a community built by designers for designers
Welcome to a community built to help design professionals, like you, confidently navigate your career path.
We believe in the power of connection, shared knowledge, and mentorship to achieve your career goals.
If you're ready to elevate your career, build your network, and shape your future on your own terms, become a part of a community that's invested in your success.
Here, we lead with creativity, community, and the belief that designers grow best when supported — not when told they’re falling short – so you can build a thriving creative career!
Peer to peer connections, not lectures or overly produced conferences. Just real, raw conversations.
REAL TALK • REAL COMMUNITY • REAL RESULTS
REAL TALK • REAL COMMUNITY • REAL RESULTS
WHO ARE WE FOR?
The Design Cohort is focused on design professionals across consumer packaged goods industry, but all are welcome.
Creative directors, design strategists, design directors, design managers, designers and makers: if you care about the future of creativity in our industry, you belong here.
Graphic designers, UX/UI designers, industrial designers, experience designers are just a few of the trade experts that make-up part of our community.
Our community ecosystem is built to support design professional growth across your entire career path.
CONNECT, LISTEN AND SHARE WITH PEERS FROM ACROSS THE DESIGN INDUSTRY!
Peer to peer connections, not lectures or overly produced conferences. Just real, raw conversations.
Meet OUR FOUNDER
GAbi gonzalez
Hi, I’m Gabi Gonzalez—a creative at heart, coach by calling, and founder of The Design Cohort as a necessity. I work with creative professionals who are ready to grow, lead, and a build a thriving career in the design industry. I know from firsthand experience that there is a gap between business and design and I’ve found established ways to manage setting better expectations and communication in the industry.
Creativity has always been my thing—it’s the one thing I’ve ever truly been good at. My dad was a mechanical engineer and had every hope that I’d follow in his footsteps. But after failing the first three weeks of pre-calculus, we both knew that wasn’t in my future. So instead, I enrolled in AP Art and poured everything I had into my portfolio, determined to carve out a different path—one rooted in creativity. I LOVED graphic design and creating, but I stumbled into a career in Design Leadership and found that I could make a true impact on our industry.
That path led me into the world of consumer brands, where I’ve spent over two decades building and leading creative teams, both in-house and on the agency side, across several Fortune 500 companies. I’ve launched new to the world products, shaped visual identities, navigated creative burnout, built and led creative teams and learned how to lead in environments that don’t always make space for creativity to thrive.
I founded The Design Cohort because I saw a need to start a new conversation, one that is built on creatives being at the heart of what drives our industry, one that has an eye toward the future and modeling a more positive experience where we are the experts and are led by diverse group of leaders.
Let’s build a new era of creativity led by creatives—starting with community through The Design Cohort!
“It’s a new era of design, the old era is dead, and we need to start a new conversation; one with an eye toward the future.”
Contact us
Interested in working together? Fill out some info and we will be in touch shortly. We can’t wait to hear from you!