The Impact of Gender on Design Decisions: Empowering Women to Trust Their Own Voice

The design industry is a space where creativity thrives, brands come to life, and businesses find their voice. But beneath its vibrant surface lies a quieter challenge—women’s expertise, both as designers and as clients, is often questioned or undervalued. Even as the boss of their own business, many women struggle to assert themselves as an authority in their field.

As a woman working in design, I’ve seen firsthand how deeply ingrained sexism can manifest—sometimes subtly, but in ways that have a lasting impact. Too often, I’ve watched female clients second-guess their choices, not because they lack insight, but because outside voices—typically male partners or friends—cause them to doubt their instincts. I’ve written this blog because I’ve seen this pattern repeat too many times and I’ve reached my fill of this particular problem. My hope is that by addressing it, more women will feel empowered to trust their own voice and make business decisions with confidence—without second-guessing themselves or the experts they hire to support them.

Women’s expertise in design is often undervalued, but your brand should reflect your vision—not amateur opinions. Learn why trusting your instincts and hiring the right designer for your niche is crucial for success. Empower yourself to create a brand that speaks directly to your audience.

In this blog:

Trusting the Expert: Why Your Voice Matters

The Gender Gap in Design: A Closer Look at the Numbers

Confidence and Choice: Designing for Your Target Audience, Not Your Husband

Choosing the Right Designer for Your Niche

The Website Design Process: When to Seek Feedback

Moving Forward: Redefining Expertise and Leadership

Trusting the Expert: Why Your Voice Matters

A common scenario I’ve experienced is when a female client enthusiastically approves an in-progress design, only to later share it with her husband for feedback. Their amateur critique can sometimes shake her confidence, leading to a shift in direction that prioritises his opinions over her own preferences and my professional advice.

This raises an important question:

Whose opinion is most important when making decisions about your business?

If you wouldn’t hand over your marketing strategy, financial planning, or hiring decisions to someone without expertise in your field, why would you let an unqualified opinion override the design process? 

When you hire a professional, whether for branding, design, or marketing, you’re investing in their knowledge and experience. Trusting yourself and the expert you’ve chosen is an essential part of the process. 

Design isn’t just about aesthetics—it’s about storytelling. A well-crafted brand visually communicates the values and personality of a business while building trust with its audience. This is why having confidence in your choices and trusting your designer is so important. Your vision, combined with expert guidance, is what makes a brand truly effective.

The Gender Gap in Design: A Closer Look at the Numbers

These dynamics don’t exist in a vacuum. Graphic design in Australia and internationally has some serious disparity between the genders when it comes to leadership, awards and recognition. Even though the ratio of men and women working in the field, and graduating from universities, is roughly even, women are not being given positions of power within the industry. 

Let’s look at the data, you all know I love data.

Women make up 48% of design industry jobs in Australia, compared to 60% internationally (Jobs & Skills Australia). Within specific fields, the numbers shift: only 46% of web design roles in Australia are held by women, while graphic design sees better representation at 59%. This gap gets worse if we look at leadership positions. International research from Johnson & Wales University found that although 60% of graphic design graduates are women, only 11% of female designers hold leadership roles. The ratio of women speakers invited to talk at major design conferences in the USA is unsurprisingly very uneven. Jaclyn Larsen’s research showed that in 2020 the major design conferences had an expert speaker ratio of: one woman for every 2.3 men at the Adobe Summit, one woman for every 2.1 men at the Experience Design Week, and one woman for every 4.6 men at Developer Week. We can take this even further, research by Jane Connory shows that only 33% of jurors at the Australian Graphic Design Awards between 1994 and 2018 were women, and only 23% of the award recipients were women.

If women struggle to gain recognition and respect even within our own industry amongst peers, it’s no surprise then that we’re not taken as seriously as other business professionals in a client-facing context. 

Confidence and Choice: Designing for Your Target Audience, Not Your Husband

As a female business owner, your brand’s aesthetic and direction should reflect your vision. Seeking feedback is valuable, but it’s important to involve the right voices at the right stage of the process. Testing your design with your ideal audience—the people you want to attract as clients—is far more useful than testing it against a family member’s personal taste.

Consider a holistic wellness coach whose ideal audience is women in their 40s and 50s looking for gentle, supportive lifestyle changes. The branding should reflect warmth, trust, and holistic well-being. If a husband reviewing the project prefers something with more corporate polish because “it looks more professional,” it could alienate the very clients the business wants to attract. Instead, asking current and potential clients what appeals to them can provide much more relevant insights.

Similarly, a birth doula targeting new mothers should have branding that evokes calm, reassurance, and care. If a male partner sees the design and suggests making it look “more medical” because he associates professionalism with sterility, the emotional connection between the brand and the target audience may be lost. New mothers don’t need a hospital aesthetic—they need warmth, understanding, and the feeling that they’re supported during one of the most vulnerable times in their lives.

Choosing the Right Designer for Your Niche

Just as you wouldn’t hire a generalist lawyer to handle a complex intellectual property case, choosing a designer who specialises in your industry is crucial. Every industry has its own language, aesthetic, and emotional appeal. For example, I recently turned down a job designing a marketplace for caravan sales—not because I wasn’t capable, but because my expertise lies in holistic health, wellbeing, and adult services. I’ve spent the better part of a decade refining my understanding of these markets, ensuring I can create designs that resonate deeply with their target audiences. I’ve done the personal miles and the academic miles that mean I understand the businesses, business owners and the audiences in my chosen area of specialty - you guys are my own niche.

A designer who specialises in your niche will not only understand the visual trends and branding expectations of your industry but will also know how to craft messaging that speaks directly to your ideal audience. That’s something no amount of outside opinion can replace.

Funny side story: I’ve done some work for a business that runs courses for tradies, totally outside my normal niche. This is really unfortunate because now my event pre-fill suggestions include “Dogging 101,” which has caused a bit of giggling in live screen share meetings. It’s worse because my adult entertainment clients and somatic sexology clients assume I’ve set up something completely different. The lesson: stick to your niche.

The Website Design Process: When to Seek Feedback

Large design agencies have entire departments dedicated to user testing and feedback before a site goes live. But when you’re hiring a small design agency, that level of extensive testing often isn’t included. Instead, I incorporate a functional feedback phase into my website design process that allows for practical testing (do the buttons all work, are there typos etc) without derailing the design direction. This type of feedback is helpful and necessary. What isn’t helpful is asking broad, subjective questions like “Do you like it?” because the site wasn’t designed for them—it was designed for your audience. 

While external input can be valuable, it should be incorporated strategically. Here’s a better way to approach feedback without undermining your instincts or your designer’s expertise:

1. First, trust your own vision. Your business exists to serve a specific audience, and you know them better than anyone. What resonates with you will likely resonate with them.

2. Work closely with your designer. You hired them because you trusted their expertise—collaborate with them rather than seeking external opinions too soon.

3. Seek feedback at the right stage. Once the brand identity is nearly complete, test it with potential clients or trusted industry peers, not just family members.

4. Ask the right questions. Instead of asking, “Do you like this?” ask, “Does this make you feel confident about the business? Would this appeal to someone looking for [your service]?”

Moving Forward: Redefining Expertise and Leadership

To close the gender gap in design and ensure that women’s expertise is valued, we need to start by trusting ourselves. That means having confidence in the choices we make for our brands, trusting the professionals we hire, and resisting the urge to second-guess based on external opinions that don’t align with our goals.

The key takeaway? Your business’s brand should be built for you and your audience—not to satisfy someone else’s personal preference. By embracing your voice and trusting in the expertise you’ve invested in, you create a brand that is strong, authentic, and built for success.

As always, if you have a design or marketing issue you want to talk through, or if I can help you get it done - do get in touch or book in a session online.

I'm here if you need me.

You got this.