing this for designers is about infusing the process with a sense of romance, where passion for beauty and meaning drives the work. This means embracing creativity to discover ideas that are rare, rich, better for users, better for businesses and better for the future.

‘Things’ is deliberately vague, an open-ended invitation to imagine and create without boundaries. In this era, ‘things’ are not just outcomes but catalysts for creativity, sparking ideas that drive progress and set new standards.

In a world bent on racing to make outcomes happen faster, more efficiently and cheaper, we risk losing what makes design impactful in the first place. With the countless tools at our disposal, the key is not just to optimise but to innovate – to avoid the race to the middle and instead embrace creativity to craft digital experiences that truly make the world a different, and therefore better, place.

John Roescher is CEO of Raw Materials, therawmaterials.com