Who Gets Credit for Great Design?

A finished project can travel further than the names of the people who created it.

An interior appears in a magazine. Packaging becomes familiar on a shelf. A digital product becomes part of someone’s routine. People encounter the result, while the thinking, judgement, and collaboration behind it can remain less visible.

For the design community, giving credit means helping others understand who contributed, what they contributed, and why that contribution matters. It gives professional recognition a human foundation.

Make the individual contribution clear

An independent designer may carry a project from the first conversation through development and delivery. Within a studio, a designer may contribute a particular specialism to a much larger undertaking. Both deserve an accurate account of their involvement.

A useful project story connects a name to specific decisions. Explain the challenge the designer addressed, the direction they developed, or the detail they resolved. This helps readers understand the expertise behind the finished work.

Give collaboration its own story

A team’s contribution can be difficult to capture in a single credit line. Research may inform an early direction; another person may refine the materials, resolve an interaction, or bring the concept into production. Each contribution can influence the outcome.

Describing how a team worked together makes those relationships visible. It also gives clients and peers a clearer picture of the capabilities involved. Accurate credits respect individual contributions while showing how different skills combined to achieve something shared.

Let a portfolio reveal a developing practice

One project can introduce a designer. Several projects can reveal the questions they keep exploring and the skills they continue to develop. The same is true of a team building experience across different briefs.

Presenting work over time gives that progression context. Describe what changed between projects, which challenges became more ambitious, or how a particular approach developed. A portfolio becomes more informative when it explains the contribution behind each image.

Bring the people into design recognition

NYX Design Awards recognises projects alongside individual and collaborative achievement. NYX Designer Honours and NYX Design Team Honours identify the Top 10 Individual Designers and Top 10 Design Teams through accumulated points from winning projects assigned to the relevant Honours programme.

This creates a connection between recognised work and achievement across multiple projects. It gives participating designers and teams a way to build annual recognition through their awarded contributions, alongside the distinctions received by individual entries.

The wider principle is straightforward: when we celebrate design, the people responsible should be part of the story. Naming their contribution gives others a better understanding of the design and gives the design community people to learn from.