The Designer’s Hierarchy of Career Needs
Why compensation, edification, and recognition aren’t equally important—and getting the order wrong can derail your career.
Success is subjective. It means many things to many different people. But I think there is a general model that anyone can use to build a design career.
I believe that success in a design career should be evaluated against three criteria: compensation, edification, and recognition. But contrary to how the design industry operates — and the advice typically given to emerging designers — these aren’t equally important. They form a hierarchy, and getting the order wrong can derail a career before it even begins.
Compensation Comes First
Compensation is the most important first signal of a successful design career, because it is the thing that enables the continuation of work. If you’re not being paid adequately, your ability to keep working is directly limited. This is directly in opposition to the advice I got time and again at the start of my career, which essentially boiled down to: do what you love and the money and recognition will come.
This is almost never true. There have been rare cases where it has been true for people who, ultimately, happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right relationships already in place. The post-hoc narrative of their lottery-like success leaves out all the luck and privilege and focuses entirely on the passion. These stories are intoxicating. They feel good, blur our vision, and result in a working hangover that can waylay someone for years if not the entirety of their increasingly despiriting career.
What does adequate compensation look like? It’s not about getting rich — it’s about reaching a threshold where money anxiety doesn’t dominate your decision-making. Can you pay rent without stress? Buy groceries without calculating every purchase? Take a sick day without losing income? Have a modest emergency fund? If you can answer yes to these basics, you’ve achieved the compensation foundation that makes everything else possible.
This might mean taking a corporate design job instead of the “cool” startup that pays in equity and promises. It might mean freelancing for boring clients instead of passion projects. It might mean saying no to unpaid opportunities, even when they seem prestigious. The key insight is that financial stability creates the mental space and time horizon necessary for meaningful career development.
This is not glamorous. It sounds boring. It may even be boring, but it doesn’t need to last that long. It’s easier to make money once you’ve made money.
Then Focus on Edification
Once compensation has been taken care of, the majority of a designer’s effort should be put toward edification. I choose this word very intentionally. There is nothing wrong with passion, but passion is the fossil fuel of the soul. It’s not an intrinsic expression of humanity; it is inspired by experience, nurtured by love, commitment, and work, and focused by discipline, labor, and feedback. Passion gets all the credit for inspiration and none of the blame for pain, but it’s worth pointing out that the ancient application of this word had more to do with suffering than success.
Edification, on the other hand, covers the full, necessary cycle that keeps us working as designers: interest, information, instruction, improvement. You couldn’t ask for a more profound measure of success than maintaining the cycle of edification for an entire career.
If you feel intimidated by a project, it is an opportunity to learn. Focus your interest toward gathering new information. If you feel uncomfortable during a project, you are probably growing. Seek instruction from those who you know that make the kind of work you admire in a way you can respect. If you feel like the work could have been better, you’re probably right. You’re ready to work toward improvement. This process doesn’t just happen once; a successful career is the repetition of this cycle again and again.
What does edification look like in practice? It’s choosing projects that teach you something new, even if they’re not the most glamorous. It’s working with people who challenge your thinking. It’s seeking feedback that makes you uncomfortable. It’s reading, experimenting, and building things outside of work requirements. It’s the difference between collecting paychecks and building expertise.
Considering the cycle of edification should help you select the right opportunities. Does the problem space interest you intellectually? Will the project expand your skill set? Will you work with people from whom you can learn? These not only become more viable considerations once you’re not worried about making rent, but the essential path forward.
The transition point between focusing on compensation and edification isn’t about reaching a specific salary number — it’s about achieving enough financial stability that you can think beyond survival. For some, this might happen quickly; for others, it may take several years. It might happen more than once in a career. The key is recognizing when you’ve moved from financial desperation to financial adequacy.
Recognition Is Always Overrated
Finally, recognition. This is probably the least valuable measure of success a designer could pursue and receive. It is subjective. It is fickle. It is fleeting. And yet, it is the bait used to lure inexperienced designers — to unpaid internships, low-paid jobs, free services and spec work of all kinds. The pitch is always the same: we can’t pay you, but we can offer you exposure.
This is a lie. Attention is harder to come by than money these days, so when a person offers you one in lieu of another, know it’s an IOU that will never pay out. Most designers are better off bootstrapping their own recognition rather than hoping for a sliver of someone else’s limelight. I might not have understood or believed this at the start of my career; I take it as fact today, twenty years in.
That said, I wouldn’t say that all recognition is worthless. Peer respect within your professional community has value — it can lead to better opportunities and collaborations. Having work you’re proud to show can open doors. But these forms of recognition should be byproducts of doing good work, not primary goals that drive decision-making.
Design careers built upon recognition alone are indistinguishable from entertainment.
The recognition trap is particularly dangerous early in a career because it exploits the natural desire for validation. Young designers are told that working for prestigious brands or winning awards will jumpstart their careers. Sometimes this works, but more often it leads to a cycle of undervalued work performed in hopes of future payoff that never materializes.
Applying the Hierarchy
Here’s how this hierarchy works in practice:
Early career: Focus almost exclusively on compensation. Take the job that pays best, even if it’s not the most exciting. Learn what you can, but prioritize financial stability above all else.
Mid-career:: Once you’ve achieved financial adequacy, shift focus to edification. Be more selective about projects and opportunities. Invest in skills and relationships that will compound over time.
Established career:: Recognition may come naturally as a result of good work and years of experience. If it doesn’t, that’s fine too — you’ll have built something more valuable: expertise and financial security.
Looking back, I can say that I put far more emphasis on external recognition and validation too early on in my career. I got a lot more of it – and let it distract me — ten years into my career than I do now, and it shows in my work. It’s better now than it was then, even if no one is talking about it.
Every designer is better off putting whatever energy they’d expend on an attention fetch quest toward getting paid for their work, because it’s the money that will get you what you really need in the early days of your career: a roof over your head, food on the table, a good night’s sleep, and a way to get from here to there.
If you have those things and are working in design, keep at it. Either external recognition will come or you’ll work long enough to realize that sometimes the most important recognition is self-bestowed. If you can be satisfied by work before anyone else sees it, you will need less of the very thing least capable of sustaining you. You will always get farther on your own steam than someone else’s.
Written by Christopher Butler on
Tagged