Sightline 2026: What Happened When We Asked the Design Industry to Be Honest With Itself.

Dana Tomić Hughes at the launch of Sightline at The University of Sydney, February 2026. Photo: Fiona Susanto.

Snippets from the video of the Sightline launch at the University of Sydney, February 2026.

“If You’re Here, It’s Because You Care About the Work That Matters” — Sightline 2026.

Something happened in February that I’m still sitting with.

Across two mornings—one in Sydney, one in Melbourne—several hundred architects, interior designers, creative directors and design leaders gathered for Sightline, a two-session design intelligence briefing I’d spent the better part of a year building. No top 10s. No mood boards. No trend forecast. No polished highlight reel of what’s “hot right now.”

Instead, I stood in front of the audience and said the things I’d been holding in for far too long… About the algorithmic sameness eating our industry alive. About The Great Flattening—the feedback loop that rewards beige, penalises boldness, and has quietly eroded the critical thinking that design practice depends on. About the compromised media ecosystem that often prioritises noise over nuance, and what that means for how designers are seen, valued and understood.

And then I mapped a way forward.

Session One diagnosed where we are—a grounded, sobering look at the current state of design, media and culture, with a field report from Milan, Copenhagen and beyond. Session Two shifted from observation to direction, charting six interconnected territories where the most compelling work is pushing back against homogeneity: from anti-mass aesthetics and intentional nostalgia through to radical materiality, place-based cultural narratives, community-centred design, and new frontiers where human imagination is being expanded by technology into previously unimaginable territory.

The content was dense. Three hours of it. But Sightline didn’t start with content. It started with a fire in my belly last August. I didn’t know exactly what I’d create—just that after sixteen years of running Yellowtrace, something was building that couldn’t stay behind a screen anymore. Call it instinct. An inner knowing that I had something important to share with the community I’ve been in service to for so long—the people who shape our built world, and who I care about fiercely.

I didn’t have a template for this. No precedent to follow. Just conviction and months of research, looking inwards, ruthless curation, and the hope that what I’d been seeing and feeling would resonate with others.

It did. What happened in those rooms went beyond the presentation.

Introducing Sightline: A Half-Day Design Intelligence Briefing with Dana Tomić Hughes.

Design has the power to shape how we experience the world. With this understanding at its core, Dana Tomić Hughesis launching Sightline, an insightful download of design's directions—like a year's worth of intel in one morning.

Sightline launch at The University of Sydney, February 2026. Photo: Fiona Susanto.

Guests mingling before and during the intermission of Sightline at The University of Sydney, February 2026. Photos: Fiona Susanto.

In Sydney, the audience exploded at the end. Some people were in tears—and so was I. In Melbourne, a different room but the same energy. In the weeks since, messages have been arriving almost daily—voice notes, emails, DMs from designers at every stage of their careers telling me that Sightline gave them language for something they’d been feeling but couldn’t quite articulate.

“It was like design therapy,” one Melbourne designer shared. “The clarity and reset all creatives need”, said another. “You gave language to what I’ve been feeling for a while,” wrote a designer from Sydney. “Clear framework, easy to digest, rigorous amount of research, hugely valuable,” a Sydney studio director relayed from her team. One creative lead told me it should be “compulsory for everyone in the industry.” A respected colleague said she preferred it to Milantrace—which, given that I created Milantrace, felt both humbling and clarifying about where this work is heading.

Survey results confirmed what the room already told us: with 97% of respondents rating their likelihood of recommending Sightline 10 out of 10. The content areas that delivered the greatest value were insights into the current state of design media and visual flattening, followed closely by brand building and the importance of owning your narrative.

I could have written this article the week it happened. But Sightline is about signal over noise, depth over speed, meaning over metrics—and I wanted to practise what I preach. Some experiences deserve more than a hot take. They deserve reflection. And frankly, I needed it.

What I’ve come to understand is that Sightline didn’t just land because the content was epic. It landed because the industry was ready for it. Ready to stop performing confidence and start having a genuine conversation about what’s broken, what’s emerging, and what it actually takes to do meaningful, differentiated work right now.

That conversation isn’t over. It’s just getting started.

To every person who came, who took notes, who leaned in, who stayed afterwards to talk, who messaged me days and weeks later, still processing—thank you. You made Sightline what it was. I held the space. You filled it with exactly the energy this industry needs.

Dana Tomić Hughes at Sightline Melbourne talk held at RMIT University, February 2026. Photo: Yellowtrace.

Sightline Melbourne was held at RMIT University. Photo: Yellowtrace.

Sightline launch at the University of Sydney, February 2026. Snippets from the video by Blake Lisk.

Dana Tomić Hughes with Sightline partners and friends Leighton Clarke, Group CEO and Michelle McEwan, Group Head of Marketing at Space Furniture.

Dana with long-term friend, supporter and partner Michael Karakolis, Founder & Creative Director of Fibonacci. Photos: Fiona Susanto.

And none of it would have happened without the people who backed it—not just financially, but philosophically.

Sightline’s industry partners—Arent & Pyke, SJB and Richards Stanisich—are peers and friends whose work I’ve admired and championed for years. Having practices of that calibre in the room, not just as attendees with whole teams but as supporters, meant the world to me. It also signalled that this is the type of conversation that matters to the people doing the work at the highest level.

Our education partners, RMIT School of Architecture and Urban Design and the University of Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning, gave Sightline a home—literally. These are institutions that understand the value of critical thinking and professional development beyond the lecture hall. The fact that Melbourne’s event took place at RMIT’s Design Hub felt right—a space built for exactly this kind of exchange.

Brintons Commercial, our supporting partner, has been making the world more beautiful for over 230 years. That kind of long-term commitment to craft and quality is rare, and it mirrors what Sightline is trying to build—something with depth and longevity, not just a moment.

And our principal partners, Fibonacci and Space Furniture—these are relationships that go well beyond sponsorship. They’re long-term collaborators and genuine friends of mine and of Yellowtrace. Fibonacci is the terrazzo of choice for leading architects and designers in Australia, and Space Furniture has been a cornerstone of the local design landscape for over three decades. Both share a belief that design is worth investing in seriously—not as a trend cycle, but as a practice with real cultural value.

Every partnership behind Sightline was chosen because we share something fundamental: a belief that the design industry deserves an investment in thinking. That depth, craft and long-term commitment are worth showing up for.

To everyone who couldn’t be there but has written, messaged, called, voice-noted, posted, or pulled me aside at an event since—thank you. You’ve shown me what this industry is hungry for.

And I’m listening.

Dana X

SOCIAL SNAPS FROM THE SYDNEY EVENT.

SOCIAL SNAPS FROM THE MELBOURNE EVENT.