Meet Fusion Forward Juror Alex Pearce, Associate Design Director at Seymourpowell

Alex Pearce has a simple test for whether a concept is worth pursuing: would you actually buy it? Not admire it in a deck, not nod along in a pitch meeting, but actually buy it, use it and live with it. This question seems obvious, but it is suprisingly difficult for a design idea to actually make it to production while living up to this standard. As a member of the jury team for Fusion Forward: Design for Home, Core77's competition with Autodesk Fusion, he'll be looking for this type of concept across the three categories of entries.

Alex Pearce, Associate Design Director at Seymourpowell

With more than 15 years of experience, Pearce is currently serving as Associate Design Director at Seymourpowell in London where he's built a diverse career ranging from FMCG packaging to brand identity, transportation, and UX. Since studying Design for Industry at Northumbria University, he's developed the kind of fluency that lets him move between strategy and execution without losing the thread — spotting connections other specialists might miss, and making sure ideas that sound good in a pitch actually hold up once they're built.

That same discipline shapes how he thinks about the design industry's embrace of AI. Pearce is genuinely energized by what it's opening up. "It's democratizing ideation," he says. "Non-designers on a team — engineers, strategists, clients, or consumers — can now have a go at visualizing a concept themselves. That speeds up how quickly we can have a meaningful conversation about an idea, rather than waiting for it to be built or rendered properly first."

But he's careful not to overstate what the tool can do. "AI is a brilliant tool, but it's never going to validate a design the way a human can, and it's never going to ideate in the same way, because it's trained on the past, not the future," Pearce says. His concern isn't the technology itself, but the gap between what people assume it can do and what it actually does. "We need to be clear about what AI is and what it isn't, and make sure people still see the value in humans driving the tool."

For entrants preparing their Fusion Forward submissions, Pearce's advice circles back to that same buy-it-or-not test. "Always ask yourself whether this is something you'd actually imagine being used," he says. "That discipline — constantly checking that a concept meets a genuine need or desire — is what separates a good concept from just an idea on paper." The strongest entries, he adds, will be grounded in a clear insight or pain point, not left floating as an abstract idea.

Fusion Forward: Design for Home is now open for entries. Three categories to choose from, $9,750 in prizes. Deadline for entry September 28.