This essay is by Ashleigh Axios, design executive and founder of Public Servants.
In Spring 2024, on a patio overlooking downtown Providence, I joined a Rhode Island School of Design gathering. Joe Gebbia—Airbnb co-founder and RISD alumnus—was reflecting on his time on the school’s board of trustees.
He told a story about one of his earliest classes at RISD, where the professor warned students that most would not pass the class. Their first daunting assignment? Design and build a chess set. Gebbia recalled the challenge with pride: he completed the set, passed the class, and discovered the thrill of stretching his abilities.
Then he made the leap: “Airbnb was my next chess set.” Each new undertaking, he suggested, is just another chess set—an intimidating challenge that can be solved through creativity and persistence.
At the time, I found his remarks both relatable and sobering. Relatable, as I too was navigating a professional transition and felt the weight of new beginnings. Sobering, because while design problems can be framed as personal puzzles, public challenges—especially in government—are rarely games to be conquered.
Last week, Gebbia stepped onto a new board: he was named the first-ever Chief Design Officer of the United States, serving out of the Executive Office. It’s a historic moment. For years, many of us in the civic design community have imagined what this role could mean. Now it exists. The question is: what will success look like?
The work of design in government isn’t conquest, it’s care.
Why This Role Matters
Design is not just about logos, interfaces, or furniture. It’s about the way systems function for people. Government design affects whether benefits reach families when they need them most, whether people with low vision can navigate essential websites, and whether someone with limited English can understand the forms that shape their lives.
Design in government is inseparable from trust in democracy. When people encounter friction, opacity, or indifference in government systems, they lose confidence in institutions. When they encounter clarity, dignity, and care, trust grows.
The chief design officer role could help institutionalize a standard of excellence across government—aligning agencies around the basic principle that design is public service—and help repair the damage done when expertise was undervalued or excluded.
What Makes Government Design Different
Private-sector design is measured by growth: more users, higher profits, stronger brand recognition. Success is rewarded when a company dominates its market or dazzles shareholders.
But in government, the measure of success is profoundly different. It’s not about shareholders or executives—it’s about people. The true test is whether services reach those who need them most, whether communication reduces confusion, whether systems treat people with dignity.
Designing in government requires humility, patience, and stewardship. It means working within complex bureaucracies and respecting the constraints that exist to ensure fairness and accountability. It requires collaboration across disciplines, not brilliance in isolation.
In short, design in government isn’t about conquest. It’s about care.
The Risks Ahead
While Gebbia’s “chess set” metaphor was likely meant to inspire persistence, it also risks reinforcing a dangerous mindset—that complex public challenges are trophies to be won or puzzles for individual achievement.
When design becomes about ego, speed, or prestige, it can do real harm. We’ve already seen what happens when leaders chase bold reforms without grasping the human cost: disrupted programs, eroded trust, more challenges for the most vulnerable. Moving fast and breaking things may earn headlines in Silicon Valley. In government, it breaks trust—and with it, the people, families, and communities who depend on public systems. Design also carries an unspoken promise of honesty. At its best, it makes systems clearer, not more deceptive. Designers can simplify and persuade, but we also have a responsibility to tell the truth. When design is used to distract or obscure, the harm to the public is profound. A chief design officer must never design around deception—doing so would break not only trust, but people’s lives. Design should clarify truth, not decorate lies.
Equally important: design cannot be reduced to visual polish or unified branding. Coherent graphics and messaging may signal strength, but effectiveness without care is not success. If design is used only to make harmful systems look seamless, it undermines democracy rather than serving it.
Successful government design must go deeper—into the services people rely on, the content they understand, and the experiences that shape their trust. The purpose isn’t to make government look good; it’s to make government work well, for everyone—across political views, identities, wealth, and geography.
The Opportunity
If treated with care, the role of chief design officer could be transformative; it could:
Standardize excellence across agencies, making accessibility and usability non-negotiable.
Elevate public trust by showing people that government can be clear, reliable, and humane.
Set a precedent for future administrations, embedding design as a lasting function of governance, requiring coordination across silos.
Advance repair by acknowledging past mistakes and reinviting the designers, technologists, and engineers who built the foundation—many pushed out of federal service. Real repair requires accountability, reinvestment, and empowering subject-matter experts to lead.
Imagine a world where applying for student aid, renewing a passport, or accessing health care is as intuitive and dignified as using the best-designed private apps—except the goal isn’t profit, but public well-being. That’s the promise.
Success must not be measured by cleverness, novelty, or prestige. It must be measured by the everyday lives made easier, safer, and more dignified …
A Welcome, With Caution
I want to celebrate this milestone. The fact that Gebbia has been appointed as Chief Design Officer of the United States signals that design has moved from the margins to the center of governance. It’s something many of us have worked to help make happen for decades.
But I also want to issue a caution, not just to Joe Gebbia but to anyone who will hold this role in the future: government design is not a chess set. It is not a personal puzzle or prize. The stakes are far higher.
Success must not be measured by cleverness, novelty, or prestige. It must be measured by the everyday lives made easier, safer, and more dignified because government works better, on behalf of the people it serves. It must also be measured by repair—acknowledging mistakes, learning lessons, and reinviting the practitioners who built this field, regardless of their political leanings.
If this role is grounded in that principle—if it embodies integrity, humility, and stewardship—it could reshape how millions of people experience their government and how the U.S. is experienced beyond its borders. If not, it risks becoming another experiment in design ego, with the public left holding the consequences.
So let’s welcome this new chapter with both optimism and vigilance. The work of design in government isn’t conquest, it’s care. It must always serve the public.
Ashleigh Axios is a design executive advancing better government through Public Servants, after co-founding DotGov Design and serving as Creative Director in the Obama White House.
Header illustration © Ashleigh Axios.
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