Creative Earners 2025 design is rooted in inclusivity
Written by Kyle Schruder RGD, Creative Currency
The 2025 Creative Earners National Salary Survey will collect, analyze and report on financial information collected from professionals in the Canadian creative community to enhance pay transparency in the Canadian creative industry. Branding partner, Creative Currency identified inclusivity as the central theme shaping this year's push to encourage participation.
“Seeing all the thumbprints people create using our character builder after completing the survey has been so much fun! It’s been fascinating to watch participants combine their ‘creative power,’ ‘creative passion’ and ‘creative hobby’ to craft unique representations of themselves to share on social media.
We’ve seen everything from “Collaborator, Graphic Designer, Bookworm” to Improvisor, Creative Direction, Sticker Collector". It’s been a lovely way to learn more about each other, spark some joy and reinforce bonds in our creative community.”
Kyle Schruder RGD
Below, we share our journey developing the theme and the brainstorming process that brought it to life.
The RGD is a place for all creatives to call home—it’s not just for graphic designers or people who work in an agency. UX designers, strategists, educators, firm owners and freelancers—the list of people we needed to reach goes on. We wanted this survey to be the most inclusive yet, so we started from that foundation.
Creative Currency developed a design system and brand centred around thumbprint characters that capture not only the professional roles but also the personal passions and traits that make us unique. This approach helps our desired respondents see themselves represented in our diverse industry and hopefully convinces them to participate by completing this year's Creative Earners Salary Survey.
Participating in the survey incorporates your career path into a broader story of our industry that supports and strengthens our creative community. When we bring our unique selves to the table, we can build a resource that helps the whole industry thrive.
We spoke with Kyle Schruder RGD about some unexpected lessons and results from the project's development. He highlighted an important takeaway: don’t hold back on creative ideas. "We pitched various concepts to the RGD, including some we worried might be too unconventional, like the character builder. We were so happy they embraced it, and it became a key feature of the project. This experience has reminded us that bold ideas often have the most impact when given a chance—so don’t hold back!"
“One of my favourite details is our modular approach to building the thumbprint characters. We experimented with complex designs early but quickly realized they wouldn’t scale. By breaking the design into three transparent illustration boxes, we could generate a long list of illustrated attributes and mix and match them seamlessly. This approach not only simplified production but allowed us to generate enough traits that people could build something personal. Seeing how this design detail contributes to an engaging and inclusive user experience has been extremely rewarding.”
Kyle Schruder RGD
Kyle Schruder RGD
Creative Currency
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