Not 100% sure about this, so when the Pope told Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel, that's just design?

It was in fact design, or rather - commercial art. Most of the catholic/religious art was commissioned by the church to bring the religious ideas (or doctrine) to the illiterate masses.

Looks cool, visually appealing.

I wouldn't worry about accessibility around the marketing headline. Especially in the instance of a 1-second red gradient overlay. If you are determined to read it, you can wait. Accessibility is not 'one size fits all', mind it where it really matters. People who land on Stripe.com are not going to make a decision about the product based on one headline.

I hope the next generation of designers are going to stop getting so worked up about logo redesigns...

For strategy and vision, I can highly recommend starting with these two books - "Creative Strategy and the Business of Design" by Douglas Davis and "All Of The Other Marketing Books Are Crap" by Denise Kohnke.

With delegation skills it's a bit more tricky, you can certainly find many books on that topic int the business world, plenty from Harward Business Review for example. But, I think the practical side needs to be explored just as much as the theoretical.

To practice, come up with a simple design project, let's say a landing page. Work on the creative brief and a project brief (from the two books above, you'll learn that these two briefs are very different, and writing each takes time and effort). And then, find a freelancer to get it done. For the sake of experiment, go with Upwork or Fiver, so you are not spending too much of your own $ to learn on your own mistakes :)

You can also add more complexity where you are working separately with a copywriter, designer, and developer. This experience will most definitely elevate your project management and delegation skills.

Hope that helps!

The current goal is to grow my vision, strategy, and delegation skills. Having been designing for almost 12 years, I'm now starting to notice that my ideas are outpacing my ability and time available to get those ideas produced/made. I'm ready to transition from an Individual Contributor to a director/manager role so I can produce work at scale.

Thank you for sharing, this is a great angle to look at it. Can you recall any specific turning moments when started moving from design to strategy/management?

Thank you for sharing! Would you say that working for the government is a safer choice when it comes to ageism/layoffs?

Eli, thank you for having a point of view. Enjoyed reading it.

Thank you for your generosity!

Snapchat succeed because of the concept behind the app. It offered freedom to make mistakes and have fun with your friends instead of wasting time on creating a perfect image of your life. UI, design and branding are secondary to its success.