The Rubber Duck Club: Creative Support Without the Ego

In coding, there’s a debugging technique called rubber ducking: explaining a problem out loud, often to an inanimate duck, helps clarify your own thinking. I borrowed that idea and turned it into a design practice.

The Rubber Duck Club is a safe, low-stakes space where people, designers, writers, developers, bring half-baked ideas, awkward drafts, or tough questions. The goal isn’t critique. It’s curiosity. We ask questions, reflect things back, and sometimes just listen.

This practice started as a casual experiment with peers. But over time, I’ve brought it into teams as a psychologically safe space for reflection, especially for junior designers or people working on emotionally complex projects. It’s a way to show up for one another without performance.

You don’t always need a mentor or a manager. Sometimes, you just need a duck, or someone who’s willing to be one.