Emerging Patterns:
Design Leadership in 2026

In the Spring of 2026, I taught a seminar course on design leadership at the Sam Fox School of Design at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. The core focus of this course was a semester-long, student-led research project.

The students were seeking to understand and map the career journeys of the current generation of design leaders—to identify patterns, themes, and emerging signals that suggest how the role of the designer as leader will evolve in the years ahead.

Linked below is an early preview of the results of this research intended to be a teaser for those leaders who participated in the research. Later in 2026 we will release a more comprehensive presentation of the insights from this project.

The ten students in this course were a blend of fourth-year undergraduate design majors, and graduate students in the Master of Design & Human Computer Interaction program.

Matt Grossman
Shawn Hao
Brian Lee
Jude Licea
Justin Ling
Tejas Garg
Jillian Jackson
Andrew Pandji
Bradley Spudich
Ashley Xiang