When an old-school architecture firm principal lost what he thought was a sure-fire project from a long-standing client, he asked in disbelief, “How did they even hear of Bjarke Ingels?”
I knew in that moment the ground had shifted.
It wasn’t a fluke. A younger client team — Gen X and older Millennials — had moved into decision-making roles. They hadn’t shared golf games, school ties, or decades of handshakes with legacy firms. They did what they do for every high-stakes decision: they read industry media, researched online, compared signals of expertise and values, and chose the firm whose digital presence made the choice feel defensible.
That moment happened 10 years ago. Today, it’s the norm.
What that moment revealed wasn’t just a change in taste or taste-making firms; it exposed a deeper shift in how design practices are evaluated, shortlisted, and ultimately chosen. For decades, work flowed through relationships built over time, with reputations carried through personal networks, long-standing client loyalty, and shared professional histories. That system hasn’t disappeared, but it no longer operates on its own. Credibility is now established long before a conversation takes place. Firms are assessed in public through their websites, what they publish, how they present their work, and whether their point of view feels current, confident, and aligned with a client’s priorities. In this environment, winning work isn’t about selling harder. It’s about being legible — and credible — before the pitch is ever heard.
This shift is driven less by the work itself than by who is now making the decisions. Across both public and private sectors, Gen X and older Millennial professionals have advanced into roles with real authority such as project leads, directors, vice presidents, and client-side champions. Many came to Canada as immigrants, built careers without access to legacy professional networks, and did not inherit long-standing relationships with design firms. For them, familiarity and shared history carry less weight. Trust is established through evidence that can be reviewed, compared, and defended: a clear body of work, a coherent point of view, and a public-facing presence that signals competence, relevance, and alignment. They don’t choose firms the way their predecessors did and they don’t expect to.
Heading into 2026, this doesn’t mean firms need to abandon relationships or overhaul everything they’ve built. It means the conditions under which relationships form — and convert into work — have changed. Visibility now precedes familiarity. Clarity often matters more than longevity. Credibility is increasingly established in advance, through signals that can be shared internally and defended within complex client organizations. Business development, as a result, has become more public — and more cumulative — than it once was.
One consequence of this shift is that business development no longer happens primarily in meetings, presentations, or proposals. It happens in the space between projects, long before a formal opportunity appears. Firms are forming impressions through their websites, published thinking, project narratives, and how clearly they articulate what they do and why. This doesn’t replace relationship-building; it changes its sequence. By the time a conversation begins, many clients already have a working hypothesis about a firm’s expertise, relevance, and fit shaped by what they’ve seen over time, not just by what they’re being told in the moment.
As business development becomes more public and more cumulative, what distinguishes interior design firms is not what they do, but how they work and how clearly that approach is communicated. Most interior practices are already tightly focused by sector, whether corporate, workplace, hospitality, or residential. What matters, then, is how effectively firms articulate the value of their work: how they solve problems, how they make decisions, and why their approach delivers better outcomes for clients. In a competitive environment, making that thinking visible gives clients a narrative they can understand, compare, and defend internally when choosing a firm.
When firms rely primarily on imagery to speak for them, clients are left with a narrow set of criteria on which to decide. Beautiful work is essential, but visuals alone don’t explain how a firm thinks, works, or creates value. In those situations, decisions tend to default to proxies: personal chemistry during interviews, alignment of aesthetic taste, or — when everything else appears comparable — price. None of these are illegitimate, but none reliably surface the firm best equipped to deliver the most effective, efficient, and professional outcome. Clear differentiation gives clients something more substantive to respond to, a way to understand not just what a firm’s work looks like, but why its approach is the right fit for the problem at hand.
None of this asks design firms to reinvent themselves or abandon what has served them well. The work remains the work. What has changed is the environment in which that work is understood and chosen. In a market where decisions are made earlier, by more people, and with greater scrutiny, clarity becomes a form of leadership. Firms that navigate this shift successfully are not louder or more prolific; they are more deliberate. They know what they stand for, they communicate it with consistency, and they trust that making their thinking visible will attract the right clients over time. As 2026 approaches, that steadiness — not urgency — is what will separate firms that merely compete from those that continue to grow.
Johanna Hoffmann leads Oomph Group Inc., a strategic marketing and business development firm working with interior design, architecture, and engineering practices. She helps design firms decide where to play, how to stand apart, and how to build growth that actually lasts. www.oomphgroup.com