20 Years of Design Taught Me This: Print, Digital, and Now Video
When I started out, design meant print, packaging, catalogues, brochures, layouts that had to be right before they went to press because there was no "edit after publishing." Then came digital, and the same design instincts had to adapt to screens, resolutions, and platforms that print never had to think about. Now it's video, motion, sound, pacing, a whole new language layered on top of everything I already knew.
What's interesting is what didn't change across all three shifts.
Composition still matters.
Whether it's a product on a printed box or a product in a 15-second reel, the eye still needs to know where to look first. That's a design principle, not a software feature.
Clarity beats decoration.
Print taught me this the hard way, a busy layout with ten fonts and five colors doesn't sell a product, it confuses the buyer. The same is true in a video with too many transitions and too much text on screen.
The brief matters more than the tool.
A client rarely says "I want a video." They say "I want people to notice us" or "I want more customers to walk in." The tool, print, digital, video, is just the current best way to solve that problem.
That's really what 20 years in this industry has taught me: the tools keep changing, but the job has always been the same, understand what the client actually needs, and communicate it clearly. Right now that means video and content. In five years it'll probably be something else. The craft carries over either way.