Let's Talk Business

The new corporate designer

Usually, when mentioning corporate, many designers feel they are using a dirty word. They do not want to be associated with it, and they even have a repulsive feeling towards it. They usually connect it with something evil.

People usually perceive corporations as evil, or deceptive dominant institutions that are ruining our lives. Even if ita??s true that some organizations take actions that can be described as quite bad, many others are making our lives better. They do that by providing us with the necessary products, services or goods, jobs for thousands of people, sponsoring good cause projects, and by supporting various communities. Even so, some people argue that we are not talking about few bad apples, and that all corporations are evil, but some hide their actions better then others. The bottom line is that corporations are not charities and their primary objective is to make a profit; large, legal, sustained returns for the people who own the business. Mostly, the bad things happen when they try to increase their profits by illegal, or in most cases, immoral ways. Exploiting people, or causing harm to the environment is examples of negative actions by some corporations.

In my opinion, there are two types of designers. Some that are art focused, and others that are corporate and concept oriented. The majority of the first type of designers has no real idea of how things really work. Most of them believe in the mighty power of creativity. In other words a?? they believe in their own good taste, personal opinion and their artistic skills a?? which is good, but not good enough. Also, when they design something, they believe that they create some kind of spell that makes people want to buy their products. These designers actually work on styling and re-design mostly, and they are usually based in the lower chain of the company, if they are included in one. Their opinions can rarely influence any change in the companya??s policy and they mostly comply with tight briefs. In other words, they are simply project executioners of somebody elsea??s concepts and ideas, at the best.

There are few examples or art oriented (industrial) designers that have succeeded and become famous, and we all know their names. The rest of the designers, (the conceptualistsa??) are mostly unknown (except in smaller circles of professionals), but we feel their presence in our everyday lives, which cannot be said for the later. These designers are discarding the artistic image for themselves, and they are orienting towards analytical tools and working methods from various other disciplines. Currently, they are being referred to as the new designers. And this is an emerging trend for new generations of designers, who believe that there is something more out there for them. Design is an ever-evolving field and change is inevitable. Designers with a greater holistic knowledge, who are also business orientated, are emerging in the industry. One good example of this is the Institute of Design (ID) in Chicago, USA. They prepare their students for future thinking and research-and-development in variety of areas. Students there are developing conceptual skills instead of rendering skills, and that has set them on the most wanted list on the worlds largest companies. The entry-level position for these graduates is directly into middle management, and the Institute has a 100% placement of its students.

In comparison, no Arts & Crafts oriented design school can even closely compare with this. That clearly says something about what type of education is required for designers today. And with Chinaa??s arrival on the design scene, the styling and re-design part of the job (as the majority of designers are doing today) will move there since the costs are 8 times lower than what designers in the US are charging. Lately, this has become a nightmare for most of the designers in the UK and USA. Clients who are in the business of supplying distribution channels with loads of different products - who are mainly looking for product re-packaging with quick turn around time a?? might find product sketching and rendering skills in China already very sophisticated and cost-effective. China has more than 400 design schools to date, and in the past few years, there have been many international design conferences, lectures and workshops organized in China, attracting speakers from all over the world. That means that their skills in design are rapidly increasing in short term. However, as a countermove to that, the rest of the design world will need to engage in more strategic levels of design. And that is innovation a?? the real process of problem solving. Then again, there are some authors that say that problem solving is not the right word to describe designers work, and there are others that claim that design is nothing more than a good taste (whatever that means for them). I believe that design is about solving problems, but first is about understanding them. I like to see designers as people who can find solutions where other people cant. Design leaders in this field, can explain in business language to the company, how design can help the company to reach its objectives. A new way of communicating, which has not been common in industry in the past. Designers needed to pass the information through a number of people, mostly marketing managers, who reported to their presidents, who reported to the CEOa??s, and before the information reached upper management, was mostly lost in translation. Now, designers can lead the companies and help them win. One of the best examples when design becomes the company leading strategy is Nissan.

Eighteen months after changing its policy, from a debt-ridden basket case as described by Time Magazine, Nissan has transformed itself to a profitable global car company. Another excellent example is Apple. By hiring Jonathan Ive as a design consultant, they reinvented themselves from a company in decline, to a leading company, both in product concepts and design. In many cases, young designers like to be in this profession because they feel that they can change the world. Make it better and more beautiful. And many of them believe that it is possible to create utopias and societies where everything can function well, perform well, and look good too. However, the people that hire them are profit oriented. And when designers are hired, they are hired to increase the profits of their employers by creating all those things they wanta??well, at least to a certain degree. And that is the cold reality. Design is to make profit, and if making profit requires beautiful, functional, and meaningful products and services, than designers are the right people for the job. Because of this, design has become a war. War to win the consumera??s loyalty. With the huge investments required developing products and brands, strategies are employed that could rival many military operations. For one victorious product, other must fall. The competitors have become enemies, and behind every popular brand there are armies of designers, marketing experts, sales persons, scientists, and even philosophers.

Business today, along with the design, is executed as a military strategy. The sooner the designers accept that, the sooner their positions in the hierarchy of the organizations will change. In spite of this, many designers dona??t want to accept this to be true. And who can blame them not wanting to be identified with a corporation, knowing the negative publicity many corporations received in the past. But I do believe, that if new generations of designers participate more in the middle- and upper-management in these organizations, than they can truly make things better. Or, like Karim Rashid says, perhaps even change the world.

Copyright by Gjoko Muratovski 2004 a?? 2006; Beyond Design; Nampress Publishing