Self-imposing constraints in Nathan Beck creative process, digital product designer based in Amsterdam.

Every design initiative comes with constraints built in. Naturally, timescales and budgets are immovable. Until they’re not. But rather than a mandate for limitless innovation, a project brief is often a catalogue of constraining parameters and non-negotiable (and often contradictory) aspirations and unverified assumptions that impose a point of view that is not always shared with the designers involved. Hence the endless discourse over the years about designers striving to earn and justify their ‘seat at the table’.