Quite beautiful: Jessica Walsh

Mrs Walsh, what drives you?

Pushing forward with our creative work, building our diverse team and growing our business are the things that drive my productivity and give me a reason to get up in the morning. The work we do through our social initiatives like "Ladies, Wine & Design" and "Let's Talk About Mental Health" makes me feel like I'm doing something meaningful. Even when I'm busy - which is most of the time - I get the energy to keep going from connecting with other people and trying to do something good in a sometimes dark world.

Can you briefly describe your studio?

I've dreamed of having my own studio since I was a teenager. &Walsh is a creative team based in New York City. With strengths in brand identity, campaigns, commercials and social strategy, we work with brands in early stages, consult on products, identify target audiences and help build the brand from the ground up.

What is typical of your work?

My personal work has already been described as "colourful, bold, emotional, surrealistic and provocative". I have a certain visual sensibility and am drawn to these themes. In our branding work with our clients, however, we don't have a particular style. Our goal here is to help brands in the strategy phase discover their own unique brand personality. All of our creative work reflects this, from the copywriting, typography and colour choices to the images we create. This helps a brand build something true and honest that sets it apart from its competitors. I don't believe in imposing my personal style on a brand if it doesn't fit the brand personality and doesn't make sense for the brand's goals and target groups.

What role does beauty play in your work?

When we experience something beautiful, we often feel joy. Beauty triggers an emotional response in us. There are many different types of things that we can experience as beautiful with our five senses. We can see, taste, touch, smell or hear something beautiful. Beauty is a combination of form, colour and composition that pleases our aesthetic senses, especially the eye. It is also not tied to a particular style - or even superficial. Beauty triggers an emotional response that is firmly anchored in us. Our brain releases dopamine when we experience beauty, similar to when we exercise, have sex, take drugs or enjoy chocolate. Beauty therefore plays a part in the functionality of many types of creative work. For example, research has shown that beautiful environments improve people's behaviour, reduce crime and even promote healing in hospitals. People choose to buy products based on the beauty of the packaging design. As designers and creatives, we can't ignore something that is so closely linked to functionality.

In general, what makes good design?

In my opinion, good design is both beautiful and functional. It is successful in terms of what it is trying to achieve or communicate. Good design can be used to inform, inspire, excite, sell products or tell a story. Good design can also make complex issues easier to understand, simplify experiences, reduce waste or draw attention to a cause.

Do female designers find it harder to gain recognition?

At university, there were very few women in the industry to look up to. At the very top, it was a men's club. When I look around today, many of my favourite creatives are women. The gender balance has improved for a number of reasons: women's movements, greater awareness of and intolerance for sexism, men sharing parenting duties, and generally more female role models and mentors. Nevertheless, we still have a long way to go to achieve equality. Privilege still plays a big part in who gets recognition and power in our industry: Gender, ethnicity and upbringing still have an impact on equal opportunities in our industry. But we are making great progress compared to where we were a few decades ago.

What role does design play in the success of companies in general today?

I believe that content is the most important part of a brand's image. This means that the product or service or the organisation itself usually leaves the consumer with the greatest impression of the brand. Great packaging for a lousy product won't get you very far. However, if the product is already good, a great design can really make the product experience great and improve the experience for everyone involved. It can help sell more products, increase brand awareness, build brand loyalty, tell stories and create emotional connections.

How do you use design to translate what is at the core of the brand?

We believe that good branding brings out the true voice and personality of a brand. All too often, we see brands fall back on identity trends that make them look like everyone else: be it Swiss modernism or, more recently, the look and feel of a start-up. The result is that these brands always end up looking the same. And then it's difficult to stand out from the competition and create something memorable and timeless. Our goal at &Walsh is to create timeless brands that stand out from the competition. To achieve this, we conduct "brand therapy" with our clients. This is done through a combination of an onboarding website, stakeholder interviews and workshops. The aim of these sessions is to help brands find their weirdness. "Finding your weird" is what we call it. Because all too often brands are advised to suppress idiosyncrasies or opinions for fear of how consumers will react.

But if you try to please everyone, you end up with a "vanilla" brand that says nothing. Nobody hates these brands, but nobody really loves them either. We have found that the most successful brands are blunt about what they are. A great brand is like a great person: truthful and honest about who they are and unafraid to show their true colours. "Finding your weird" doesn't mean that all our brands are weird and quirky. Rather, we help brands to find out what makes them truly unique, who they are at their core.

How do you manage to make informed decisions in a complex world that can have a positive long-term impact on society?

As a business owner, I want to make a positive impact by working with customers who share our mission of making the world a better place. We achieve this primarily through the right products and ideas. Geltor, for example, is a sustainable and environmentally conscious protein brand. Or Isodope, the platform of the Brazilian model and influencer Isabelle Boemeke, who is dedicated to the fight against the climate crisis. As a creative, I make sure that I dedicate some of my time to personal projects that have a long-term and positive impact - in addition to the social projects mentioned at the beginning. For example, "Pins Won't Save the World". In just three months, we raised 120,000 US dollars, one hundred per cent of which we donated to charities that were threatened by Trump's administration. Or my photo series "Sorry I Have No Filter", which is my reaction to the fact that Instagram is increasingly becoming a place where people try to show their lives in a pretty package. I have also fallen into this trap.

→ You can find inspiration, innovations and timelessly beautiful design in our digital design special for Milan Design Week 2026.