We’re living in a pivotal era of branding, one where the glamour of sleek typography and hyper-polished mockups is giving way to a more urgent conversation: What is the role of design in a world on fire? As economic precarity grows, ecosystems collapse, and culture fractures, designers are waking up to their power: not just to sell, but to shift. In a recent conversation with Anne Miltenburg — strategist, educator, and brand director at MESH, a rising force in Kenya’s social innovation space — we explored what it really means to build brands that matter, and how the future of design may lie far outside the Western bubble.
Below is our conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity.
The next design trends will likely come from places like Nairobi, Lagos or Johannesburg. The world will be forced to pay attention because the work is that good.
How did you come to blend design with impact, and where did that story begin for you?
It started over 20 years ago in the Netherlands, where I studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. It was very traditional: type design, hand lettering, the whole thing. But even then, I was drawn to the question of what role design could play in society. My first real-world project was designing an HIV/AIDS campaign in Mali for people who couldn’t read words or images. That project changed everything. I realized that design could still be deeply strategic and powerful. I came back disillusioned with the development sector and took a job at a branding agency where, ironically, things felt less morally ambiguous: it was clear that this was a commercial space, and we were hired to build brands that sell phones and insurance.
But after ten years of that, I got restless. Why can this drugstore brand we work for draw millions of people to come buy lipstick, while there is this incredible app that can detect preventable blindness that no one has heard of? That fueled a question: Why aren’t social entrepreneurs using brand strategy and brand tools more effectively?
That question seems to have shaped your next chapter.
Absolutely. I spent a year traveling, interviewing social entrepreneurs, and running workshops. I expected the barrier to be money, but really, it was awareness. Many of them didn’t understand what branding could do or how to think like a brand strategist. That’s how Brand the Change was born: a training initiative in Nairobi to equip changemakers with brand-building skills. Over ten years, we trained over 36 facilitators and thousands of participants across the world.
When you first started training social entrepreneurs, I imagine it wasn’t easy. How did you communicate the importance of branding, strategy, and design thinking to people who likely had no background in it?
There are two parts to that. First, you have to be able to teach. I was fortunate as I started teaching at art schools right out of school myself. My last teaching role was at the Design Academy in Eindhoven, which really helped me think in terms of learning goals and how to reach them. Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence. Maybe teaching is just something I love to do.
The second part was really listening and being willing to fail, prototype, and try again. One thing I learned early on was: I didn’t want to convince people they needed branding. If I have to convince you, I’ll die on that hill. It won’t work, especially for small-budget, change-making organizations. If people think branding is a waste of time, that’s fine. Come back when you’re ready.
A client once said to me, “How do you get a horse to water?” And then he answered himself: “You find the thirsty horses.” That became my approach. I wrote a book called Brand the Change, laying out exactly why branding matters. A stronger brand helps people recognize and love your work. It allows you to attract better talent and charge higher margins. It helps you stand out. Once people understood that, they wanted in. The book helped a lot.
We also worked with incubators and accelerators who realized branding was a missing piece in the support they provided. In 2014, it was rare that someone said, “Maybe we should think about investing in brand.” Now it’s just a given.
You mentioned the ecosystem in Kenya, an amazing community of social entrepreneurs doing innovative work. Why do you think the rest of the world doesn’t know about it?
Nairobi is a hub in multiple ways. It hosts many international aid organizations, UN offices, and embassies. At the same time, it has a strong local tech talent pool. Two decades ago, Kenyan developers started building software and hardware, and innovative startups that blended with the impact space. Today’s social innovation scene is built on their work.
But globally, Africa still suffers from a warped reputation. Western media often focuses on conflict or on feel-good stories where foreigners are the heroes. Even the New York Times, when hiring an East Africa correspondent, advertised the role like it was a tourist opportunity. That kind of stereotyping makes it hard for serious, nuanced stories to break through.
What might be done to elevate Nairobi’s design and innovation scene outside of the impact space?
People here are tired of having to prove themselves to the Western World. Why should a brilliant Kenyan agency have to convince someone in Idaho that their design scene is valid? That’s exhausting.
Western audiences should realize that they benefit from a diversity of case studies and different problem-solving approaches from across the world. Western audiences, including Americans, could really benefit from a diversity of inspiration and cases across the world. What’s needed is more diverse speaker lineups, more inclusive conferences, and better connections between journalists between continents. Often, I’m the first person from Africa that people in the U.S. or Europe talk to — and I’m white and European! That says something.
Sadly, with more and more African countries appearing on the list of countries banned from traveling to the US, change on this front is not likely to happen. It was already really hard for one of my colleagues to get a visa to visit a conference before, now it’s becoming close to impossible.
We need real relationships and exchanges so that journalists, editors, and curators have 40 African designers on speed dial. That’s how change happens. And honestly, the next design trends will likely come from places like Nairobi, Lagos or Johannesburg. The world will be forced to pay attention because the work is that good.
In Kenya, there’s a remarkable sense of resilience and resourcefulness. People here are constantly solving problems under pressure, and that’s a muscle Western designers don’t always develop.
That’s incredibly eye-opening. I’m curious, how have your experiences living in different countries shaped your understanding of design?
I’ve lived and/or worked in 14 different countries, including Korea, France, Saudi Arabia, and for over ten years now, in Kenya. In every culture, I’ve learned something different. In Korea, the hierarchy is strong; you follow your boss’s lead, and if your boss is great, the whole team thrives (but if they don’t set the right course, you all fall down the cliff like lemmings). In the Netherlands, it’s all about challenging ideas, which is great for critical thinking but not always efficient.
In Kenya, there’s a remarkable sense of resilience and resourcefulness. People here are constantly solving problems under pressure, and that’s a muscle Western designers don’t always develop. Living here has stretched my emotional skillset. It’s changed how I think, lead, and collaborate.
Do you think Western designers are too focused on aesthetics, on making things look a certain way, rather than solving real problems?
I can’t say for sure, but in high-income economies, you have the luxury to care about what something looks like, beyond the functionality. At MESH, we produce 36 original pieces of content a month — videos, articles, social posts — and we don’t have a designer on the team. A freelancer created our identity and built templates for us, and the team trained itself in Canva, and for the first time in their lives, they are creating layouts and graphics. The fact that we make that work at this scale is a miracle in itself.
Design is communication. The message and impact matter more than how beautiful it looks. In our case, it matters most whether it looks MESHY. We won’t get better results because the type is perfectly kerned. Our audience doesn’t care about that.
That aligns with my belief that design is purpose-driven communication, not subjective art. Do you think the design industry is having enough conversations about our collective responsibilities?
Not nearly enough. From the beginning, especially in Europe, design was about democratizing beauty and functionality, thanks to movements like the Bauhaus. But now, we’re stuck in a weird dichotomy: either you’re doing highbrow styling or highbrow idealism.
There’s this idea that all designers should take a stand on every global issue, from Palestine to climate change. And while that comes from a good place, I think being a good citizen isn’t just a design thing, it’s a human thing. Yes, we should bring our values into our work — and so should doctors and lawyers. But we also have to recognize that not everyone can afford to say no to commercial jobs.
We need to talk less about purity and more about skills. Designing for social or environmental change is a real skill set.
Right. There’s privilege in being able to choose “purpose over profit.”
Exactly. The First Things First manifesto from 1964 (and re-released in 1999) said designers shouldn’t use their skills to sell cigarettes or butt toners. That’s great, but most of the signatories weren’t doing that work anyway. They were already designing books and museum pieces.
We need to talk less about purity and more about skills. Designing for social or environmental change is a real skill set. You need to understand branding, how change happens, and how to lead. Leadership is key because, from the top, you can actually shift company decisions, not just protest them from the inside.
Constraints are brutal, but they lead to amazing creativity.
Let’s close with MESH. What is it, and what’s your role there?
MESH is a professional social network for young entrepreneurs in Kenya. Every year, a million young people graduate, but only 70,000 jobs are created. That could be a crisis or an opportunity.
Young people here are already creating businesses and contributing over $539 million a month to the economy. MESH founder Anuj Tanna says it best: we should stop seeing the informal economy as a problem to be fixed, and instead, start to fuel it. MESH helps young entrepreneurs by connecting them to peers, mentors, customers, suppliers, and skills they actually need. It’s all peer-based learning. They also get a digital ID to access loans and gigs.
When I joined in 2022, we had 23,000 monthly users. Now, we have 750,000. I’m the brand director, so I oversee marketing, community, content, brand strategy, and communications. And I only have three days a week to do it, so it’s busy.
We run lean. If we need a trailer, we get $1,000, brainstorm for an hour, and make it happen. The constraints are brutal, but they lead to amazing creativity. And honestly, I’ve had opportunities here that I never would have had if I stayed in Europe.
Miltenburg’s work reminds us that branding isn’t just about what we say — it’s about who gets to say it. In a world where aesthetic perfection often eclipses practical impact, her clarity cuts through: design is a tool. And in the right hands, design can reshape everything.
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