Let me begin my making a clear distinction, design is not art.
Simply stated art is created for the artist and the artist alone. The artist paints a picture solely for the purpose of self-expression of how he or she sees the world. Anyone can look a piece of art and like it or dislike it. Art is subjective, either you like Van Gogh’s sunflowers or you don’t.
Design on the other hand is not created for self-expression but for a client with a particular goal in mind. If a design accomplishes the desired goal, for example to increase the response rate of a particular message by 63%, then it has satisfied it’s objective and purpose for being created. If subjectivity is added to the process of design approval the purpose of design has been completely removed and has become subjective.
So someone’s opinion may be that they don’t like a particular color or that the empty white space can be filled with something, but that is not design, that is an opinion.
Design is the accumulation of principals and elements that perform on many levels with several different parts all contributing to a desired influence. Every element in design has been placed or chosen for a reason and to change something that may seem trivial like color or white space just because of an opinion could result in a negative desired outcome.
Truth be told, no designer or copywriter or art director or even you can know beyond any doubt what the best design will be, until it’s test. Design is a process that must constantly evolve and grow.
For design to have an impact on a business goal, it must revolve around a guiding strategy. To simply design something without an underlying strategy that supports a specific objective will not utilize design as a competitive advantage.
Although the design may be aesthetically pleasing, it may not generate as large an impact on results that you are striving for and may be developed subjectively as opposed to what will have the highest impact. Additionally, there are usually several business goals to meet and the likely hood of intuitively or subjectively maximizing all of them can be difficult, which is where design strategy should be leveraged.
Design strategy is not a particular color, or graphic image, or a logo, or a design concept or any other design element.
A design strategy is an approach to how a particular objective will be accomplished with design or any of design’s core competencies. The design strategy should always be joined to a particular business objective and its purpose is to provide a clear starting point for the team to develop solutions. It provides a measurement against which to analyze the solution. An example would be:
Business Objective:
Improve market share and the bottom line.
Design Strategy:
Develop design concepts that improve the recognizability of the brand
across all product groups. Reinforce the brand promise and strengthen
the relationship with the customer.
Using a design strategy liberates the creative mind to think out of the box for business solutions and provides you with an advantage over your competition.
The role of designers, like all things in this information age, is evolving. We are entering into a creative age and that will change the way designers think, act and work in the business world and more importantly how they interact with business executives.
In the past and present, depending on where you look, there has always been a clear distinction between the creative department and the business department, better know by ad agencies as the suits vrs. the creatives. With the dawn of the creative age, creativity and innovation are on the next horizon to propel business forward. In this new age “the suits” and “the creatives” will both need to talk the same language and work much closer together than they have ever before. This new collaborative style of working combined with accountability from both sides will lead to breakthroughs in innovation.
Design is being pushed to the forefront through products like the iPod and brands like Target all of which use design as a competitive advantage. With the increasing bombardment of messages all competing for viewers’ attention an opportunity exists for design to rise up. Designers will need to be more accountable for the results of their creative ideas and business managers will need to become a part of the creative process, with neither side directing or leading but working together toward a common goal. Gone are the days where we can point the finger of blame for the failure of a campaign or product launch or low conversion rate, design as well as management must become accountable.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject or ways you may have already propelled design accountability in your company. Let the conversation begin.
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