Eric Snowden on leading a global design team

A conversation with Adobe’s SVP of Design on the role of design in the tech industry, using AI as a bridge to new and different ideas, and one of the undervalued elements of good design

Illustration by Mercedes deBellard

As the SVP of Design for Adobe, what do you see as your primary responsibility?

One of the most important aspects of my job is convincing smart, talented people to come work at Adobe, and stay as long as possible. Everything comes down to the people around us and making sure we've got a great organization to do the work. Nothing else functions without a great team. I also think of myself as a shepherd of the culture. I'm a part of it, but I'm certainly not the only person, or frankly even the driving force. That's a culmination of a lot of people, but I want to make sure that Adobe, and especially Adobe Design, is a great place to work.

Beyond that, setting a vision for the team and for our products so that people are excited to work on them and they’re compelling for customers. I'm not the kind of design leader who would be fulfilled just being an organizational leader. Helping to shape where our products are headed and looking across all three of Adobe’s product clouds to ensure we're working as a singular, global design organization will always be a big part of where I spend my time.

What's your leadership approach and how has it evolved throughout your career?

I had a formative moment when I was working in the music industry and managing my first team. We were doing good work, on time and under budget. The artists were happy, the product managers were happy, but the general manager of the record label’s feedback was, “You never yell at your team.” It was a criticism, not a compliment. There was a way that record labels and media companies worked at that time, under the idea that a culture of fear was the only way to get things done, and I was working in a way that was antithetical to that—and getting good (or better) results. It was a good example, early on, of the kind of manager I didn't want to be.

I believe in treating people I work with the same as I treat people in my personal life. If you wouldn't feel comfortable speaking with family or friends in a certain way, it's not okay at work just because you have some sort of positional power over people.

I also lead from the belief that we've hired the best and smartest people, and that they’re good at their jobs, but when they’re struggling, I want our organization to help them overcome those struggles. I try to make it clear to everyone I work with that asking for help is a sign of strength, not a sign of weakness.

What's unique about Adobe's design organization?

We have a thoughtful, kind, ethical, and conscientious organization. It’s a group of low-ego, high-talent individuals, who are also smart and nice. That’s rare, and I don’t take it for granted. We care about people. We care about each other. And we care about our customers and our products.

How do you define good design? Or, how do you know design is good?

First, does it solve a problem for customers? If the answer to that is no, it doesn't matter what it looks like or how it works. Second, does it benefit our business? A product that people don’t want to use or pay for is not good design. Third, is it usable? If people have to tie themselves into a knot to use it, that's also not good design. We’ve all seen companies create something that no one's ever created before, but when another company comes along and designs a better version of it, suddenly that first company doesn't exist anymore.

Finally, there’s craft, paying close attention to the details no one else is likely to notice. Craft is the outward representation of a deep care that goes into every part of creating a product. One of my favorite life examples of this is clothes tailoring. Tailoring isn’t a necessity. Clothes that aren’t perfectly fitted still function. But tailors exist because that level of care and detail is important when someone is trying to present the best version of themselves. Software is similar. Well-designed, well-crafted products are more trusted.

One of my favorite axioms is, “there's never just one cockroach.” If there's one thing wrong, no matter how small, there are always many others that aren’t as obvious. Outward visual appearance reflects a company’s process, talent, culture, care... and its craft.

What's an element of good design that's undervalued, or often goes unnoticed?

Accessibility. Designing for everyone. Apple, a company that many people would agree leads with design, also makes some of the most accessible products in the world. When the broadest swath of people can use your product, then you’ve designed something well, even if that work is invisible to most people.

What's the role of design in tech companies right now?

A design team can be the conscience of a company. When I think about the role our team played in making Adobe Firefly creator friendly, I’m incredibly proud. Adobe has a culture where people feel comfortable speaking their minds, and it’s incredibly important in the tech industry—especially now.

It’s too easy for companies to build things and never really ask whether they should, or to not thoroughly consider the impact of their decisions. Adobe’s design team is fortunate to have the trust of the company’s leadership, not just about design but about our products. It’s an advantage that allows us to not shy away from things we believe, to ask hard questions, to speak up when an idea isn’t right, and to help mold products that are useful, usable, and bring good into the world.

In the coming years, what role will artificial intelligence play in the design and creative industry?

Like everyone else, I’m excited that AI will eventually be able to handle the repetitive, rote work of design. For me, the truly exciting thing about AI is volleying with it, like a tennis partner, to enhance ideas and creativity.

As an example, typing text into an AI music creation model and using what it generates isn’t something that interests me. But I will write a song, record it, then upload the MP3 into a music generation tool and ask it to create a variation. I see creative value in AI’s ability to reinterpret new and interesting arrangements that I hadn't thought of previously. It’s unlikely that I’d use those creations directly, they are however interesting to spark new ideas that I may not have come up with on my own.

Using AI as a bridge to new and different ideas is something creatives are going to get faster and more adept at doing, to jump between thoughts, explore more ideas (and uncover bad ones quickly), and get to final concepts faster.

What skills will be most critical for designers to develop in the future?

For most jobs, not just creative ones, generalist jobs are going to be the ones that evolve the most. I think professions will bifurcate into two extremes—those focused on generating ideas and their orchestration and those hyper-specialized and focused on executing them. In creative industries, people will be valued even more for their problem solving and collaboration, or for their deep subject matter expertise and specialization.

There will always be components of jobs (those that are specialized or critical) that won’t be entrusted to machines. Say for example, an AI model creates an ad. Is a company that really cares about its brand going to trust that output and, without human intervention, release it into the world? That said, there will be more and more that we are comfortable trusting to AI.

So, for designers who are generalists and good at a few different things, I would recommend they start leaning into what AI can help them do, so they can focus more on becoming the subject matter expert or the person people go to for big ideas. The most beneficial thing for our industry is that it was evolving in this direction even before AI took off, so it’s a durable path regardless of how the technology evolves.

How can educational institutions better prepare students for the future of creative careers?

As a former teacher I’ve believed for a long time that educators need to focus more on teaching creative thinking and collaboration. Concepts and ideas are components of creativity that are going to be valuable regardless of what happens with technology—as are those things that create connections between people. Sure, AI is a seemingly unlimited generation machine, but the ability to think creatively and work in partnership to solve big problems will never go away. There is no application in the world that produces meaningful output that doesn’t begin with a new idea from a creative person.