Pum Lefebure is the co-founder and chief creative officer of Design Army, an internationally acclaimed design studio known for blending art, commerce, and cultural storytelling into visually striking, strategically driven work. She joins to reflect on her journey from a shy, art-obsessed child in Bangkok to a global creative leader, and to explore what the rise of AI means for the future of human creativity, vision, and value.
Pum Lefebure:
It is here and AI will be able to do more and more of your work. What will people still coming to you for? What is your value? I think that’s all of us to answer.
Curtis Fox:
From The TED Audio Collective, this is Design Matters with Debbie Millman.
On Design Matters, Debbie talks with some of the most creative people in the world about what they do, how they got to be who they are, and what they’re thinking about and working on. On this episode, a conversation with Pum Lefebure about her career and about AI and design.
Pum Lefebure:
You have to be a good creative director to your AI and giving specific feedback for them to get better.
Debbie Millman:
Pum Lefebure is the co-founder and chief creative officer of Design Army, an internationally recognized design studio known for its distinctive fusion of art, commerce, and cultural storytelling. Born in Bangkok and now based in Washington, DC, Lefebure has built a body of work that spans global campaigns for clients, including Netflix, PepsiCo, and the Smithsonian Institution, work that is as visually arresting as it is strategically precise. Her approach resists easy categorization. She has described design not simply as a discipline, but as a language, one that must be both deeply felt and rigorously constructed.
Under her leadership, Design Army has become known for a process that privileges individual vision over consensus, craft over convenience, and long-term cultural impact over short-term trend. At the center of her practice is a set of ongoing questions, how design creates meaning, how it moves between art and business, and what it takes to make something that doesn’t just capture attention, but stays with you.
Pum Lefebure, welcome to Design Matters.
Pum Lefebure:
Nice to see you again, Debbie.
Debbie Millman:
Nice to see you too. It’s been 15 years since our last interview. We have a lot of catching up to do.
Pum Lefebure:
Exactly.
Debbie Millman:
One thing that I didn’t know when I interviewed you in 2011 was this. So it’s a question. Is it true that you read 30 magazines every month for inspiration?
Pum Lefebure:
I used to, but not anymore. Now, consume magazine more of through social media and really want to see what’s going on in the culture because the world is moving so fast and it’s part of the job as chief creative officer to make sure that we know what’s going on. Because with brands, whatever we create today might not be relevant two months from now. So it’s quite important to force myself to watch those TikTok or any platform I’m just interested in.
But I love print as well. That will always be my love. Look at prints and books and I would just go to magazine store in New York and stand there for an hour and just consuming visual.
Debbie Millman:
You grew up in Bangkok in a family of scientists. After an elementary school teacher noticed your talent and mentioned it to your parents, they were determined to provide you with access to numerous creative activities, which included painting and music and dance. As scientists, what do you think your parents understood about creativity that allowed them to support it so vigorously in you?
Pum Lefebure:
I think they just realized that I’m not good at anything else. I was the oldest child of the four. My sibling, all my sister and brother, they are genius. They are Fulbright Scholarship students. And I’m just anything but science. I don’t like science. I didn’t like math. I’m good at math, but that’s not my passion. I love art, dance, creativity. From drawing, painting, dancing, choreograph, you name it, I was really good at it as a kid. And my parents just pretty much give up because I was just not interested in any of the academic stuff.
Debbie Millman:
You said that your favorite toy as a child was a giant box of colored pencils, several hundred of them, that they felt like a kind of magic wand. What did that wand allow you to create?
Pum Lefebure:
The wand allowed me to be the fairy godmother in Cinderella. I remember I grew up, because we grew up, my two sister and my little brother, we watched Disney movie a lot growing up because English was not the first language. It’s the movie and it’s the animation that help us learn the language, that’s why our parents let us watch. And it’s easy to understand.
I remember my sisters love to be Cinderella. They want to play all those princess that come to the ball. And I was quite interested in the fairy godmothers. I want to be her when I grew up because she turned pumpkin into carriage and turned a dress to be something wonderful. So the idea of this magic, to be able to transform or imagine something in my head and creating a magic for clients or friends or families or culture, I think that is very honorable thing as a human being. And pretty much I knew that if I don’t create, I die.
Debbie Millman:
You have described yourself as a very introverted, shy child, but that art gave you a voice. What kind of voice was it? Was it expressive? Was it a way of being understood? Talk about the tambour of that voice.
Pum Lefebure:
I think when you are introvert as a kid, everyone’s very good at being in front of the class or be in front of the stage. They express themself in front of many people, but the way I express themselves is through painting and drawing and imagine what’s in my head and get it out through my drawing and painting. And it’s quite shocking when people see it because it’s strange color. It’s like I drawing something that kind of strange and weird, especially in Thai culture because Thai culture, the way they teach us is about almost like traditional ways. So you go to the museum, Thai museum, and you just draw exactly what you see, which is very traditional way of learn how to draw.
But the way I draw, I feel like I mastered that early on. I can see, I can draw exactly what I see. I was getting bored. So I start messing things up as a kid, so it looks quite messy. And going over, out of the lines, which is like a big no-no in Thailand when you learn as a kid, you have to stay in the line, stay in the line and like shade within the line. And I just kind of go overboard.
So I think when people saw it, it was like strange or like new way of drawings. And that’s how my art teacher noticed me and I grew up, become this girl who any Bangkok competitions, they would send me to the art competition, which is quite tough in Asia. They would give you, you go in and then they would give you a piece of paper and you read one page of the assignment and they start timing you. Within three hours, you have to draw the concept, create a concept, painting, and deliver within three hours. When the bell ring, pencil down. It’s a lot of pressure, which means you have to be extremely fast at thinking and executing at the same time.
Debbie Millman:
Now, I believe you also attended Catholic school.
Pum Lefebure:
Yes.
Debbie Millman:
Did you grow up very religious? Were you around a lot of religious students?
Pum Lefebure:
No. The Catholic school in Thailand that I went was the same one that the Queen of Thailand went. It’s a very well-known school. And majority of people are not Catholic necessary, but it’s a good private school that you will learn a lot of Western culture as well that’s integrated to the curriculum. And that’s why my parents want us to attend. But I did grow up, have to pray three times a day at school in the morning, before lunch, and right before we leave for school. So it’s in me. It’s in me.
Debbie Millman:
You have described seeing an ad, a Benetton ad that the late great Tibor Kalman designed featuring a then infamous photo of a priest and a nun kissing. And it was something that you said both scandalized and intrigued you. And I thought that was such an interesting combination, especially for a shy, introverted young girl in a Catholic school. Why both reactions? And then how was it a turning point for you?
Pum Lefebure:
Well, I always knew that I was going to grow up become an artist and not until my high school year I saw those campaign by Benetton, which is quite shocking. When you, all your life, you attend Catholic school and you saw an image of a priest kissing a nun, it’s just shocking, especially for a 15 years old girl, your hormone is like changing. At that time, it’s like, “Whoa, what is this?”
And I remember feeling butterfly in my stomach. It just, I could not get that image out of my mind because at that time you kind of wanted to be kissed by someone, but this is like the nun and the priest. It’s like, “Whoa, what is this?”
And then I saw another campaign with Benetton and it has picture of three raw hearts and these type say black, white, and yellow. Wow. What a profound way of talk about humanity that all of us are the same in the inside. So that to me was a turning point. I did ask myself, do I continue to want to pursue or become an artist or is there something else that kind of more badass career in a way? And at that time I thought design and advertising was maybe a very cool career path for me. And I told my mom, “I don’t know I want to do it, become an artist anymore.”
Debbie Millman:
What do you think that image showed you about what design could do?
Pum Lefebure:
It has ability to stop your breathing. It take your breath away. It’s an image, it’s beautiful photography. It has no words. It just little green tabs say, “United Colors of Benetton,” and you say two people united in a way that they’re not supposed to be united. To me, design is not about being the loudest or funniest, sometime you can be shouting really quietly.
Debbie Millman:
It’s interesting. I was also very influenced by the work of Tibor Kalman, the Benetton work, the Florent work, the Talking Heads work. And it’s interesting, I’m a bit older than you, but I can envision you in Bangkok seeing that, me in Albany or New York City seeing that. And it’s interesting how it could have such a similar impact on people that are in the midst of living their lives in very different ways, but also hope for very similar ways.
Pum Lefebure:
And that’s why design is so powerful because at that time I did not really speak English. But as human, when we see the picture, we see the design, we feel it. There’s some subconscious thing for us to understand what that messaging means through photography and design.
Debbie Millman:
You came to the United States for your senior year in high school. You came on a foreign exchange program and you just mentioned that you didn’t speak English fluently. You’ve said that you couldn’t even order food at McDonald’s.
Pum Lefebure:
Mm-mm.
Debbie Millman:
So what did that kind of disorientation do to your sense of self? Did it make you more quiet? Did it make you more determined? Talk about how you felt when you got here as somebody that was highly communicative visually, but also unable to communicate in the ways that you had learned.
Pum Lefebure:
It was one year I came to a high school in Virginia Beach and I could not communicate with everyone. It was a huge high school, 2,000 student. They don’t care who you are. They make fun of you. You are from another country. You don’t speak English. I eat lunch by myself. And it can get lonely, be a foreigner. But I think art is something that always carries me through.
Debbie Millman:
Did the students in the school begin to recognize how talented you were and how much you could make with your hands?
Pum Lefebure:
Yeah. I think because in algebra class, when I’m in English class, Hamlet, what the hell? I don’t understand. US government, I don’t understand. Literally, it took me almost an hour to read a page of US government because I don’t understand every English word on that page. So I know that I have to work three times harder to get there. And that’s always, as an immigrant, that’s the rule. Right?
But when it’s come to art, I’m the shining star because everyone, like there’s 30 student in there, I can draw anything. And again, that’s why the art is the thing that carried me through all my life.
And we entered to the Virginia Beach or Tidewater competition in the area and I won first place like right away, in two months after I came to United States and that’s how I get scout. The college saw my work. And that’s why art is my language, design is my language.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah. You were translating everything word for word with a Thai dictionary.
Pum Lefebure:
Yes.
Debbie Millman:
What did that level of effort teach you?
Pum Lefebure:
It’s discipline. I remember two o’clock, I’m out of school. I came back and I studied from two o’clock to six o’clock, had dinner with my host family, spend time with them, and I study again, like 6:00 or 7:00, dinner, seven o’clock to 2:00 AM in the morning, I studied all the way through because I don’t want to be … As a foreign exchange student from Thailand, I do not want to embarrass my country because to me, I representing Thailand and I don’t want to get an F. [inaudible 00:17:10] I want to do well. And it’s changed me completely as a person, I’ve just become extremely diligent person.
Debbie Millman:
You stayed in the United States. You attended Radford University on a scholarship and majored in graphic design rather than fine art. What were you envisioning doing professionally at that point? Were you hoping to go to a graphic design studio or an advertising agency? What were your ambitions? And did you want to stay in the US when you finished school?
Pum Lefebure:
I dream of stay in United States. I came to this country and the freedom of expression, it’s unbelievable. In Thailand, there’s certain thing you cannot draw. There’s limitation. You can’t say certain thing with the king or royal family or like if you say … People get offended quite easily in Thailand. Whereas here, if you have a voice, whatever you can dream, you can draw it and create it. And I knew that I knew for sure that I would never go back to Thailand again. I would do whatever it takes to stay here on my own.
Debbie Millman:
You were learning English and design simultaneously.
Pum Lefebure:
Mm-hmm.
Debbie Millman:
How did that shape the way that you think, both about language and about design?
Pum Lefebure:
I think in order for other people to understand me, I speak with hand gesture a lot. It helps. I draw things or communicate things to my friends or my teacher. Or when I was in second year in college, I work at university department. And I’m such a sketcher, so I communicate everything through drawings. And by the time my sophomore year in college, I already designed a viewbook for the university. And that was like 60-page viewbook, I did the whole thing with the art director. I went to a press check. So I start quite young. And the summer before that, I also interned at Ogilvy in Bangkok too. So I see that side of the advertising and design. And I love advertising, but I decide that I much better at a design department, do the branding. So that’s why I kind of pivot to design at agency.
Debbie Millman:
While you were still in college, you got an internship at Supon Design Group, which was a very hot agency in the 1990s. That led to a full-time job. And you’ve described those early rooms as full of people flexing.
Pum Lefebure:
Oh, yeah.
Debbie Millman:
Talk about what that was like and how you managed through that flex.
Pum Lefebure:
I think as a designer, you can flex all day long with your mouth.
Debbie Millman:
Yes, you can.
Pum Lefebure:
But what it’s coming down to, I don’t need to say a lot. Let my work speaks for itself. You cannot say a lot, but then the work is just incredibly smart logo design. It’s undeniable, it just pick itself. It’s a strong, clear winner. I was like win every award, I was like print magazine and regional design award. And they used to have different region, right?
Debbie Millman:
Yeah. Regional annuals. Yeah.
Pum Lefebure:
So you look at Washington DC, it’s like half of Washington DC and the East Coast is what it’s called. It’s like my logos and design. So you don’t have to say much. But I did learn as a young designer, if I want to progress to be an art director one day, you have to get pretty good at presenting the work. So I learn on the job or like try to kind of break through my fear of speaking through practicing at work.
Debbie Millman:
In all the research in prep for the show today, I read quite a lot about how you were constantly facing loud people in large rooms flexing and pontificating. I never got the sense, in reading the various accounts that you’ve shared about that experience, that you were ever intimidated, that it ever made you less secure about your work. And I’m wondering if that’s an accurate assessment and if you can share what that sort of [inaudible 00:22:03] was to keep you sitting there and feeling worthy of contribution.
Pum Lefebure:
Great question. I think for young designer or young creative, I was intimidated, absolutely, because every art director, every creative director, everyone above me, they have their opinion, “Oh, I don’t like this. This color is not good,” or the typography. The design is so personal and everyone can have different opinions, right? It’s not math. It’s not one plus one equal two, so it just depends on who is judging the work.
But I always knew that while I was intimidated, my goal is quite clear that I wanted to become an art director one day and I’m not going to win by contributing negativity. Let the design speak volume and show them what is joy and positivity.
And when you work with good creative director, they will turn the table to you and let you speak and explain. And they will maybe even protect you from other noises that say, “Oh, it’s not good,” or whatever, and they’ll give you a chance to shine. And then once that work won Communication Art, PRINT Magazine, D&AD, then okay, you guys are not judging anymore. This is at we’re global stage. Someone have seen the work and it’s global work level.
Debbie Millman:
You met your now husband, Jake Lefebure at Supon Design. He was a designer when you first arrived. When did that partnership shift from work to something more?
Pum Lefebure:
Well, when you start working, back then you work long hour because Photoshop volume four or something, it’s so slow, takes forever to rendering something. So you design and then you wait for it to render. You go out, get a drink, and then come back [inaudible 00:24:12] rendering.
Debbie Millman:
Right.
Pum Lefebure:
Right?
Debbie Millman:
Yeah. Yeah.
Pum Lefebure:
Yeah, it’s just probably one year out we start dating, but it was secret for two years. No one knows. I did not want that to be the gossip or anything of the company, just keep it quite quiet.
Debbie Millman:
Were you fairly certain early on that this was a partnership that was going to be lifelong?
Pum Lefebure:
Not at all.
Debbie Millman:
No?
Pum Lefebure:
No.
Debbie Millman:
What changed? What gave you that sense, ultimately?
Pum Lefebure:
He’s a country boy, I’m a city girl. Right?
Debbie Millman:
[inaudible 00:24:48].
Pum Lefebure:
He’s from a very small town Pennsylvania. I’m from Bangkok, Thailand. It cannot be any more difference. But it’s like a puzzle, we’re like a puzzle that he’s good at something that I’m not good at and I’m good at something that he’s not good at. But we were both designers, he actually got promoted before me because Jake is really good at managing team. I was a stronger designer, but he was a very good manager.
Debbie Millman:
Though you started as an intern at Supon, you worked your way up to senior art director. And despite what you might be saying about your lack of management skills, you were managing a 50 plus creative team in just a few short years. But in 2003, after observing layoffs and instability at Supon, you and Jake chose to start your own firm. 2003 was a very sort of dubious time to start an agency. Did you both quit your jobs and start Design Army together or did you do it in stages?
Pum Lefebure:
Stages. Jake start Design Army first. I actually went to another firm as creative director and I thought, “Okay, it’s probably going to take two years for Jake to settle and get the clients. And I’ll just do the freelance on the side on the weekend.” After two months, Jake said, “You have to quit that job because I’m busy.” And right away, I joined him. After two to three months, I joined Design Army full time.
Debbie Millman:
Now, is it true that you found your first client through a yard sale flyer?
Pum Lefebure:
Yes.
Debbie Millman:
Tell us about that. Young designers are going to be going and looking at yard sale flyers now in droves.
Pum Lefebure:
Luck has a lot to do with it, but you have to create your own luck, right? That’s the famous quote. So we moved to a new house and we need to get rid of some of the junk that we don’t want that anymore. So I decided to, let’s just create this cool Martha Stewart, like turn our garage to retail experience. That is really fun because I love retail.
So we do visual merchandising, poster, clothes, purse, whatever I don’t want. And then I was like, “I’m going to design this thing like a fashion brand.” So we designed three, I designed like three different posters with different colorways and posting all around DC. And one Saturday, so it was good. We were able to sell a lot of stuff. We didn’t want it anymore. One guy at four o’clock came in and have our poster, the yard sale flyer poster. And he’s like, “Is this a yard sale?” We was like, “Yes, but we are about to close.” And he said, “Who designed this yard sale?” And I was like, “I did.”
Debbie Millman:
I love that you designed a yard sale.
Pum Lefebure:
And he’s like, “I love this. I’m starting a new company with my partner and we are looking for a graphic designer.” And he turned out to be the right-hand person of President Clinton.
Debbie Millman:
Oh, yes.
Pum Lefebure:
Yes. Him and his partner. Yeah. It’s Scott Gendura. And they are starting the new political consulting firm in DC. And then we took them and then we create the coolest branding for them. They hand out the business cards to all their contract client, including the Washington Ballet. And that’s how I met Septime Webre. And Human Right Campaigns, Washington Ballet, so all their client also become our clients because they need graphic designer.
Debbie Millman:
And many of those clients, I believe, are still your clients all these years later, 23 years later.
Pum Lefebure:
Yep.
Debbie Millman:
What made you decide to name the firm Design Army?
Pum Lefebure:
Because Lefebure Mekaroonreung is such a bad design firm name.
Debbie Millman:
That’s your maiden name.
Pum Lefebure:
Yeah, maiden name. It was Lefebure and my last name was Mekaroonreung, which is difficult. Terrible name.
Debbie Millman:
Well, I think it’s actually quite a beautiful name, but I can understand that it might be hard for people to pronounce when seeing it in letter forms because I was actually wanting to ask you about it, but I was afraid that I’d mispronounce and I don’t want to do that.
Pum Lefebure:
But I thought we were brainstorming the design, the name, and I just want the dot com. I was just like, I don’t want dot net, whatever. I want anything that available that had dot com on and we had hundreds of name. And I also told Jake, “I want the word design in it.” Design Army. I was like, “Oh, okay, that’s cool. There’s army of two. Great.” And then we literally take the name because it’s so easy to remember. And we have a vision that we will have international clients too, so the language has to be quite easy. And then we went With Design Army. It was available.
Debbie Millman:
Three months after starting Design Army, you found out you were pregnant.
Pum Lefebure:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
What did that moment do to your sense of control about the business and your life?
Pum Lefebure:
I’m such a control freak. And when that happened, that you thought you’re going to start Design Army and make it so cool and then five years we will have kids. And you find out three months, it’s like, “Shit, Jake.” I blame it on Jake.
Debbie Millman:
I love how you’re blaming Jake for this.
Pum Lefebure:
You’re young, you in your 20s, I’m not ready to be a mom yet. Why don’t you get it together? So I was mad at him, but excited at the same time. And my mom’s like, “Oh, let’s take a look. We’re going to go to the fortune-teller and let’s see.” And he’s like, “It’s going to be a boy. Absolutely. This is a year that if you have, it’s going to be a boy.” And of course it turned out to be a girl. We have no control. As much as I want to control everything in my life, certain thing is just kind of like, you can’t control it.
Debbie Millman:
One of the things that I loved most about reading about your history was how you shifted the question from why can’t I have both? To how can I have both? What allowed you to do that? And what shifted in you to bring that realization to life?
Pum Lefebure:
I think the why and the how, it’s a mindset. A why, you pick … The why put you in a position of victim in a way, like why this happening to me now? Why it has to be this way? So the more you ask yourself that question, you going to get more depressed. Whereas the how is like because I am now pregnant, how do I make Design Army the best design firm in the country? And how do I make sure that I’m a good mom?
It’s a completely mindset and that’s like power of human. You can really train your brain to think positively and find a way to get what you want. I am a firm believer that you either satisfy with dissatisfaction or do something about it. And the only person that can make that change is you. No one else.
Debbie Millman:
Tell me, and I’d love for our listeners to hear about what you called Sophie Sundays.
Pum Lefebure:
Sophie Sundays. I worked all the time. As a young designer in my 20s, you have to do whatever it takes. So you’re not only looking at the design, create design, go see the client, you have to be in charge of the financial as well. I look at Excel file quite closely every weekend.
Sophie Sunday is a day that I do nothing, do nothing except Sophie. That’s her day. Unfortunately, she only have one day because majority of other day, Pum is usually at photo shoot. I’m on the road a lot. So Sophie spent a lot of time with Jake growing up, because he’s in charge on the business side, whereas I’m always constantly on the shoot and be with clients and spread the word of Design Army out there. So I’m on the road quite a bit. But then Sunday, it’s no one else day except her and I. We sit in the [inaudible 00:34:07] together. We play, we go shopping, get ice cream, just basic stuff.
Debbie Millman:
I love this about you. Sophie, your daughter was featured. She’s now in her early 20s and she was featured in an article in New York Magazine, in The Cut about what it was like to grow up with a highly ambitious, highly entrepreneurial mom. And one of the things that she said was, “If you don’t like being bossed around, then you probably wouldn’t like working for her.”
Pum Lefebure:
She’s so funny because she’s eight years old at that time or something quite young, maybe probably 10, eight to 10, I can’t remember. But she’s being honest. That’s her perspective of how she see things. At that time, we still have our own building, the Design Army, probably 25, 30 people, three different floor. First floor was social media department, second floor and third floor is design department and it’s constant. I had two assistant at that time. It was really, really busy time that I work constantly nonstop.
Debbie Millman:
Is the business as big as it was then?
Pum Lefebure:
We charged less because we were young. I charge more now because I’m older and we have so much more experience and we take less project now actually. But at that time, when you in you’re 30 and you’re so hungry and you want to take company in Washington DC to become nationally recognized or even internationally recognized, the drive took me there.
And I know time is something that we all don’t have, but I knew if I work all the time, I have to be quite disciplined and be quite clear with my team. I don’t like long meetings at all. Everything is increment of 15 minutes, half an hour is max. When people come to the office, they have to be prepared because I don’t like spend a lot of time wasting, at all, which maybe appear quite bossy or too direct, but I’m proud to do that because I feel like I don’t want to take away their valuable time at work and I don’t believe working weekends.
Debbie Millman:
One of the things that I read after you left Supon was that you learned that what you didn’t want was your own company to be big and unwieldy. And you’ve always wanted Design Army to be a boutique, which is why I was really surprised when you talked about the sort of size earlier on.
But you also said that there’s no kumbaya at Design Army. You do not sit down and have brainstorming sessions. You prioritize working alone first. Why is that?
Pum Lefebure:
My philosophy about kumbaya is that sometimes when you have a group meeting, you have a group thinking and nothing’s really come out of it purely. It is better that I give assignments to a design team and everyone go their own separate way to dream. When you dream, you dream alone. You don’t dream as a group. And that’s when I get the most purest human emotionally work from each one of the designer, go dream alone and bring their dream into the table.
And then we have a meeting and listen to each and everyone of their dreams separately. And sometimes this person can have this dream quite similar to this person, then they come together. But I just think the process when you think individually is much better because there’s like no one, like no creative director can overshadow an intern. I want to hear the interns as much as the creative director, because sometimes their idea is fresher. Maybe it’s crazy, but it’s fresh.
Debbie Millman:
You recently created a campaign for an eyewear company, and the concept revolved around high fashion Mars explorers who had to wear glasses to protect their eyes from the harsh, dry air and UV light. And you’ve been very upfront about using artificial intelligence in the creation of the campaign. And you were really one of the first high-powered, well-known designers to talk about using AI.
The campaign that you did got quite a lot of press because I don’t think anyone could have possibly considered the idea that you were using artificial intelligence in the creation of this campaign for a few reasons. One, because it was just extraordinarily well art directed and also it felt very much in the Pum Lefebure Design Army milieu.
I’d really love to hear your thoughts on using artificial intelligence, how you learned how to do it, how you talked to your clients about doing it, how you have been able to integrate it into both the campaign that you did for the eyewear company, as well as what you might be doing currently.
Pum Lefebure:
I was really curious about this AI four years ago. Like even-
Debbie Millman:
Yeah, you were the first.
Pum Lefebure:
Yes, like this is-
Debbie Millman:
Honestly, Pum, there was no one that was doing this but you and in any kind of real, genuine artistic manner. It blew my mind when I saw it.
Pum Lefebure:
Thank you. I remember during COVID, I heard this thing called Midjourney and I was just super curious because I was trying to renovate my room, my house, and I always want to be an architect and design a room. So I was like, “Okay, since I don’t know CAD, let’s just design a room.” So I was like, “Imagine creating a prom and upload some photo,” and then it start showing me what kind of interior I can create.
So more and more I was obsessed with Midjourney and I was like, “Hmm, how do I test this with a client?” And then at that time we have a client called Georgetown Optician and they have like five different retail store in mid-Atlantic regions and they sell eyewear as well, like a very well-known eyewear brand like Cartier and Chrome Heart and so forth. And it was during COVID, no client wants to spend money.
So usually, we do like really elaborate movie with huge cast for this client. But at that time the client’s like, “Okay, I’m not spending.” So I thought, “Okay, what can I do?” Because I’m like itching and dying slowly from not creating. So I pitched to the client an idea, “Hey, I know you have library of eyeglasses on your e-com site, which is just glasses on the white background. Can I have those JPEG files and I want to do something with this thing called AI, Midjourney.”
So I was working with the concept of how to take the glasses, creating the AI character and the AI world. And then I finally figured out how to do it and pitch the client this campaign called Adventure in A-EYE, E-Y-E, and use it as an artist experiment and do a social media campaign for them. And they were mind blowing because it looks like a very expensive photo shoot, but we created in a way that it doesn’t look so real. It looks kind of like a 1950 poster. So it has like, we not try to make AI look real. I don’t like that. I think it should look like AI intentionally. So it looks like a 1950 era, but there’s something is rooted in the future, so is it 1950 or 2050? You can’t tell, right? But then everyone’s wear pink and recreating the story with it. And that was the first time a design agency figured out how to use this thing. And that’s why Fast Company and Advik and [inaudible 00:43:14], everyone was like, “How did you do it?”
Debbie Millman:
Well, it doesn’t even seem possible that that level of creativity can be rendered within artificial intelligence. I read that you spent months understanding how to write prompts. You said it took many long, frustrating sessions, spewing out people with seven fingers and three eyeballs, but that your knowledge of art and photography helped a great deal. Can you talk about how you were able to iterate your prompts to be able to get the high level of expertise that is embedded in what looks like highly styled on-location photography?
Pum Lefebure:
I think because I have been in so many photoshoot in my life, I have the vocabulary to train my AI to give me exactly what I want in my head. And it takes a while to get there. For example, I was extremely specific with AI that the lighting has to come from the top left and it’s we want the temperature to feel like 74 degree in the foggy morning with the sunlight coming through the left using Kodak films. Like it’s quite specific knowledge, and the reason I can do that, because I did it in real life before. Right? So like without that knowledge of being a creative director on set and really observing how photographer adjust the lighting and what lens they use, you would not have that vocabulary to train AI.
So it’s funny because I was the one that started this AI experimental because at that time, my designers are too busy and I didn’t want for them to have to do this extra work doing after office hour because we busy during the day. So I spent a lot of time learning it first myself before I can pitch to my design teams and say, “Hey, you guys, take a look at this. I think this is going to be the next move and we should jump on it quite quickly with this project with the client and use it as a test and we will be far advanced than other competitor.”
There’s a famous quote that say AI won’t replace you, but someone that know AI will. And we didn’t want to be left behind. We want to experiment, even though it can be a huge waste of time, but you have to be bilingual in AI languages. It’s a new language that we all must learn.
Debbie Millman:
You spent months training systems to be able to give you the output. At what point, if at all, did the systems begin to understand you and what you were asking for?
Pum Lefebure:
I think after probably two months, but that was like every single night to 3:00, four o’clock in the morning because I was trying to create this character, Eyelien, like alien, but Eyelien, and it just looked so bad for five weeks. It just looks ridiculous. And then somehow you’re giving a feedback to like, “It looks too cartoony. It needs to be more of this, this, this.” And it start training itself and it’s get better, but you have to be a good creative director to your AI and giving specific feedback for them to get better.
Debbie Millman:
I have been experimenting with AI now for probably the last year and a half, two years, and I find it really helpful in gathering information. Quite a lot of people feel that it somehow will eliminate jobs or diminish jobs. One of the things that I am worried about, that I’ve been witnessing is how people are using AI that don’t have that knowledge that you’ve already gained through your work as an art director and your knowledge of art and photography. How are you feeling in general about how and when people should or could, or what would your recommendation be for using AI as a practitioner? Talk about when you feel AI is most useful for the human spirit.
Pum Lefebure:
I think that AI can either make you better or make you become more stupid.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah.
Pum Lefebure:
I have seen, because I test with my team too, right? So some people who use AI correctly, they will use AI almost as a back of the house, as a process of creating, but they bring their own knowledge and their own idea into it. And you can tell that it’s not just like, “Give me a picture of Annie Leibovitz.” That’s not, because AI going to go scrape the internet and it’s going to project out whatever was out there. And you can tell if someone was not thoughtful at their prompt and then it just feel like AI is losing soul.
You have to be very thoughtful when you use AI because if you’re not thoughtful and you just write down random prompt, their job is just to spit picture or information. But it’s up to us, the human, to reject the stupidity. That’s why the feedback to the AI is so important.
But back to the, do I fear of how people use AI? I do. I have seen our work for Washington Ballet was a reference for someone and someone used AI. It looks kind of like that. So it’s a wild west and some regulation would be good because not every kids know. They don’t understand copyright infringement. So it’s just like, “Okay, let’s prompt AI. It’s fast and easy. It’s done.” But then the next thing you look at it’s like, “Hey, this look exactly like this campaign from the ’80s.” So then that’s when it’s become embarrassing, when you rely too much on AI to spit whatever they come up with and just say, “Done,” without having knowledge of really make sure that it doesn’t look like something that’s already exist.
Which is come back to like you have to have a knowledge and be a good curator to say, “Yes, acceptable. No, it’s not acceptable. No, this is too close. This look and smell like something, so no, I’m not showing to the client.” So the human has to be in the lead, not just in the loop.
For me now, looking toward year 2030, I’m asking myself, “When AI can do more and more of your work, what will people still coming to you for?”
Debbie Millman:
What are your thoughts on that right now?
Pum Lefebure:
I don’t know. I think that’s a question for me to ask to everyone in this audience, because it is here and AI will be able to do more and more of your work. What will people still coming to you for? What is your value? I think that’s all of us to answer.
Debbie Millman:
Well, do people want the AI version of Pum Lefebure’s mind at Design Army or do they want Pum Lefebure’s mind at Design Army that is directing the AI? I think there’s a very different output. I think that if somebody else is using your prompts, they’re still not going to necessarily make the same work. Or do you disagree with that?
Pum Lefebure:
No, it’s not the same work because the feedback is different.
Debbie Millman:
Right.
Pum Lefebure:
I just feel like, I’m just trying to think 10 years from now and I really believe that AI can do a lot of entry level design work. But I still think the client still going to be hiring Design Army and many of great firm that we know because of the founder and the people and the creative director in that agency because we are bringing in the human knowledge means, okay, AI can creating this, looks great, but do you feel anything? Look at it. Now it’s so many AI images, I’m just kind of like, “Meh.”
Debbie Millman:
I’m assuming you can always tell.
Pum Lefebure:
It’s getting harder to tell.
Debbie Millman:
Is it?
Pum Lefebure:
Yeah, like Prada just did an ad campaign with AI, have this kind of big eagle AI character, but mixed with fashion model and they interact with each other. So I thought it was cool, it’s memorable and catchy right away. For me, that’s really smart way to use AI.
I did a huge installation in downtown Washington DC called CityScape, and we create this beautiful Renaissance painting. So we create each flower, like tulips and cherry blossom, even have panda hanging, create this huge mural using AI, but then we still kind of composite and collage them together. So there’s so many way to use AI. I don’t think we all figured out how to use that completely yet. It’s more to come.
Debbie Millman:
I’m old enough now to have lived through three big technological moments in design. The first with the transition from the drafting table to the computer and then the second from in real life to online, and both times with the birth of the internet, with the birth of the computer as a tool, we heard over and over and over again how this was going to destroy the design business, destroy design jobs. In fact, it volumetrically increased design jobs and there are hundreds of thousands of designers now in all walks of discipline, whether it be product design, industrial design, interactive design, graphic design. Does this feel different to you than those other transformational shifts? Are you more worried about AI than you were about the other two transitions?
Pum Lefebure:
No, I’m welcome new technology, but I’m more worried that people will become more stupid. I think it’s like when we start rely too much on what the AI can spit and say it’s good enough, then it’s almost like how good does design have to be in the future? I hope it has to be really good because there’s going to be so many mediocre, normal AI can do all this, this, this and this, but there has to be like someone that can do very human level that touch you just like united color Benetton touch me when I was 15. And I don’t know if AI going to get us there, I think human going to get us there.
Debbie Millman:
One of the things that I’ve been thinking quite a lot about was the moment I started using computers back in the ’80s and in many ways I got lucky because I was one of the last generations that was trained on the drafting table and then moved into using the computer in my 20s. I suspect that we are now, in this particular moment in time in 2026, probably one of the last generations that will have learned how to create without AI as a tool.
Pum Lefebure:
Interesting.
Debbie Millman:
And I’m wondering if there will be a vacuum in not having that experience of using AI as a creative tool, just using our own sort of abilities to provide the work that we create. One of the great things about AI is that it does let you do more than you know how to do. But it also requires a great deal of knowledge, I think, to do something really interesting with it.
Pum Lefebure:
Yeah. That’s why at Design Army, believe it or not, I’m still tell my team to like sketch to death. It’s funny because we present a work to a really big brand last week, big global brand, and the client was like, “Wow, I have not seen the logo that this much thinking and thoughtful for a very, very long time. I thought it was a dying art.” And the reason is that we didn’t show the client sketch, but the thinking came from a deep, deep place of human. It was not go right in computer.
And that’s why we still sketching. Whether it’s logo or a ad campaign or key visual, anything, it’s still hand sketching. Then you know when you close your eyes and you draw it and you know what it’s going to be, then it’s easy to tell AI when, “Yes, good enough,” or, “No, this is crap,” because you know where it has to land. So without really understand where you need to end up and you start like splitting and experimenting with AI, then there’s no goal. Then you’re just like, “Okay, that’s good.” Wherever the wind blow, I’m blowing with it versus having a very clear goal of where AI have to hit to hit your vision.
Debbie Millman:
We talked earlier in our conversation about being in a room where you were witnessing a lot of people flexing. You were the more introverted, shy participant. You are now the co-founder and chief creative director of your firm. You’re also the chair of the board at The One Club for Creativity where you are leading the organization into bold new times with quite a lot of innovation and leadership. So talk about how you approach leadership in your life now.
Pum Lefebure:
I am currently the chairman of the board of The One Club for Creativity, and I have been on the board for 13 years. Let me tell you a little secret. When I first started, I was one of three women on the board. The rest are all male. And it was intimidating time. It’s ad agency, big guys from big network.
Debbie Millman:
Lots of flex.
Pum Lefebure:
Lots of flex, plenty of flex. Ms. Pum does not talk for two years. I observe everything. And on top of that, you have to understand you are one of the three females. You are the only designer. There’s one other male designer. So back then, designer is just like, okay, they just do pretty stuff. And I’m Asian. So it was a lot to get through.
But you learn to observe and you learn to not say silly things in the meeting. And then after year, I was advocate of having more female on the board because it’s so lopsided. And guys and girls, we all go. We’re all friends, but we don’t think the same. Female has much more empathy and understanding. And I was just like, “We must have more female on the board.”
And then come diversity. I don’t want to be the only diverse person. So we have more diversity and inclusion. And we are proud. Today we are very diverse on The One Club board as well as ADC, which you are part of the board too, lead by Brian Collins and TDC too. So the organization I think is very well represented and it’s really important because our industry, creative design, technology, we need a lot of voices.
Debbie Millman:
Absolutely. My last question for you. When you think about that child with the colored pencils as wands, what still feels the same in the way that you approach creativity? And what has changed and evolved for you?
Pum Lefebure:
The same is I feel like the wand is still here. As long as I live, I will always look out the window or staring at the ceiling and think about ideas. I love ideas. And the wand now is like I’m not sitting down and design. Every day I have design team now, so I work with them and they make that magic even more beautiful and more sparkle, even better than me. I’m very fortunate with my team. So like the same is just like, because as long as I live, I want to create. If I don’t create, I die. So that’s always going to be the same.
The difference is I think the media landscape’s changed a lot. So the graphic design, like literally I remember in the ’90s it’s like annual report. You have KN and Associate and you have … No one does annual report now. And everything is moving to much more video, social media. And now it’s not even social media, it’s much more about interest media of whatever you’re interested in, it will come to you. Like if I’m looking at hotel and beautiful vacation in Thailand, and then that’s what I want to see on my feed.
So the difference is like as a creative person, you always have to put yourself in an uncomfortable situation and a newness all the time, because the world is moving really fast. And I don’t ever want to be a creative director that say, “Oh, kids this day, they don’t do this, this, and this.” No, I want to be like Gen Z. I want to be Gen Z, I want to think like them. I want to work like a startup. I don’t think that Design Army is a well established company. I want this army to think like a startup every single day coming to work. And that’s how it’s keep us grounded and keep us relevant to very fast changing world.
Debbie Millman:
Pum Lefebure, thank you for making so much work that matters and thank you for joining me today on Design Matters.
Pum Lefebure:
Thank you, Debbie.
Debbie Millman:
You can read more about Pum Lefebure and see the work by Design Army on their website, designarmy.com. This is the 21st year we’ve been podcasting Design Matters, and I’d like to thank you for listening. And remember, we can talk about making a difference, we can make a difference, or we can do both. I’m Debbie Millman, and I look forward to talking with you again soon.
Curtis Fox:
Design Matters is produced for the TED Audio Collective by Curtis Fox Productions. The interviews are usually recorded at the Master’s in Branding Program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, the first and longest running branding program in the world. The editor-in-chief of Design Matters Media is Emily Weiland.
