In August, GQ magazine’s cover story was an interview with Travis Kelce, the American football player (and three-time Superbowl winner) now perhaps better-known as Taylor Swift’s fiancé.
On stage at Frontify’s Paradigms conference, Nicola Ryan, VP of global design at GQ’s parent company, Condé Nast, showed the exuberant print lay-outs.
The story, which was shot by Ryan McGinley, seemed to burst out of the pages with energy – a fitting reflection of both Kelce’s personality, and his current standing in the cultural zeitgeist.
Then Ryan showed the same story in its digital form, which was very neat.
Ryan used it to pose the question – how do we scale that human element from print to digital? Or to paraphrase the title of her talk, how do we design for scale without losing soul?
To some extent, that is a question that has threaded through Ryan’s career.
GQ's Travis Kelce cover story
GQ’s Travis Kelce cover story
After graduating from University Arts London in 2010, she joined Angus Hyland’s team at Pentagram, where she worked with clients like Cass Art, Penguin and the Qatar National Museum.
After a stint at Karmarama, she moved into the media, joining The Times as head of digital design in 2013. She went onto The Telegraph, where she became creative director, before joining Condé Nast in 2021.
As one of the biggest media organisations in the UK, The Telegraph is not an easy gig. But the leap to her new employer was, Ryan admits, “massive.”
Now, with her team of around 60 product designers, user researchers and content designers, she oversees digital experiences for 22 titles across the Condé Nast portfolio. These include some of the best-known, and most-loved, publications around, including Vogue, The New Yorker, Wired and Vanity Fair.
“It was a really steep learning curve,” Ryan says. “At a smaller, more contained company like The Telegraph, you can both look at the bigger picture with the system, and you can look at all of the individual projects.
“But when you go to something at the scale of Condé Nast, you can’t possibly do all of it.”
A selection of Condé Nast sites on mobile
A selection of Condé Nast sites on mobile
In a role like this, design systems are crucial. But, Ryan says, they can’t be her only focus. “If you only look at the system, you get too abstract, and too removed from what people care about.”
For Ryan, the key balance is between systems and soul, consistency and emotional resonance. And it’s important to understand how these two things co-exist.
“Systems have the power to elevate soul, or to flatten it,” she explains. “We should audit systems for character, as well as consistency. Where is soul showing up? And where is it being squeezed out?”
Ultimately though, bringing soul into design work comes down to culture – what leaders encourage, expect, and make room for.
“Soul isn’t a feature you ship, it’s a position you hold,” Ryan says. “You don’t scale soul by making a smarter system – you scale soul by making people braver.”
“Soul isn’t a feature you ship, it’s a position you hold.”
In practical terms, that means creating a design culture that “fosters confidence to have an opinion, and processes that give time to critique.”
As everyone in the industry knows, the pressures on designers are intensifying.
The rise of AI, the squeezing of budgets, and the heightening of demands and expectations threaten to create a perfect storm.
In this turbulent context, Ryan believes, smart companies will make “quality a strategic priority.”
“AI can already create a lot of things that are ‘good enough’,” she says. “And, particularly in the media industry, quality, personality and perspective are what’s going to differentiate us.”
“I think it’s about finding the moment, and finding the narrative that ultimately hitches on to what the business is trying to do, and how you can help that through design.”
Nicola Ryan on stage at Paradigms, showing a typical leader's calendar
Nicola Ryan on stage at Paradigms, showing a typical leader’s calendar
A big part of her job is to make sure design is something that senior leadership cares about. Some of that is about using the right language – talking in business terms rather than leading with “the geeky aspects of typography.”
But another part is about finding ways to prove that quality and soul impact the business in positive ways.
In the media, AI is having a direct impact by reducing search traffic to websites that used to benefit from huge audiences coming via Google.
“I think there’s a recognition across the publishing industry that the future is in smaller but more loyal audiences,” Ryan says. “And therefore quality really matters, because you want people to keep coming back – loyal people who have an affinity to your brand.”
But proving the impact of that quality play, Ryan admits, is not always straightforward. Businesses have a wealth of data to analyse, but this tends to skew to short-term metrics.
“It’s harder to do with soul,” she says. “We need to look at the longer view, especially around engagement and loyalty metrics like time spent, scroll depth and bounce rate. You can’t pin those things fully on quality, but if you look at them over time, you can start to show people a pattern.”
The New Yorker homepage
The New Yorker homepage
With design having to prove its worth perhaps more than ever, the challenges facing design leaders are multiplied as well.
Ryan says she never had any formal leadership training – rather she was “plunged in at the deep end” earlier in her career, and expected to learn on the job.
“I came into the industry at an opportune moment, when digital was this new shiny thing and companies were giving young people, with relatively little experience, a ridiculous amount of responsibility,” she laughs.
“And so I ended up learning a lot very quickly. I had some great bosses who were also great mentors. But mainly you make mistakes, you figure it out, and you just keep getting better. I think, by and large, that’s the best way to do it.”
Ryan believes good design leaders are able to balance two characteristics that may seem contradictory.
“On the one hand, I am very democratic,” she says. “I really like listening to what everyone has to say, because the things that we work on are so complicated. If you don’t listen to people who have a lot of knowledge, it’s going to catch you out later.
“And so I like to gather a lot of opinions and ideas and understanding. But on the other hand, I also think you have to lead with a perspective, because you can’t design by committee.
“You have to listen, and then you have to make a decision, and commit to that with clarity, and intent, and conviction.”
Nicola Ryan on stage at Paradigms, showing some of the tensions leaders face
Nicola Ryan on stage at Paradigms, showing some of the tensions leaders face
The reality of design leadership, she says, is that there are tensions – between freedom and control, for example, or global and local. A good leader recognises these competing forces, and works within them.
“There will always be these tensions, and you can’t possibly reconcile them,” Ryan explains.
“But you have to very intentionally know where you want to sit on one of those tensions, and keep tweaking so you don’t go too far in one direction, or the other. The goal is to keep everything afloat.”
For design leaders and their teams, this balancing act can seem precarious.
“It’s hard isn’t it? We can’t just focus on one thing – we have to be expanding our skillsets and figuring out how to use AI. We have to up our game, I think, as designers.”
But is she optimistic that design can come through as a creative and commercial driving force?
“I would like to be optimistic,” she says. “I think you have to be, as a leader.”
She pauses, and then doubles down.
“Yes, I am optimistic. There will be companies that are happy with ‘good enough’ design, who will just spit this stuff out. But I do think design is a differentiator, and the companies that see that will succeed and go further.
“There will be an interesting few years, where we see how this plays out. It’s also a really interesting time to be a designer,” she says. “But you have to be up for change, to try new things, and new ideas.”
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