Havas London’s chief design officer explains why system thinking, brand expression and radical digital exploration are shaping the future of design.
Lorenzo Fruzza serves as a Design juror at this year’s Drum Awards Festival, bringing a career shaped by an intentionally winding path. After starting out as a visualiser fresh out of Camberwell, he moved through AMV BBDO and Naked Communications before becoming chief design officer at Havas London. Under his leadership, design now sits at the center of the agency’s offering, having worked acros s brand repositionings for Durex, the Open University and ASDA, as well as identity platforms for the Department for Education and design-led social work like the Black Plaques Project. That breadth informs how he sees the future of the discipline.
“I think AI is pushing the tools for creative exploration further upstream,” he says. While he sees it putting pressure on executional practices and opening the door to unoriginal work, he also sees new possibilities. AI is introducing lighter processes that free up designers to experiment. “What is exciting is how it’s creating new workflows, allowing for more ‘what if we just tried this’ moments,” he says. He believes this could lead to “an era of radical digital exploration,” reshaping the way ideas are formed.
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When asked how teams should balance consistency with speed, Fruzza says the answer starts with perspective. “We need to better understand brands holistically and focus on consistent feel versus look,” he says. As brands appear in more places, he encourages designing systems that keep core elements stable while allowing local expression across regions or stories. That same principle guides his advice for brands expressing their values. “Understand all the places your brand needs to have impact,” he says. Then define the role your brand plays in each space and the codes that bring it to life.
If he could invest in one discipline for the future, he chooses brand expression design. “It encapsulates the best of brand and comms design to deliver a brand to billboard service,” he says. He sees it as the bridge between idea and experience. He also believes an important design principle is being overlooked today. “The functional, more problem-solving side of design thinking,” he says. He argues that this part of the discipline is key to codifying creativity and making it scalable.
“System thinking” is the trait he believes will define the most effective designers in the next decade. Designers who understand how identity and expression move across an entire brand journey will have the advantage. His current challenge reflects that ambition. “Building modern products that truly capture the value that brand expression design can bring to the table,” he says, is the problem he is most focused on solving now.
The Drum Awards Festival celebrates the designers redefining how brands behave, communicate and evolve. Follow jurors like Lorenzo Fruzza as they spotlight work that pushes design into new creative and strategic territory for 2025.
Havas
Founded in 1835 in Paris, Havas is one of the world’s largest global communications groups, with more than 23,000 people operating in over 100 markets and sharing...