With 2025 drawing to a close, New Year’s resolutions are top of mind. Who better to inform your work-smarter-in-2026 intentions than Sean Low? The creative business coach’s biweekly column offers valuable insights and practical advice to help industry veterans and fledgling designers alike recognize their worth, increase their bottom line and achieve their full creative potential.
To aid you in your goal setting for the next 12 months, we reviewed all 25 of Low’s 2025 columns and found five pearls of wisdom that will guide you in taking your design business to the next level. From embracing the irrationality of design to creating a thoughtful strategy, his counsel is sure to help you have your most successful year yet.
Want to catch up on Sean Low’s columns? Start here. Got a question of your own? Drop us a line.
On owning the power of the irrational: “The value of design is what you say it is, as is the process of discovery. The value of your firm is directly related to your ability to own the power of the irrational. No one needs what you do. AI, the internet, and the availability of design advice from just about anywhere should tell you that being ‘the regular kind of designer, just better’ is the path off the edge of a cliff. There’s no future in that approach. Remember, your business is about emotional return. Almost no client buys a $20,000 sofa with the intent of selling it next year for $30,000. They buy it because it is a piece of a puzzle that makes them feel better about their lives. Trading in emotional value is, by definition, irrational. The advice to be more rational has value in other realms of life and business—just not here.”
On unlocking the secret to profitability: “Strategy is your DNA; tactics are how you manifest your DNA. Amateurs often confuse the two, playing with tactics in the hopes of adopting a new strategy. But professionals understand that while tactics can change at any time, strategy has to be thought through and only changed upon careful consideration for what you intend the direction of your design business to be. Here’s another way to think about it: Professionals are storytellers with their design businesses, while amateurs are reactionaries. You can do the work of really understanding how to have your business tell a story or you can rely on the power of your art (and personality) alone—it’s up to you to choose who you wish to be. Here is the biggest point: If clients cannot understand the value underlying your price (because you do not), they will absolutely undervalue it and you will struggle to get what you need to do the work you do.”
On managing employees in a shifting AI landscape: “We all grew up on the factory model: Buy low, sell high. It emphasizes paying as little as you can and trying to charge the most. For employees, that used to mean that success was measured by how much you could do, in the shortest period of time. Today’s design firm, however, has blown up this metric and replaced it with a new one: How much time is necessary to do the firm’s best work? Considered and professional thought matters far more than just getting it done—especially now, in an increasingly AI-centric world, where the machine can do the rest. In that framework, every employee must be an entrepreneur in order to be indispensable and successful.”
On wresting control of a runaway project schedule: “Risk must be paid for. Period. If you are not forthright about what risk you are and are not willing to take on as a business, you will be taking it indiscriminately. It’s crucial to clearly communicate the consequences of any client actions that deviate from your agreed-upon process. It’s one thing to tell a client that it’s a mistake to choose a poor contractor. It’s another thing to enforce your policies by raising your fees if there is a project delay you did not cause—or let clients know that you simply will not work with a contractor not up to your standards. (You can put both in your contract.) Telling someone the sky might fall is not the same thing as telling them what is going to happen if it does.”
On finding the right payment schedule: “The only reason that clients care about the breakdown of your fee into its component parts is that you make them care. At the end of the day, if they know the number you will be charging them to do their project, why would they care about each piece? But you certainly must care. All money is not the same: I see too many designers fighting for the minutiae while losing the thread of certainty. (Hello, hourly billing!) Instead, focus on value delivery, so that you’re getting paid for the moment you are in, and then moving on to the next, and then getting paid for that.”
