It’s about time we explained what we mean with ‘systemic design’. Four years ago we founded a Systemic Design Lab at TU Delft where we explore how systems thinking might support designing for complex challenges. Since the opening of the lab we have had many conversations with colleagues, students and other designers about what systemic design is and why we need it. We’re also increasingly being told it is a fad and that we are overpromising what it can do. Fair enough, we have probably not been very clear about what it is and what we claim it can achieve. So what is it that systemic designers design, why do they design these things and how do they do it? Well, that depends on who you ask. In this blog post on Medium, I introduce a few different perspectives on the topic