This article was first published on DesignWeek by Andrew Lawrence, Global Executive Creative Director, on 4 March 2026, as part of their weekly interview series with design leaders about design and leadership.
Andrew Lawrence
Global Executive Creative Director
Design
What would your monograph be called?
“Things That Lasted” – I’m obsessed with why some design work becomes the reference point for decades while most of it just disappears. What makes something durable enough to become iconic rather than just another iteration in the feed that ends up in landfill?
What recent design work made you a bit jealous?
I’m still holding a torch for the San Francisco Symphony identity by Collins. It’s a couple of years old now, but it still gets me.
What’s an unusual place you get inspiration from?
My 80s childhood. I keep pulling reference points from that era because fundamentally, there aren’t many truly new problems, just new contexts. It’s more about systems and structure than aesthetic, but those problem-solving approaches still hold up.
Name something that is brilliantly designed but overlooked.
The trusty British 3-pin plug. When travelling, it never ceases to amaze me how flimsy and loose foreign plugs feel in comparison. It’s a masterclass in safety design – shutters that block the live holes unless the longer earth pin is inserted first, and a fuse built into the plug itself. Brilliant.
What object in your studio best sums up your taste?
A Faber-Castell E-Motion weighted technical pencil my parents bought me. It’s beautifully engineered with extra-thick graphite inside, perfect for sketching really early ideas. If you can get it down on a Post-it, anyone will understand it.
Leadership
What feedback felt brutal at the time, but turned out to be useful?
This became Elmwood folklore. Early 90s – a colleague produced some pretty rough client visuals. During the review, the creative director looked at them and said: “It’s a bit late in the day to find out you can’t draw.” Brutal. But that person went away and doubled down on their skills until they were as good as anyone else in the studio. Sometimes it’s not about how good you are, it’s about how good you want to be.
What’s an under appreciated skill that design leaders need?
Being a good storyteller, and I don’t mean overselling. I mean threading the narrative from insight through to idea and into the creative work. But here’s the thing: you also need to know when to shut up. The best stories leave the door open just slightly, so the idea can get out and live on its own.
What keeps you up at night?
That we’ve become really good at solving the wrong problems beautifully. A client wants new packaging, we redesign it brilliantly, everyone’s happy. But maybe the actual problem is that nobody understands what the product is for in the first place. We get paid to answer the question, not challenge it.
What trait is non-negotiable in new hires?
They need to care about the why before the what. I’ve worked with brilliant designers who just want to make things look good but if you’re not genuinely curious about why something needs to exist before you start designing it, we’re not going to work well together.
Complete this sentence: “I wish more clients…”
…would stop treating every touchpoint like it needs to do the same job. The best brand work I’ve seen doesn’t try to say everything everywhere. It trusts the system enough to let different moments do different things. That’s when you can really take the shackles off.
