Shaping a DesignedUp Organisation: The Journey to Design Maturity

by Emma Carter

Overview

“Emma Carter reveals how organizations can shift from tech-centric to design-led, creating meaningful experiences. Through case studies and practical frameworks, she demonstrates how scaling design isn’t about adding more designers but transforming how organizations think and operate. This essential guide helps leaders embed design thinking at every level, turning transformation into a continuous evolution.

In Shaping a DesignedUp Organisation Emma Carter distills the essence of digital transformation: true progress lies in simplifying through design thinking, not adding complexity. Like a conductor harmonizing an orchestra, she shows how tech and design can work together to serve human needs. More than a book on shaping and scaling design, this is a vision for a more powerful, humane digital future—essential for those bridging technology and human experience.”—John Maeda, VP Engineering, Head of Computational Design / AI Platform, Microsoft

The learnings gained from Shaping a DesignedUp Organisation will not only give design leaders a seat at the table, it’ll make them the smartest person at the table - creating influence, driving conversations for growth, and ultimately shaping their company into a ‘design mature’ organisation.

But that’s not to say this book is strictly for design leaders. Tech leaders, product leaders and business leaders will come to see how business performance and design are intrinsically linked. You’ll gain intimate insights from leaders at world-leading organisations like Spotify, Disney, Airbnb, Monzo and frog and learn about a variety of frameworks and practical approaches to help your organisation reach design maturity with a human focus.

And if you’re in an organisation not convinced by the value of design, you’ll learn how to translate the benefits of embedding design at every touchpoint in a way that’s meaningful, valuable and profitable to various stakeholders, creating an army of design advocates to future proof your organisation…and decrease its risk of becoming a dinosaur.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032573793
Publisher:	CRC Press
Publication date:	06/09/2025
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Award-winning design leader, speaker, author, and mentor Emma Carter has more than 20 years of experience driving a customer-centric approach to problems. She has led organisations and teams through the journey of taking a human-centred approach to think from the user’s perspective and deliver value. Throughout her career, she has excelled at leading and nurturing teams, creating engaging digital products, visual and interactive design, branding and looking at the problem across all the customer, employee and brand touch-points to solve problems and create a personal and total brand experience.

Table of Contents

Introduction. Scaling Design Throughout the Organisation 1. The Business of Design 2. BusinessedUp 3. Becoming a DesignedUp Organisation 4. Recalibrating Systemic Beliefs 5. Upscaling Design 6. Pattern Matching and Transformation 7. You’ve Arrived 8.  Conclusion