A professional profile describing a designer with broad knowledge across multiple design disciplines combined with deep expertise in one specific area — visualized as the horizontal bar of the 'T' representing breadth and the vertical bar representing depth. T-shaped designers collaborate effectively across functions while bringing specialized depth to their core domain.
Common contexts
- Evaluating a designer candidate who can conduct research and prototype but specializes in interaction design
- Structuring a small startup design team where each designer must cover multiple disciplines without losing depth
- Career planning conversation between a design lead and a mid-level designer choosing where to invest skill development
Use when
Use the T-shaped model when hiring or growing a designer for a cross-functional team where they'll need to work alongside engineers, researchers, and product managers. The breadth enables communication and collaboration; the depth ensures they contribute substantive expertise rather than just facilitation.
Avoid when
Don't use T-shaped thinking as a hiring filter for highly specialized senior roles — a principal motion designer or a dedicated accessibility engineer shouldn't be penalized for going deep at the expense of breadth. Forcing the T model there optimizes for the wrong axis.
The T model describes career shape, not character — the designers who grow fastest are those who build the horizontal bar deliberately by working adjacent to roles they don't fully understand yet, not by taking courses.
Real-world examples
- Figma actively recruits T-shaped designers who combine deep expertise in interaction design with working knowledge of frontend engineering — a hiring criterion that reduces handoff friction in their tightly integrated design-to-code workflow.
- IDEO's studio model places T-shaped designers from different disciplines (graphic design, industrial design, behavioural science) in the same project team, with each person's breadth enabling real cross-domain collaboration.
- Spotify's design organisation describes their ideal candidate as T-shaped: deep in visual design or research, with enough breadth to participate in strategy conversations, sprint facilitation, and basic prototyping.