The Design Business

This very interesting piece of research - "The business value of design" (link) by Benedict Sheppard, Hugo Sarrazin, Garen Kouyoumjian, and Fabricio Dore, published by McKinsey Design - talks about how design affects a company's bottom line.

What I found interesting while reading it was that I have seen a lot of organisations whose core business is design yet they do not understand it entirely. They make the same mistakes or lack the same commitment towards a design led approach to their own business as mentioned in the article.

Design organisations get tied down by the lack of design in their own internal processes and business outlook, all the while trying to sell a “design product” to a client, claiming how it will improve their life or business.

This is one of the main reasons why most designers live a chaotic and disoriented life, taking pride in their utter inability to streamline even the basics. This attitude is sold to the world as the romanticised essence of a creative life when all that is required is to introspect and identify where improvements are possible, and then implement those with a genuine desire to improve.

My thoughts here, here and here are initial attempts to bring clarity to my own limited understanding of the business of design, with the hope that it may help me improve the organisation’s design output and work life balance.

The full report, "The business value of design", can be downloaded from the article page linked above.