Interviews with Tony Hughes

I studied Graphic Design at Birmingham Metropolitan College, where I completed an HND, and then went on to study Design & Visual Communication at Birmingham City University, graduating with a BA (Hons), 2:1.

My background is primarily in graphic design, visual communication, branding and creative strategy. Over time, that expanded into UX/UI, digital products, design systems and working with companies involved in technology, fintech, blockchain and other emerging technologies.

I’ve been working independently through Tony Hughes Design since 2012.

’ve always been interested in making things clearer and more understandable.

Design gives you the ability to take something complicated, abstract or poorly communicated and turn it into something people can understand, use and believe in. That’s probably the thing that still motivates me most.

I’m less interested in decoration for its own sake. I’m interested in solving communication problems.

I chose it.

I don’t think I ever sat down and made some grand decision that I was going to become a “designer”. It was simply the area that made the most sense to me. I was naturally drawn towards visual communication and problem solving, and design gave those interests somewhere to go.

I work across branding, visual identity, UX/UI, digital products, presentations, design systems and creative strategy.

Increasingly, I’m interested in the intersection of design and technology, particularly AI, fintech, blockchain and emerging digital products.

I’d like to do more work where design isn’t brought in at the end to make something look good, but is involved much earlier in figuring out what the thing actually is, how it should work and how it should communicate.

First, don’t worry about becoming a design legend.

Learn to think.

Develop your ability to understand a problem before you start designing. Learn typography properly. Learn composition. Learn how systems work. Learn how businesses work. Learn how technology works.

And don’t become completely dependent on whatever software or visual trend happens to be popular that year.

The tools will change constantly. Your ability to think, communicate and make decisions is what stays with you.

A good designer can produce something that looks good.

A great designer understands why it should look that way, what problem it is solving, who it is solving it for and what should happen as a result.

I think the biggest difference is judgement.

For me, good design has clarity.

It should make the intended thing easier to understand, easier to use or easier to believe in. It should have an appropriate visual language rather than simply being fashionable.

I also ask whether the design still makes sense when you remove the presentation around it. If the idea only works because you’ve explained it for ten minutes, there’s probably still work to do.

Good design reduces friction.

It can make a product easier to understand, a company easier to trust and a complicated idea easier to communicate.

For technology companies in particular, design can be the difference between something technically impressive and something people actually understand and want to use.

Design isn’t just an expense associated with making things attractive. Done properly, it’s part of how a business communicates its value.

I’d like to work on something genuinely ambitious at the intersection of technology, AI and human interaction.

Something where the design challenge isn’t simply creating an interface, but reconsidering how people interact with increasingly intelligent systems.

I’d probably want to work with a technically ambitious company or team that was trying to solve a problem that doesn’t already have an obvious answer.

I’m increasingly interested in building things myself rather than only designing things for other people.

I’d like to create a complete digital product where I can take responsibility for the idea, strategy, identity, interface and experience, and increasingly use AI to help bridge the gap between design and implementation.

That’s something I’m actively exploring rather than something I’ve already achieved.

Curiosity.

I don’t think I’ve ever been particularly interested in staying inside the traditional definition of graphic design.

I’ve gone from graphic design into visual communication, branding, UX/UI, fintech, blockchain and now AI because I want to understand what’s happening around the work.

The more you understand the subject you’re designing for, the better designer you can become.

There are designers whose work I admire, but I don’t want to manufacture a list of names simply because this is a “Design Legends” interview.

My influences have always been broader than individual designers. I’m influenced by technology, architecture, typography, industrial design, interfaces, brands and the way people interact with systems.

I tend to appreciate work that is simple without being simplistic.

I like design where you can understand the logic behind the decisions. Particularly identities and products that create a coherent system rather than relying on one clever visual trick.

I don’t have one particular “favourite design” that I would claim is the definitive influence on my work.

I wouldn’t describe one project as definitively my “greatest design”.

Some of the work I’m most proud of has involved taking technically complex subjects and trying to make them understandable through identity, UX/UI and visual communication.

My work around Soramitsu, including work connected with Bakong and Hyperledger Iroha, is particularly significant to me because it sits at that intersection of design, technology and financial infrastructure.

Learn outside design.

That has probably been one of the most important things I’ve done.

I became interested in technology, business, fintech, blockchain and now AI. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand the things I’m actually designing for rather than treating them as mysterious subjects that somebody else understands.

I’d also say: stop designing too quickly.

The first solution that comes into your head is very rarely the best one.

Honestly, I don’t know.

I’ve always been drawn towards creative and technical problem solving, so I suspect I’d have ended up somewhere adjacent to design rather than doing something completely unrelated.

Design is the intentional organisation of things to achieve an outcome.

That sounds deliberately broad because I think design is much broader than graphic design.

A logo is design. An interface is design. A product is design. A business process can be designed. The way information is structured is design.

For me, fundamentally, it’s about making decisions with purpose.

There isn’t one person I can honestly identify as the single person responsible for my career.

I’ve had teachers, colleagues, clients and collaborators who have influenced different stages of it.

A lot of my development has also come from having to figure things out independently.

Experience.

Not just doing design projects, but repeatedly having to solve unfamiliar problems.

Working with technology companies has forced me to understand subjects that I wouldn’t otherwise have encountered. That has made me a broader designer.

The biggest obstacle has probably been the same one many independent designers face: having to balance creative work with everything else required to run a business.

There’s also the challenge of working in areas where the subject matter can be extremely technical. You can’t design intelligently for something you don’t understand.

And I wouldn’t necessarily describe myself as having “become a design master”. I’m still learning.

Show the thinking.

A portfolio shouldn’t just be a collection of beautiful images. Explain the problem, the constraints, the decisions and the result.

Particularly for senior designers, people need to understand how you think.

I’m moving further towards the intersection of design, AI and digital product development.

I’m particularly interested in AI-assisted creative workflows and eventually being able to move much more fluidly between strategy, design, prototyping and actual implementation.

The boundary between “designer” and “builder” is becoming much less rigid.

To work on things that matter and have some influence over what gets built, not simply how it looks.

I’d like to be involved from the point where someone has a difficult problem through to the point where there is a clear, useful and well-designed solution.

People expect you to have answers.

In reality, I think a good designer should be comfortable saying “I don’t know yet.”

The job isn’t to pretend you know everything. It’s to figure out what needs to be known and then make good decisions from it.

Design affects how people interact with almost everything around them.

Good design can make information more accessible, technology easier to use and complicated systems easier to understand.

But design isn’t automatically good because it looks good. Designers also have responsibility for what they help make possible.

AI.

Not just generating images or text, but what happens when AI becomes part of the actual creative and development process.

I’m particularly interested in local AI, AI-assisted design workflows and the possibility of using AI to reduce the distance between having an idea and actually building it.

Projects involving complicated technology have generally been the most satisfying.

The challenge of taking something that might be difficult for a normal person to understand and creating a visual or interactive language around it is particularly rewarding.

The work associated with Soramitsu and blockchain/fintech is a good example of that.

I’d like to see less emphasis on superficial visual output and more emphasis on actual problem solving.

AI is going to make producing competent visual work dramatically easier. That’s going to expose the difference between someone who can operate a design tool and someone who can actually think strategically.

I think that’s ultimately good for the profession.

Design and technology are going to become increasingly intertwined.

AI will automate a lot of the production work designers currently do. That doesn’t mean designers disappear. It means the valuable part of design moves further towards strategy, judgement, systems thinking and deciding what should actually be created.

The designer increasingly becomes an orchestrator rather than simply a maker of individual assets.

There’s no universal answer.

A simple piece of design can take hours. A serious identity or digital product can take weeks or months.

The amount of time isn’t necessarily related to how complicated the final result looks. Sometimes making something look simple takes considerably more work.

With the problem.

I want to understand what we’re actually trying to achieve, who we’re trying to communicate with and what constraints we’re working within.

Only then do I start thinking about the visual solution.

Make it clear.

That’s probably the simplest way I would describe my philosophy.

Both.

Designers respond to culture and technology, but designers also influence what people subsequently consider desirable or normal.

The danger is designing entirely from trends. If you’re always following what’s fashionable, you’re already behind somebody else.

Technology is a tool, but increasingly it’s also the material we’re designing.

When I started, graphic design was largely about producing visual communication. Today I’m increasingly designing things that live inside software and interact with technology.

AI is taking that even further.

My work has historically involved the Adobe ecosystem and the usual professional digital design tools.

I’m also heavily involved with Apple hardware and increasingly with AI tools and local AI infrastructure.

I’m interested in the technology itself, so I tend to experiment with new tools rather than committing permanently to one particular workflow.

They’re all part of communication.

Colour can create hierarchy, emotion and recognition. Materials communicate qualities such as durability, luxury or functionality. Environment affects how something is perceived and used.

But none of those things should be added simply because they look nice. They need to support the idea.

I’d like people to ask:

“Why?”

Why did you make this decision? Why is it structured this way? Why does it work?

That’s much more interesting to me than simply asking whether I like the colour.

Usually I start trying to understand the decisions behind it.

What problem were they solving? Why did they choose that particular approach? What could have been done differently?

I’m naturally analytical about design.

Someone who is very good at something I’m not.

I like working with people who challenge my assumptions rather than simply agreeing with me.

And yes, absolutely. Good collaboration can produce something neither person would have arrived at independently.

I’ve been influenced by a lot of different people over the years, but I wouldn’t want to invent a hierarchy of influence.

Clients and collaborators working in technically difficult fields have probably influenced me considerably because they’ve forced me to expand beyond conventional graphic design.

I don’t have a particular list of design books that I can honestly say defines my practice.

A lot of my learning has actually come from outside conventional design literature: technology, business, interfaces, emerging technologies and simply investigating how things work.I don’t have a particular list of design books that I can honestly say defines my practice.

A lot of my learning has actually come from outside conventional design literature: technology, business, interfaces, emerging technologies and simply investigating how things work.

Mostly by doing the work.

Education gave me the foundations, but professional projects taught me how to deal with ambiguity, clients, constraints, technology and real-world consequences.

You get better by solving increasingly difficult problems.

I’d probably choose someone who could fundamentally challenge how I think about technology and human civilisation.

I’m more interested in an extraordinary conversation than simply meeting a famous designer.

I don’t think I can honestly answer this question in the way it’s written.

I’m not someone with a long list of major design awards or who considers himself famous. I’d rather not pretend otherwise.

The recognition that matters most to me is when someone I’ve worked with says that the work genuinely helped them.

I don’t think I have a single definitive answer for all of those.

My interests tend to change, and I’m probably more interested in systems and ideas than collecting fixed favourites.

As for brands, Apple has clearly been an important influence on my relationship with technology and product design, although that doesn’t mean I think everything Apple does is automatically good.

One of the funny things about being a designer is that people sometimes assume that because you can make something look good, you must also know how to do absolutely everything related to computers.

The reality is that design has continually pulled me into areas I never expected to understand.

These days I’m experimenting with local AI infrastructure and machines running large language models. Twenty years ago I wouldn’t have predicted that my graphic design career would lead there.

Discovering something I didn’t know before.

That’s probably my biggest source of motivation.

If I can spend the day understanding a difficult problem, finding an unexpected connection and turning that into something useful, that’s a good day.

I wouldn’t say it was obvious that I would become a “great designer”.

I was drawn towards creative things, but nobody could have predicted the particular path my career would eventually take.

I have absolutely no idea.

And anyone who confidently tells you what civilisation will look like in the year 3026 is probably selling something.

What I do think is interesting is that the pace of technological change means we’re already living through a period that would have looked like science fiction to previous generations.

A thousand years is almost impossible for us to meaningfully comprehend.

I don’t really think of myself as having “fans”, and I wouldn’t describe myself as a design legend.

I’m a designer who has spent a large part of his career trying to understand complicated things and make them clearer.

My interests have moved from graphic design into technology, fintech, blockchain, UX/UI and now AI. That progression isn’t accidental. I’m interested in what happens next.

If there’s one thing I’d want people to understand about my work, it’s that design isn’t the decoration applied to an idea at the end. Design is part of figuring out what the idea actually is.

My background is in graphic design and visual communication. I studied Graphic Design at Birmingham Metropolitan College, completing an HND, and then studied Design & Visual Communication at Birmingham City University, where I graduated with a BA (Hons), 2:1.

I’ve always been more interested in visual communication than what I would traditionally call “art”. I’m interested in taking an idea, a message or a complicated subject and finding a way to communicate it clearly.

I don’t remember having a childhood ambition of becoming a designer in the conventional sense. It was something I naturally gravitated towards. Over time, graphic design developed into branding, creative strategy, UX/UI and digital products.

What’s particularly interesting to me now is that technology has brought many of those disciplines together. I’m increasingly interested in what happens when design, AI and technology become part of the same creative process.

My background is in graphic design and visual communication. I studied Graphic Design at Birmingham Metropolitan College, completing an HND, and then studied Design & Visual Communication at Birmingham City University, where I graduated with a BA (Hons), 2:1.

I’ve always been more interested in visual communication than what I would traditionally call “art”. I’m interested in taking an idea, a message or a complicated subject and finding a way to communicate it clearly.

I don’t remember having a childhood ambition of becoming a designer in the conventional sense. It was something I naturally gravitated towards. Over time, graphic design developed into branding, creative strategy, UX/UI and digital products.

What’s particularly interesting to me now is that technology has brought many of those disciplines together. I’m increasingly interested in what happens when design, AI and technology become part of the same creative process.

Design is making intentional decisions to achieve an outcome.

That’s deliberately broader than graphic design.

A logo is design. An interface is design. A product is design. The architecture of information is design. Even the way a complicated service works can be designed.

For me, design is fundamentally about taking complexity and giving it structure.

I enjoy projects where there is something difficult to understand.

Technology is particularly interesting to me because the underlying systems can be incredibly complicated, while the final experience ideally needs to feel simple.

I particularly enjoy branding, digital products, UX/UI and visual systems where I can influence the thinking behind the project rather than simply being handed a finished idea and asked to make it look attractive.

I don’t really have one favourite piece of design.

If I had to choose a category, I’m fascinated by exceptionally well-designed systems rather than individual objects.

A great identity, for example, isn’t just a logo. It’s a visual language that continues working across hundreds or thousands of different applications.

Similarly, a great digital product isn’t one beautiful screen. It’s the underlying system that makes the whole experience coherent.

That’s the kind of design I find most interesting.

I don’t want to give you a fictional answer here. I don’t have sufficiently reliable information in my current context to identify the exact first commercial piece I ever designed.

My professional career goes back a long way, so there were many early projects before the work became as digitally focused as it is today.

At the moment, probably AI as a medium.

Not simply generative AI for producing pictures, but AI as something that changes the way we think, design, prototype and build.

I’m particularly interested in local AI because it changes the relationship between the designer and the technology. You can have your own computational infrastructure rather than simply sending everything to a remote service.

That opens up some very interesting possibilities for creative work.

Usually when I’m trying to understand something.

I’m probably more analytical than the stereotypical image of a designer. I don’t necessarily sit down and wait for inspiration.

A difficult problem tends to create the creative process for me.

Once I understand what something is really trying to achieve, ideas start appearing.

I want to know what the viewer or user is supposed to understand, what they should notice first and what action or thought should follow.

The visual treatment comes from those decisions.

Curiosity is probably the strongest one.

There’s also frustration, especially when something isn’t working, followed by a certain satisfaction when the pieces finally fall into place.

I don’t necessarily experience design as a constant state of inspiration. A lot of it is investigation and problem solving.

Relief first.

Then curiosity about how people actually respond to it.

Something can look perfect on your screen and behave very differently when it enters the real world. Seeing people actually use or interact with something is one of the best tests of the design.

It achieves its purpose.

That’s more important than whether I personally think it looks beautiful.

If a product becomes easier to understand, a company becomes more credible or an interface becomes easier to use, then the design has succeeded.

A beautiful design that fails its purpose isn’t successful design.

First: Does it solve the problem?

Then I look at clarity, hierarchy, appropriateness, consistency and execution.

Only after that would I worry about whether I personally like it.

Personal taste and good design aren’t necessarily the same thing.

Designers influence behaviour, expectations and understanding, so we have more responsibility than simply making things attractive.

We should consider accessibility, sustainability, honesty and the consequences of what we’re helping create.

Technology makes this particularly important. If you’re designing the interface to a financial product, an AI system or a critical service, your decisions can have consequences far beyond aesthetics.

The biggest change is the increasing convergence between design, technology and AI.

AI will automate a significant amount of the production work that designers currently do.

I don’t think that means designers become irrelevant. I think it makes the ability to think, judge, direct and understand problems more valuable.

The designer of the future may be less of a person sitting in front of Photoshop producing assets and more of a person orchestrating systems, technology and intelligent tools to produce outcomes.

I don’t currently work primarily as an exhibiting artist, so I wouldn’t want to invent an exhibition history.

My work has predominantly been commercial and digital rather than gallery-based.

I’d be interested in exhibiting something in the future if there were a genuinely interesting concept behind it, particularly something exploring the relationship between design, AI and technology.

A lot of my inspiration comes from outside conventional graphic design.

Technology, architecture, industrial design, interfaces, typography, financial systems, emerging technology and the way people interact with machines all interest me.

I’m also constantly investigating new technology.

I think curiosity is a better source of inspiration than deliberately looking for “design inspiration”.

I’d describe my style less as a visual style and more as an approach.

I tend towards clarity, structure and restraint.

I’m not particularly interested in imposing a recognisable “Tony Hughes look” onto every project. The design should come from the problem and the organisation behind it.

My approach is essentially:

Understand → simplify → structure → communicate.

I currently live in Latvia.

My professional identity was largely formed in the UK, particularly through my education and early career, while living in Latvia has given me a different perspective on culture, technology and the European environment.

I don’t consciously try to make my work “Latvian” or “British”. I’m more interested in international communication, particularly because many of the companies I want to work with operate internationally.

I try to understand the business before designing anything.

I want to know what the company actually does, who it needs to communicate with, what its competitors are doing and where the communication problem exists.

From there, the work might involve strategy, positioning, identity, UX/UI, digital products or a combination of those things.

Don’t select a designer purely because you like their portfolio.

Ask them how they think.

A designer should be able to explain why they made their decisions and should be willing to challenge the brief when the brief itself is the problem.

I’d also recommend giving designers enough information and enough responsibility to actually solve the problem. If you dictate every decision, you’re not really employing the designer’s expertise.

It starts with understanding.

Then I try to define the actual problem.

After that comes research, exploration and developing possible directions. Once there’s a strong concept, I develop the visual or interactive system around it.

Finally, I test it against the original objective.

The important thing is that the process isn’t completely linear. You often discover the real problem while trying to solve it.

I don’t keep a curated collection of design objects, so I wouldn’t want to manufacture five favourites for the sake of the interview.

I’m much more attached to tools and technology than decorative design objects.

Computers, displays and the equipment I use to create and experiment with things are probably more significant to me than furniture or ornaments.

There isn’t really a standard day.

Some days are traditional design work: identity, interfaces, presentations or client work.

Other days are much more exploratory. I’ll be investigating AI, testing hardware, experimenting with software or thinking about how a new technology could change the way I work.

That’s one of the things I like about being independent. My work isn’t restricted to one narrow definition of design.

Learn to think before you learn to decorate.

Learn typography. Learn composition. Learn communication. Learn how businesses work. Learn technology.

And don’t become emotionally attached to your first idea.

Your job isn’t to prove that your first idea was good. Your job is to find the best solution.

The biggest positive is that you get to solve problems creatively.

You also get to work across many different industries, which means you can constantly learn.

The downside is that people sometimes misunderstand what design actually involves. They can see the final visual result without seeing the research, thinking and decision making behind it.

And as an independent designer, you also have to deal with the business side, which isn’t always creative or enjoyable.

Make it clear.

If I had to reduce my design philosophy to three words, those would probably be them.

Judgement.

Then communication, curiosity, critical thinking and the ability to understand other disciplines.

Technical skills matter, but tools can be learned.

Good judgement takes much longer.

Adobe tools have been an important part of my professional career, particularly for traditional graphic design and visual production.

I also work with digital design and prototyping tools, Apple hardware and increasingly AI systems.

More recently, I’ve become particularly interested in local AI infrastructure and running models on my own hardware. That has become almost an extension of the design toolbox for me.

The interesting thing is that my toolbox now contains both creative tools and computational infrastructure.

I try to separate exploration from production.

The biggest waste of time in design is polishing the wrong idea.

I’d rather spend time establishing whether the direction is correct before investing heavily in execution.

It depends entirely on the object and the problem.

A simple graphic can take hours. A brand identity or digital product can take weeks or months.

The important variable isn’t how many hours it takes to make the final artwork. It’s how difficult the underlying problem is.

Probably some variation of:

“Can you just make it look better?”

It’s an interesting question because “better” isn’t actually a design brief.

The first thing I want to know is: better for whom, and better in what way?

Working on technically complex projects has probably had the biggest impact on me.

My work with Soramitsu is particularly important because it brought together design, UX/UI and highly technical financial infrastructure.

Working around projects such as Bakong, Cambodia’s national digital payment infrastructure, fundamentally reinforced my interest in designing for complicated technological systems.

I’ve worked with a range of organisations across technology and digital products.

Soramitsu is one of the more significant examples, particularly because of the work around blockchain, digital finance and Bakong.

I’ve also worked with FilmChain and other technology-oriented organisations.

The common thread has increasingly been companies dealing with complicated technology or new digital products.

The work where strategy and design overlap.

I like being given something complicated and having to figure out how it should be positioned, explained, structured and ultimately presented.

That’s more satisfying to me than simply producing an isolated graphic.

I’m moving further into the intersection of design, creative strategy, AI and technology.

I want to work with technically ambitious companies where design can influence the product and communication at a fundamental level.

I’m also interested in becoming increasingly capable of going from an idea to a working digital product, using AI to bridge some of the traditional gap between design and development.

Both.

I’ve worked independently for much of my career, but I don’t believe good design has to be a solitary activity.

The ideal situation is often a small group of people with different expertise: design, technology, strategy and subject-matter knowledge.

I particularly like collaborating with people who know things I don’t.

Yes.

I’m exploring how AI can become part of the actual design and product-development process rather than simply being another tool for generating content.

I’m particularly interested in systems where you can move from an idea, through strategy and design, into a functioning digital product much faster than has traditionally been possible.

That’s an area I’m actively developing rather than something I would claim is already finished.

The primary place to see my work is my portfolio at https://tonyhughesdesign.com.

I’d probably emphasise that I don’t see my career as having a fixed endpoint.

I started in graphic design. Then came visual communication, branding, digital products, UX/UI, fintech and blockchain. Now I’m deeply interested in AI.

Those things might look like separate disciplines from the outside, but to me they’re all connected by the same question:

How do you take something complicated and make it understandable, useful and compelling?

That’s still what I’m trying to do.

The difference now is that the tools available to designers are changing incredibly quickly, and I want to be part of figuring out what that means rather than simply watching it happen.