This paper investigates whether the hiring of a designer generates aesthetic innovations by a firm and what the level of design knowledge of the receiving firm means for the firms’ absorptive capacity in terms of turning the hiring of the designer into aesthetic innovations. We explore a unique dataset containing information on firms, their hiring of designers and aesthetic innovations measured by design (design patent) applications. Our findings show that hiring a designer does increase firms’ likelihood of producing aesthetic innovations. Secondly, firms with prior experience of aesthetic innovations are more likely to apply for design registrations. Thirdly, there is a positive moderating effect of firms with prior experience of generating aesthetic innovations on the effect of hiring a designer on aesthetic innovation outcome.