Thirteen hours of interviews and numerous other informal conversations generated nearly 700 pages of transcript and 180,000 words. The word cloud below summarizes the frequency of individual words from those interviews. The larger the word; the more often it was used by the interviewees.

“I had somebody call me who’d been in the industry for a long, long time, and he said it’s not enough to have diversity on the table, we need to be sitting at the table.”

The three sections of the interview (the full protocol is in the appendix) resulted in comments that could be grouped in the following ways. The emergent topics were identified by considering comments made during the interview independent of the questions, and grouping related comments together thematically.

The sections below highlight comments by topic within each of the sections. A particular comment could have been made once or thirteen times. The validity of a thought or idea is not determined by the number of times it was said — it is the unique contribution that thought provides to further the overall understanding of the current state of the Design Sector in Toronto.

Additionally, threads of thought wove throughout the topics or were important enough to warrant special mention.

• The Design Sector in Toronto is on a good trajectory. Have been doing the right things for a long time. For some, thinking across all industries has transitioned from ‘design is nice to have’ to ‘design is a need to have’. Many companies have a better understanding of the long shadow design casts on cost and profit.
• Toronto is a global Design hub — especially (but not only) around infrastructure, which is fueled by infrastructure investment. Toronto has a ‘thick’ labour market for designers — lots of opportunities to work lots of different places which makes it both attractive as a place to work and efficient from a job market perspective. And, Toronto’s multiculturalism and diverse residents automatically creates diverse teams.
• Companies are very busy but are mostly building temporary instead of permanent capacity. This means more opportunities for gig-based work, but available consultants or freelancers with specific, desired skills are harder to find. As a result, some companies are shifting away from freelancers because of lack of meaningful results, problems with integration and freelancers lacking integration skills.

“We have an Australian project run out of the Toronto office with a British designer.”

• Shortages are reported in available workers by the interviewees, but companies are only looking for experienced hires (5+ years) due to on-boarding problems (especially for remote and hybrid work). Recent graduates are available but are not of interest to employers. Some employers are taking the long view and hiring recent graduates to grow into needed role in 5+ years because they do not expect the situation to improve any time soon. Companies generally find it even more difficult to on-board new hires remotely. Bigger firms have more resources and capabilities for on-boarding new hires and so are doing more hiring (proportionally). Many firms have shifted much of the on-boarding training to colleges and universities to reduce new hire costs, but it’s not entirely clear how aware the educational institutions are about this.
• Interviewees that were hiring reported that students are lacking WIL (work-integrated-learning) experience and opportunities and have little awareness of job or internship opportunities. Employers find students need a better balance among art vs. design vs. production knowledge and skills. The current focus is too heavy on the art and not heavy enough on production knowledge — beautiful portfolios without any real understanding of how the things shown in the portfolio are actually made.
• Employers expressed a desire that students demonstrated understanding the full product lifecycle, what goes into creating an industry — the whole value chain. Separate firms have been created to provide specific design and design-manufacturing technology skills that designers don’t have. While employers would like for designers to have more technical knowledge skills, designers that become too technically skilled get pigeonholed and find it hard to advance as technical and trade knowledge can be seen as a stigma and weakness since someone is not focused solely on design.
• Inclusion creates real benefits and is not just about meeting minimum requirements. Inclusion generates innovation. Diversity lends perspectives. Inclusion generates inclusion. Not being fully inclusive is an impediment to forming, growing, sustaining a business.
• People reported finding it difficult to understand who is doing what with regard to equity, intersectionality, diversity. Most companies do ‘head hunting’ rather than ‘farming’ for diversity. Need greater diversity in the classroom to get greater diversity in the profession. Interviewees reported that public, non-profit, professional and educational institutions care a lot but don’t make any progress on diversity and inclusion.
• Hiring new Canadians is the best investment but is hard to do. Credential changes are upcoming on Canadian experience requirements — actual changes to be determined, but very high membership fees and other financial barriers to new Canadians will still exist in many of the Design professions.

“If you want to work with Indigenous designers there are different sets of values that means you’re going to have to change the way you work and it’s not easy, I know.”

• Growth is exciting
• Designing for impact
• On a good trajectory. Have been doing the right things for a long time.
• Design saved the company (Copernicus sidebar)
• Better understanding of the long shadow design casts on cost and profit
• Transition from ‘design is nice to have’ to ‘design is a need to have’
• Toronto is a global Design hub — especially around infrastructure — and this is fueled by infrastructure investment
• Optimistic outlook especially from infrastructure and transit investments
• Understanding that design does not have an absolute right answer but can identify many absolutely wrong ones
• Design including carbon cost calculations
• CSR signoff on design for sustainability

• Overcoming the Canadian mindset of ‘not as bad as…’ instead of ‘better than…’
• Succession planning for the next leadership generation — keeping the firm viable
• Environmental sustainability and health impacts (forgotten temporarily but not gone)
• Social responsibility beyond environmental
• Leveraging the value of design and implementing a design tax credit (like Quebec)
• Creating equity by building back better
• Salaries, cost of living, cost of Toronto (GTHA)
• Affordable housing
• Digital divide — somewhat within Toronto but also outside of urban southern Ontario
• Covid to result in conversion of office space to residential space
• Covid has created greater interest in and dependence on the public realm — more walking

“There’s an element of being in person with design that is hard to completely accept an entirely remote kind of position.”

• Projects are becoming faster and more numerous
• More work is being done but it is more focused and specific
• Can design here but make anywhere
• Separate firms to provide specific design and design-manufacturing technology skills
• Online provides incredible reach
• Online allows for selling directly to consumers (products — industrial, fashion)
• Have to balance office and home office
• Lots of gig-based work but consultants or freelancers with specific, desired skills are harder to find
• Shifting away from freelancers because of lack of meaningful results, problems with integration and freelancers lacking integration skills
• Better equipment, technology and programs make it easier and more efficient to work from home
• More training on new software is needed

• Businesses are bigger, larger
• We have an Australian project run out of the Toronto office with a British designer
• Advantages and disadvantages for both small and large firms when large, global firms acquire small, local ones
• Acquisitions can save failing firms while still maintaining their ‘Canadian culture’
• A large firm can respond to an RFP/RFQ while a small firm can do the work
• Many large firms still have ‘that 70’s mindset’ (especially as regards women and visible minorities) while small firms can be flexible, responsive and inclusive
• Being small is both a help and a hindrance — you must partner with a large firm to have any international standing or capacity
• Staying small allows you to focus on your design work and being excellent with that rather than having to focus on running a company

“A lot of the firms that were around 10 years ago 15 years ago are still around now. Most of them are growing, but I haven’t seen a lot of merging happening in Toronto, at least.”

• Toronto has a ‘thick’ labour market for designers — lots of opportunities to work lots of different places
• Need people with a broad spectrum of knowledge — ‘T-shaped’
• Need more boundary pushing/risk accepting clients
• Need to understand what goes into creating an industry — the whole value chain
• But, trade knowledge can be seen as a stigma and weakness — not focused on design

“On the design side, the challenge is we graduate a lot of design students, a lot of design students and there are not a lot of design shops [hiring recent graduates].”

• Education takes at least three years to change, and it needs to
• Design students are taught to be artists and are not taught enough (if any) about production and need a better balance among art vs. design vs. production knowledge and skills
• Students leave school with different expectations about what it means to be a Design professional than what employers can offer
• Fewer students pursuing/completing industrial design education
• Lots of graduates and hard to get noticed or established
• Students have little awareness of job opportunities
• Students are lacking WIL (work-integrated-learning) experience and opportunities
• Difficult to get work experience and internships
• More mentors and mentorship opportunities are needed
• Students need to learn how to ‘tell their story’, not just build a portfolio
• Telling their story is especially challenging for racialized students

• Developing a design mindset
• Understanding the world
• Understanding the full product lifecycle
• Design management
• Client management
• Relationship management
• Autonomy, independence — project/client management
• Real world constraints
• Risk taking
• Foundational knowledge (manufacturing, construction, sustainability)
• Technical knowledge skills
• Technical — computer program skills
• Building a ‘portfolio’ of (experiences) not just plans and drawings
• Experience, Canadian experience
• “Middle” skills/experiences
• 4+ years of experience
• Entrepreneurial skills
• Writing skills (especially English for diversity hires)
• Interpersonal skills, expressiveness, ability to do/handle critique
• Written and oral communications
• How to listen

• Recruitment is hard; can’t find a good fit
• Junior — intermediate positions hard to fill
• Needed skills (especially technical ones) not available in the market
• Can’t find people with 4+ years of experience
• Shortage in available workers but only looking for experienced due to on-boarding problems (especially for remote work)
• Recent graduates available but not of interest to employers
• Some are hiring to grow into needed role in 5+ years
• Companies report needing capacity but are very slow to hire due to uncertainty
• Building temporary instead of permanent capacity
• Taking steps on improving retention: benefits, perks, focus, mission
• Location can be a recruitment challenge or draw

• Firms reported difficulty in hiring new employees
• Much of the difficulty is with on-boarding new hires
• Even more difficult to on-board new hires remotely
• Firms have shifted much of the on-boarding training to colleges and universities as a way to reduce new hire costs — not entirely clear how aware the educational institutions are about this
• Bigger firms have more resources and capabilities for on-boarding new hires and so are doing more hiring (proportionally)

• Everybody is moving
• Trained designers don’t last in their professional field — many end up in other jobs
• More public ←→ private pathways are needed (urban design and planning)
• Designers that become too technically skilled get pigeon-holed and find it hard to advance

“If you hire a senior person who knows the drill and so on it’s easier to integrate but new people it’s so difficult because as a young person, you need that personal connection and interaction and showing the ropes.”

• Diversity policies become just a label. Need to move beyond and identify ways to truly improve
• Have an inclusion policy, but it’s still ‘a work in progress’
• ‘We have an internal Diversity and Inclusion Group’
• Working on US projects forces the creation of EDI (Equity, Diversity, Inclusion) paperwork ‘proof’
• Don’t understand who is doing what with regard to equity, intersectionality, diversity
• Need more tools to deal with EDI, especially around technology
• Customers (especially public/government) force inclusion
• Smaller firms report that they are more independent and more diverse
• Indigenous issues in hiring, promotion, representation, procurement processes, market reach are widespread across many facets of the Design Sector, but most are not unique to the Design Sector

“Our mandate is to prioritize Indigenous women and hiring Indigenous women so I’m sure that also adds an extra layer of making it challenging to fill the positions.”

• Inclusion creates real benefits and is not just about meeting minimum requirements
• Not being fully inclusive is an impediment to forming, growing, sustaining a business
• Diversity lends perspectives
• Inclusion generates innovation
• The beauty of the design sector is that it already recognizes that there are so many voices that need to be heard
• Understanding that you are not the best opens you to inclusion
• ‘It’s not being done for me, so I’ll do it’ creates inclusion
• Meeting AODA and senior service disability requirements creates inclusion
• They might be invisible disabilities, but they still create inclusion
• Toronto multi-culturalism automatically creates diverse teams
• The diversity of Toronto can be leveraged to create greater innovation
• Inclusion generates inclusion
• “The industry [fashion] is already a rainbow of diversity”
• What’s needed now is a post-inclusion mindset
• You need post-EDI thinking

• Greater student diversity leads to greater industry diversity
• Need greater diversity in the classroom to get greater diversity in the profession
• Less Black talent is available, but less in the pipeline
• Need more international students to get more international hires
• Toronto Metropolitan University and others are great at attracting international students
• “All my classes [in graphic design] have more female students”
• Public, non-profit and educational institutions care a lot but don’t make any progress on diversity and inclusion
• A disconnect exists between the academic environment and industry
• Planning schools need a focus on equity/inclusion and not just on increasing land values

• Diversity is important, but diverse candidates are hard to find
• Most companies do ‘head hunting’ rather than ‘farming’ for diversity.
• More need to be growing and farming qualified diverse employees.
• Qualified doesn’t mean employed
• Community volunteer work [especially for racialized people] becomes a disadvantage for being hired as the for-profit company assumes the hire only wants to work in the non-profit sector
• Some reverse discrimination was noted

• Have women in leadership/partnership roles already
• Developed succession planning and leadership opportunities for women and others through a leadership conference
• Overall challenges with developing leadership, but women in leadership is really challenging
• More discussion than action on women in leadership and succession planning

“Why did my success [as a woman] require a cheerleader that’s a guy?”

• Hiring new Canadians is the best investment but is hard to do
• Sometimes easier to make foreign hires while they are still overseas
• Need to subsidize job market entry for new Canadians
• Specific outreach to new Canadians for job opportunities
• Help new Canadians get their ‘foot in the door’
• Career Edge as a bridge for new Canadians
• Mentorship programs specifically for new Canadians
• Mentorship and internship opportunities for Canadian experience
• Multiple languages are a real Toronto advantage, but language challenges are an issue with diverse hiring
• New Canadians can be impaired by English proficiency
• Help new Canadians improve their English and be patient
• A local design credential can be a way to get recognition for international training
• Drop the ‘Canadian experience’ requirements — international companies don’t care about Canadian experience
• Credential changes are upcoming on Canadian experience requirements — actual changes to be determined
• Very high membership fees and other barriers to new Canadians will still exist
• Recent immigrants generally find it more difficult to adapt to company and Canadian culture if they aren’t working in an office around other people

For a list of persons interviewed see full report.