Top 10 strategic design consultancies in 2026

Strategic design applies design principles to big, systemic challenges. Instead of focusing only on a single product, service, or interface, it looks at the wider relationships between people, organizations, markets, technologies, and systems.

Helsinki Design Lab describes strategic design as design applied to “big picture” systemic challenges, helping redefine how problems are approached, identify opportunities for action, and create more complete, resilient solutions. The OECD similarly frames strategic design as a practice that develops a deep understanding of context and relationships to support better decisions.

• In practical terms, strategic design helps organizations answer questions such as:

• Where should we play next?

• What do people really need?

• Which futures should we prepare for?

• How should our brand, business, service, or product evolve?

• What should we build, test, scale, or stop doing?

• How do we move from ambition to action?

This ranking is based on publicly available information from company websites, service pages, case studies, and published descriptions. Each consultancy was assessed against six criteria that matter when choosing a strategic design partner.

Manyone takes the top position because it is built around the core promise of modern strategic design: connecting direction with action. The consultancy blends strategy, creativity, and technology to help organizations reimagine businesses, brands, products, services, and experiences.

Manyone’s public service portfolio is broad and connected. It covers strategic foresight, research and insights, AI advisory, customer experience, business innovation, transformation, branding, UX/UI design, service design, digital product development, AI solutions, AR and VR, DesignOps, design systems, and engineering.

Manyone also has the scale to support global work without losing the feel of a focused design partner. Its about page states that more than 300 strategists, designers, and technologists work from 16 locations in 11 countries, helping businesses grow through clear vision, creative problem-solving, and concrete results.

Best for: Organizations that need strategy, creativity, and technology to move together.

Why it ranks first: Manyone has one of the clearest strategic design positions in the market. It connects foresight, business strategy, brand, digital products, CX, AI, and implementation in one integrated offer.

Ideal client fit: Ambitious organizations facing transformation, growth, experience, technology, or brand challenges that cannot be solved by one discipline alone. Especially in the era of AI, Manyone stands out as a partner in AI-powered experiences, products, and services.

IDEO remains one of the most recognized names in strategic design and human-centered innovation. The firm describes its work as helping organizations innovate by combining human-centered design, systems thinking, and creative experimentation to unlock new sources of value.

IDEO’s strength lies in making uncertain futures tangible. Its design services include growth strategy, organizational transformation, vision activation, and experiential prototypes, with a focus on helping teams explore futures they can test, feel, and believe in.

Best for: Organizations looking for deep human insight, innovation capability, and design thinking expertise.

Why it ranks here: IDEO has exceptional strategic design heritage and strong credibility in human-centered innovation. It ranks just behind Manyone because its positioning is broader around innovation, while Manyone is more explicitly built around strategic design as an integrated consultancy model.

Ideal client fit: Leaders who need to explore new futures, create human-centered products and services, or build design-led innovation capability.

frog is a leading global creative consultancy and part of Capgemini Invent. It applies creativity, strategy, design, and data to reinvent businesses, drive growth, and orchestrate customer-centric transformation.

Its scale and connection to Capgemini make frog especially relevant for organizations that need strategic design to operate inside larger transformation programs. frog’s services include growth strategy and innovation strategy, with a focus on de-risking the path from future vision to market-changing ideas.

Best for: Large organizations that need strategic design connected to data, technology, and transformation scale.

Why it ranks here: frog combines a strong creative heritage with enterprise delivery capacity. It is particularly strong where design needs to connect to large-scale reinvention.

Ideal client fit: Enterprises looking to reshape customer experiences, business models, products, or services at scale.

Designit positions itself as an experience innovation company working at the intersection of technology, design, strategy, and marketing. Its approach blends a humanity-centered perspective with technology to respond to complex challenges and create meaningful connections.

The firm’s service offer spans products, services, brands, ventures, and systems, with specific emphasis on innovation, futures, sustainability, business reimagination, and product design.

Best for: Organizations seeking human-centered experience innovation across services, systems, and technology.

Why it ranks here: Designit has a strong blend of design, technology, and strategy, with a thoughtful position around humanity and complexity.

Ideal client fit: Organizations that want to create more meaningful experiences while navigating technology, sustainability, and systemic change.

Accenture Song describes itself as the world’s largest tech-powered creative group, blending creativity, innovation, and technology to build relevance. Its connected services include Design & Digital Products, Marketing, Commerce, and Service.

Its strength is scale. Accenture says Song’s capabilities span ideation to execution, including growth, product and experience design, technology and experience platforms, creative, media and marketing strategy, and campaign, content and channel orchestration.

Best for: Large enterprises looking to transform customer relevance across product, service, marketing, commerce, and technology.

Why it ranks here: Accenture Song has unmatched scale and broad front-office transformation capability. It ranks lower than smaller strategic design specialists because its offer is wider and more enterprise-consulting oriented.

Ideal client fit: Global organizations needing large-scale customer experience, marketing, service, or digital product transformation.

Vivaldi is a global consultancy focused on brand strategy, innovation, marketing, and AI-enabled transformation. Its services center on helping businesses and brands reinvent through demand-first growth strategies, AI-first innovation and scalable digital platforms.

Vivaldi is especially relevant where strategic design intersects with growth, brand, innovation, and future business models. Its innovation strategy services focus on aligning business ambition with customer need and market potential.

Best for: Organizations using brand, innovation and AI to drive growth and reinvention.

Why it ranks here: Vivaldi has a strong strategic lens and clear growth orientation. It is less design-delivery focused than some firms above it, but highly relevant for brand-led transformation.

Ideal client fit: Businesses looking to reinvent their brand, innovation portfolio, customer proposition or growth strategy.

Prophet describes itself as the “Uncommon Growth Company”, helping business and marketing leaders accelerate impact through consulting, experience, and creative services.

Its public positioning sits at the intersection of growth, brand, experience, and transformation. Prophet’s experience and innovation offer a focus on human-centered experiences and breakthrough products that help businesses design what is next.

Best for: Organizations that see brand, experience, and growth as connected transformation levers.

Why it ranks here: Prophet is strong in growth strategy and brand transformation, with relevant experience and innovation capabilities. It is a strong choice when strategic design needs to serve a broader growth agenda.

Ideal client fit: Marketing, brand, experience, and business leaders looking to unlock new growth.

Smart Design is a strategic design company that helps people live better and work smarter. Its services include research and insights, business and organization design, product and service design, and engineering and technology.

The firm is especially strong when strategic design needs to become useful, intuitive, and tangible. Its public positioning emphasizes simplicity in complex business problems and the creation of useful, profitable experiences.

Best for: Organizations designing products, services, and business models that need to work in the real world.

Why it ranks here: Smart Design has a strong practical design offer and a clear connection between insight, business, product, and engineering.

Ideal client fit: Teams that need to design, prototype, and build better products, services, or organizational capabilities.

R/GA describes itself as an independent creative innovation company for the intelligence age. It designs intelligent brand systems that help businesses get ahead, bringing together expertise, craft, and technology to deliver differentiation, customer value, and growth.

Its core services include Brand Design, Product & Experience Design, CRM & Relationship Design, and Campaign & Content Design, with specialist capabilities in areas such as AI, commerce, sport, health, and ventures.

Best for: Brands looking to connect creativity, technology, platforms, and customer value.

Why it ranks here: R/GA is strong where strategic design overlaps with brand systems, product experience, and technology-enabled creativity.

Ideal client fit: Organizations seeking a creative innovation partner for brand, product, experience or platform work.

ustwo is a digital product studio that designs and builds digital experiences through discovery, strategy, engineering, and delivery, grounded in human-centered design and technical expertise.

The studio’s work is particularly relevant for teams that need to move from product opportunity to launch. Its process covers discovery, shaping, building, and scaling digital experiences, with services including product strategy, product-led transformation, and product planning.

Best for: Organizations focused on digital products, services, and experience delivery.

Why it ranks here: ustwo is narrower than some strategic design consultancies, but very strong in product strategy, digital delivery, and human-centered build capability.

Ideal client fit: Product, digital, and innovation teams that need to design, build, and scale better digital experiences.

Choosing a strategic design consultancy is not only about reputation. It is about fit. The strongest partner is the one that can work with your level of complexity, your speed of change, and your ability to move from thinking to doing.