Design has always borrowed. We call it “inspiration,” “trends” or “moodboarding,” but let’s be honest: a lot of the time it’s appropriation with better lighting. Symbols, aesthetics—even entire creative vocabularies get lifted from cultures, stripped of context and repackaged as the next big thing. The people behind them? Too often left without credit, compensation or even a mention.

Now, we have AI—systems built mostly by privileged Western creators, trained on oceans of content that reflect the same colonial power dynamics. It doesn’t just repeat the visuals of the past; it amplifies the storytelling frameworks, metaphors and processes we’ve inherited from a narrow cultural lens. Left unchecked, it risks scaling those biases infinitely.

This is why conversations about decolonization and representation aren’t just overdue—they’re essential if we want creativity to move forward rather than in circles.

When “Timeless” Really Means “Colonial”

For decades, when brands have asked for work that feels timeless or universal, what they often mean is “aligned with the aesthetics of European modernism”—Bauhaus minimalism, Swiss rationalism, the so-called “international” style. Clean, neutral, objective? Only if you ignore whose perspective defined it. Because branding has so often adopted these standards wholesale, it has in some ways become a force of colonization itself: exporting the same narrow ideals of what “good design” looks like across markets, cultures and industries until they start to feel inevitable rather than chosen.

AI, built on those same colonial legacies, now reproduces them endlessly—not just the look of them, but the metaphors, the storytelling structures and even the processes. It keeps handing us the same solutions dressed up as “universal,” as if there were only one way for design to look, speak and behave.

Decolonizing design doesn’t reject modernism entirely. It simply asks: Who decided this was the gold standard? What might we create if more voices shaped our ideas of “good” design, more metaphors drove our narratives, more perspectives informed our processes?

When Heritage Becomes Liability

Plenty of brands have already learned that leaning on colonial or stereotypical imagery isn’t just a bad look—it erodes trust, loyalty and relevance.

Aunt Jemima became Pearl Milling Company after retiring its racist caricature.

Uncle Ben’s rebranded to Ben’s Original.

Land O’Lakes removed the Indigenous “butter maiden” after nearly a century.

Plantation Rum became Planteray Rum, acknowledging that romanticizing slavery has no place in 2025.

Hudson’s Bay tried to modernize while clinging to its colonial roots—only to shutter its stores a few years later.

The lesson for leaders and creatives: surface-level updates can’t fix deeper identity problems. And, in a world where AI can replicate old biases instantly, the risk of looking out of touch only grows.

Designing for What Comes Next

Decolonizing design isn’t about erasing history or aiming for some bland, “safe” aesthetic. It’s about asking better questions: Who benefits from this work? Whose voices shaped it? What stories and metaphors are we repeating without realizing it?

When brands invite more perspectives into the process, the work gets richer and harder for algorithms to imitate. We’ve seen this firsthand at ONE23WEST:

Real Canadian Superstore: Reflecting Canada’s diversity, this rebrand captures both the people who call it home and the nuances of their unique tastes, supported by rigorous market research to ground the new identity in real perspectives.

Arbo: A new Toronto neighborhood brand centered on nature as a catalyst for human connection, co-created with Indigenous artist Cathie Jamieson.

Canada Media Fund: A modular logo system with fourteen versions in different Indigenous languages, honoring the diversity of stories the Fund supports.

Each project shows that when more voices shape the work, it becomes more authentic, distinctive and culturally grounded—the opposite of trend chasing or algorithmic sameness.

The Real Opportunity

AI will keep reflecting the biases of its creators and its data unless we deliberately build new perspectives into the process—in the aesthetics, the stories and the metaphors we use to express them. Audiences will keep expecting brands to act with cultural awareness, and the market will keep rewarding those who lead instead of react.

Decolonizing design is how brands get there: slowing down, broadening authorship, giving credit where it’s long overdue, and creating identities that are culturally aware, creatively ambitious and future facing. It replaces homogeneity—whether from trend cycles or training datasets—with work that actually feels alive.

At a time when some brands are backtracking on diversity altogether, the results normalize harmful views and the most marginalized people pay the price. The industry needs marketers and creatives willing to push back.

Because the brands that embrace this shift won’t just avoid missteps. They’ll make better work. ca