Words: Elizabeth Goodspeed
Illustrations: Darren Shaddick

Designers from Pentagram, Koto, Creech, and more talk candidly about the murky waters of client selection, the logistics and risks of rejecting work on moral grounds, and how to keep afloat without losing your soul in today’s design climate.

If you spend long enough working in design, you’ll eventually need to sell something you would never buy. Don’t get me wrong – most of what I’ve worked on has been for fields that feel easy, even inspiring, to get behind, like voting rights groups, non-alcoholic beverages, slow fashion, or plant-based proteins. Others are in a more philosophically neutral zone.