Designers today face massive challenges around education, certification, pay, and power. In this episode, hosts Giulia Donatello and Lee-Sean Huang sit down with Benjie Wilhelm to name the elephant in the room and talk about what it would actually take to fix the structural issues.
Benjie is an Assistant Professor of Design at Arizona State University (ASU), Director of Strategic Initiatives at UCDA, and a brand strategist "hellbent on making the world a better place." Together, they examine what a design association should look like over the next decade and discuss why designers need to stop thinking of themselves as artists and start acting like tradespeople.
In This Episode
The flattening of the profession. About 80% of designers today are self-taught or bootcamp-trained, while 90% of design work is freelance. Benjie argues this isn't just a workforce trend. It's a sign of a profession without a floor, and the consequences run from pay compression to ethical accountability gaps.
Artists vs. tradespeople. Benjie's central provocation: designers need to stop identifying as artists and start thinking of themselves as tradespeople. An architect can't build a building that falls down. A plumber can't flood your house. But designers can build platforms that undermine democracy and currently face no professional consequences for doing so.
The RGD model. Canada's Registered Graphic Designers designation began as a provincial act in Ontario when a group of designers organized, lobbied, and had their certification standards ratified. Benjie sees it as a repeatable model and has been studying it closely as a possible path for the US.
Certification, unions, and collective action. AIGA's Professional Designer and Design Leader certifications are a start, but Benjie argues the industry needs something closer to a union model, where certification has legal weight, pay floors are enforced, and designers have the standing to say no to harmful work.
"Your concerns are beneath me." Lee-Sean shared that during the SVA unionization campaign, one colleague dismissed the effort entirely because they could afford to treat teaching as charity work. Benjie uses this as a window into a deeper problem: a succession crisis in design, where prestige and platform stay concentrated in the same hands, and the people most affected by broken systems are the ones least able to fix them.
The broken pipeline. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis's Talent Disrupted report found that 52% of college graduates are underemployed at initial labor-market entry and that 45% remain underemployed 10 years later. Benjie sees this firsthand, teaching portfolio and professional practice at ASU, and refuses to pretend the path is clearer than it is.
Resources
- Talent Disrupted report, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis - https://www.stlouisfed.org/open-vault/2025/aug/jobs-degrees-underemployed-college-graduates-have
- RGD (Registered Graphic Designers of Ontario) - https://www.rgd.ca
- AIGA Professional Designer & Design Leader Certifications - https://www.aiga.org/certification
- Jenn Stucker at BGSU - https://www.bgsu.edu/arts-and-sciences/school-of-art/faculty-staff/jenn-stucker.html
- Jenn Stucker on a 2024 episode of the show - https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/aigadesign/episodes/Community-Engagement--Cultural-Change-with-Jenn-Stucker-e2lhodo
- Heated Rivalry on HBO Max - https://www.hbomax.com/shows/heated-rivalry/50cd4e99-04ee-427b-a3b4-da721ed05d9c
- Critical Form - https://www.instagram.com/critical_form/
- Benjie's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/benjiewilhelm/
- Benjie on Threads - https://www.threads.com/@benjiewilhelm
- Send us your questions, comments, and voicemails at [email protected].
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