A little about me
I'm Taylor Shute, a Creative Director and graphic designer based in Toronto. A diverse career has taken me from magazine spreads to healthcare startups—different contexts with similar goals: bring focus to the message, make it land, make it work for the humans you’re designing for.
Outside of my day job I enjoy photography, recording music, and travelling the world to look at old things in new places. I also enjoy a good beer and a good, dry, very cold gin martini
Creative Leadership
Creative leadership, to me, is about creating the conditions for good work to happen consistently. That means building teams with complementary strengths, giving them a clear vision to orient around, and trusting them to execute. A team that understands why they're making decisions—not just what to make, by what deadline—produces better work and grows faster.
I love cross-discipline collaboration. Years of working closely with product, marketing, copy, strategy, and engineering has taught me how to translate between creative instinct and business intent—and how to advocate for design in rooms where it isn't always the first priority.
My editorial design background
My design career started in print—art directing editorial content at Eye Weekly, then Maclean's, then Cottage Life. Weekly and monthly cycles of photoshoots, illustration commissions, layout design, and visual identity work. It was a rigorous, fast-moving school.
The pivot came at the Toronto Star, where joining as Art Director, Digital meant a jump in scale, pace, and team size—right at the moment print was contracting and digital was finding its footing. From there: agency work for Warner Bros., Audi, and Forty Creek Whisky, then UI/UX and web design at Reason One for healthcare and non-profit clients. By the time I arrived at League, I'd spent years moving between editorial, agency, and digital. Tthat range is what prepared me to lead an in-house brand design team.
AI and Creativity
It's here, and it's changing fast. My approach isn't to avoid it—it's to identify how, when, and where it actually helps. I use it to sharpen my thinking without replacing it, to stress-test strategy, and to accelerate research so I can get to the actual thinking faster. For documentation and cross-team communication it's been a genuine game-changer.
On the production side, I use AI to apply repeatable processes at scale, and to guardrail consistency across growing brand ecosystems. The decisions that govern those workflows are developed by me and my team—then applied at scale with tools I've largely built myself.
On photography and illustration
My art direction background is hands-on in the truest sense. I've directed photographers on set and on location, and briefed and collaborated with illustrators throughout my career—but I also a practice both. Illustration was part of my formal training. Photography is something I've never stopped doing.
These days I shoot mostly while travelling. I'm drawn to stillness, authenticity and balance in an image. It's less a hobby than a way of seeing, and it informs how I think about every visual decision I make professionally.
A few of the newsrooms, agencies, and tech companies I've worked in:
Reason One
Design Lead
2019 — 2022
YBIMC
Creative Director
2017 — 2019
Toronto Star
Art Director, Digital
2015 — 2017
Cottage Life Media
Senior Designer
2013 — 2015
Maclean's Magazine
Senior Designer
2010 — 2013
View my full work experience on LinkedIn.