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June 30th, 2010
In many ways, design’s star is rising.
Its strategic relationship with business continues to improve and its profile in the media and among the public appears higher than ever. As mass-market advertising flounders, design is inching its way into business structures and boardroom psyches, with major companies now regularly talking about the power of ‘design-led thinking’.
Projects such as the launch of London 2012 mascots Wenlock and Mandeville have sparked debates about design in the national press. Even mainstream TV is interested: in recent months there have been several design-related shows, including the BBC’s The Genius of Design and High Street Dreams, an episode of which featured the input of design agencies Pearlfisher and Blue Marlin.
The very notion of ‘design thinking’ is itself a leap forward because it shifts conceptions of the discipline from something that produces solely a tangible output - a pack, for example - to something that is an approach, a structured thought process that can be applied to many and varied issues. Design groups are keen to promote this strategic clever thinking because it helps them move up the client food chain, earning meatier projects with bigger budgets and a higher value.
Mixed outlook
On paper, the future may look rosy, but in the real world things aren’t so easy. As this year’s league tables reveal, 2009 was tough, with fee income falling significantly for many. ‘There is no doubt that the past 12 months have been an extremely challenging and pretty bloody experience,’ says Andrew Eyles, group managing director of Blue Marlin.
Last year was characterised by the postponement of projects, as clients waited to see when, or whether, the economy would start to recover. Top agency Imagination was one of many to suffer a double-digit fall in fee income and, while agencies of all sizes have been squeezed, those toward the bottom of the table seem to have been hit hard.
Some of that pressure will remain in the year ahead and agencies working for the public sector are bracing themselves for severe spending cuts. The good news, however, is that many private businesses have ended their freeze on investment, allowing NPD and innovation to continue and putting more briefs into the market.
Guy Douglass, managing director of packaging design agency FLB, agrees that things can only get better. ‘(Last year) was really tricky. We only just made a profit, and business and cash flow were difficult,’ he says. ‘But this year is looking positive. There’s lots of work out there, both from existing clients and new business.’
Continued investment during a recession can help brands appear strong. Argos’ brand identity work with The Brand Union, for example, is intended to position the retailer as fit for the future. ‘Customers told us that they want a brand that feels relevant and is well equipped to stay relevant,’ says Siobhan Fitzpatrick, head of brand marketing for Argos.
Research found that customers had a desire to see Argos investing in itself. ‘It sent the right signals out at a time when companies like Woolworths were all closing,’ adds Brand Union UK chief executive Simon Bailey.
Retail spending has just about held up, too, which is good news for those working in FMCG packaging, branding and retail design. ‘The market is still robust enough for consumers to pay for a good quality service,’ says Michael Sheridan, chairman of luxury retail brand consultancy Sheridan & Co, which works with Absolut and World of Whiskies. ‘The value of the pound is also a big factor. Visitors are coming to the UK not just because it’s 50% cheaper than it was in 2008, but because we have a very good shopping experience.’
As Media Square design chairman David Worthington notes, those who stand still in FMCG die. ‘Big brand-owners are very clear on the need for constant innovation, preferring steady and continuous growth, rather than peaks and troughs. Irrespective of recessions, they tend to cut a more consistent path by remaining committed to a product development cycle,’ he says.
Bakery brand Warburtons is a good example of this relentless focus on product development. New business director Jason Uttley says this is what customers are looking for. The company entered the snack-foods sector in March with the launch of ChippidyDooDa pitta chips and SnackaDoodle wholegrain snacks. The brand extension was developed with Anthem Worldwide.
Beyond the shelf
Although FMCG work has remained steady, some of the rules are changing. In particular, brands and design agencies must now think beyond achieving shelf standout, argues Nick Dormon, managing director of Echo Brand Design.
‘Standout is now the baseline - if you don’t stand out, you don’t survive,’ he says. ‘At the same time, supply-chain savings and sustainability programmes have meant the loss of physical presence on shelf as packaging becomes smaller and more lightweight. So it’s about the whole experience. You pick up a product in store, feel it, read it, take it home and use it, put it on a shelf, see it, use it then eventually dispose of it. All these moments are an opportunity to engage with people.’
Norwegian mineral water brand Isklar circles this brand experience with a uniquely engineered bottle design, by Blue Marlin, creating differentiation on shelf but also reducing its use of materials. The brand-product ‘loop’ is then closed by the company’s sustainability efforts, which include full carbon-neutral certification, use of hydroelectric power for its bottling plant and investment in high-end recycling facilities. Each aspect is consistent with notions of purity and nature.
The implications of last year’s precipitous fall in business are still playing out. Although work has picked up, the sector remains fragmented and competitive. In a procurement-driven environment, business has become harder to win and sustain. Dick Powell, incoming D&AD chairman and director of Seymourpowell, believes these pressures are leading to more instances of free pitching and the continued erosion of margins. ‘They are trying to cut the fat out of the design agencies, but there is no fat there,’ he says.
His sentiment is echoed by Eyles, who adds: ‘We are all having to work a lot harder and give a lot more. Some groups have gone for volume and are churning stuff out just to keep the lights running, while other groups have got smaller, leaner and more specialist.’
The pressure is on, then, for agencies to reinvent their businesses. Some are looking to overseas markets for revenue, particularly in the fast-growing BRIC nations. Sheridan & Co, for example, is finding its clients buying strategic and creative ideas to use overseas. As an industry, maintaining revenues from emerging markets requires British design to retain its reputation as a global leader.
Overall, Eyles concludes that the design industry emerging from the recession could look very different from the one that went into it. ‘Design output has to be married to effective strategy and consultancy,’ he says. ‘Often we may not even do any design. It’s now all about the brand - a seamless service of look, feel, tone and qualities. Some clients welcome deep strategic work, others protect their right to control it, but I’m optimistic that design can sit at the heart of this, working from strategy and concept to 2D and 3D output. The squeeze on fees now will just make the industry leaner, more credible and more professional and then the value of its work will come back in.’
THE WHOLE EXPERIENCE
As advertisers increase their focus on dialogue with - and between - customers, they are recognising the significance of the whole experience that people have with their brands, from the moment they first see a pack, ad, piece of copy or web page, through to disposal of a product or their interaction with customer service if they have a problem.
The communications environment is rich, complex and rapidly shifting and brands need help to manage these numerous ‘touchpoints’. Ad agencies, design groups and even some digital groups are vying to lead this work. Yet, whoever oversees the process, collaboration between agencies is more necessary than ever.
‘The landscape has become more complex for clients with many different agencies working for them - advertising, branding, sponsorship, interaction, social media, digital and so on,’ says Simon Bailey, UK chief executive at The Brand Union. ‘To have a partner who has helped create the brand itself working to manage all these groups can be very useful for clients.’
The Brand Union adopted this role for Barclaycard, where branding output spanned corporate identity, advertising, direct marketing, digital media, internal engagement, environments, literature, packaging, point of sale, exhibitions and sponsorship. The list of contributing agencies (Bartle Bogle Hegarty, EHS Brann, Balloon Dog, Dare and Vital Marketing) demonstrates how collaboration and oversight are essential in maintaining consistency in a complex, multichannel environment.
This article was written for Marketing’s Design Agency Leagues 2010 publication, 30 June 2010.
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June 29th, 2010
Big business is entering a new phase in its efforts to become more sustainable. Declamations from the likes of Nike, Puma and Marks & Spencer speak of sustainability being embedded in their cultures, operationally and philosophically.
In the words of a Nike announcement earlier this year, this phase ushers in ‘the next evolution of corporate responsibility strategy [moving] from a risk management, philanthropic and compliance model to a long-term strategy focused on innovation, collaboration, transparency and advocacy.’ In others words, it’s deeper and more serious.
At the same time, consumer-facing brands are flexing and moulding in order to wear the clothes of corporate social responsibility a little more naturally. Recent years have seen a clamour of eco-ethical communications thrown around and on top of familiar brands, decorating them in green, planet-friendly imagery. It felt, in many cases, a bit too convenient and reactive and admonishments of green-washing quickly followed.
‘I think a new theme is happening with corporate sustainability and brands,’ says Dorothy MacKenzie, director of branding consultancy Dragon Rouge. ‘We’re going from something set apart from the brand, or based around token activities, to something that’s embedded in it. The only way of embedding sustainability principles and actions and avoid green-washing is to take it right inside the company.’
Until recently, only pioneer ethical brands really adhered to root and branch sustainable business practice, but it is moving into the mainstream. As MacKenzie notes, once a business as large as Walmart begins to rethink its supply chain, it’s pretty hard to ignore. Partly this is a result of public expectation and the ideological pressure of the day, but mostly it’s about ensuring that a business can thrive, remain profitable and exist in the future.
‘There’s a triangulation of issues within a business for any potential initiative: Do consumers like it more? Is it greener? Is it cheaper? If the answer to all three is yes then you’ll get a green light,’ says Silas Amos, creative director at packaging consultancy Jones Knowles Ritchie. And as MacKenzie adds, it’s no good if you run out of raw materials or if they become too expensive, so care for the environment ultimately makes business sense as well as moral sense. Marks & Spencer, for example, claims its wide-ranging Plan A programme has become ‘cost-positive’, saving £50m in efficiencies during 2009/10.
Designers have an important role to play too. Shell’s work with packaging group Blue Marlin increased manufacturing efficiencies and reduced pack formats to cut plastic use by 9 per cent, equivalent to taking 45 million one-litre bottles out of the system annually. Coca-Cola’s colour management work with Anthem Worldwide rationalised colours globally to reduce printing materials and costs. And Puma’s two-year collaboration with designer Yves Béhar created a fully recycled and ‘boxless’ shoe packaging system that slashes paper consumption by 65 per cent and carbon emissions by 10,000 tons annually.
Seeking efficiencies is just everyday good business practice, but the value it now offers in terms of public relations gives renewed impetus to finding better ways of doing things. And consumer brands need to embody this ethos in a believable, genuine and natural way, not just repainted with an ethical overlay. ‘Whatever you’re saying on sustainability it has to be in the brand’s language, coming from the mouth of the brand,’ argues Jonathan Davies, director of packaging consultancy Butterfly Cannon.
MacKenzie believes that corporate shifts are being woven into brand activity ‘much more naturally and less self-consciously’ than previously, resulting in more creative, coherent branding. ‘An awful lot of communication around this area has been quite dull; one of the benefits of bringing sustainability right into the brand is that you can get better communication and design.’
Unilever, for example, is using sustainability as a driver for company-wide innovation and growth, but this filters down to products individually. So a tongue in cheek campaign for its US men’s toiletries range Axe promotes the ecological virtues of ‘shower pooling’ in a way that is part and parcel of the brand (depicting one man sharing a shower with lots of women, naturally).
So from a branding and business point of view sustainability can be viewed as an opportunity. But from an environmental point of view such changes are arguably just tweaks to the system of mass consumption, not a fundamental shift in the way we live. Global manufacturing businesses and markets will not change comprehensively overnight. ‘Many things are structured in a way that will change over time, but it will be a very long time,’ notes MacKenzie.
Puma’s chief marketing officer Antonio Bertone admits that the company’s global supply chain could not be radically altered for sustainability concerns. ‘The supply chain is the lifeblood of the company and you can’t disrupt that process or it would take years to get to implementation and the cost would go back to the consumer. So our new packaging still had to behave like a shoebox,’ he says.
And there’s the rub. Change is happening, but it will happen slowly. Even Shells acknowledges that by 2050 global CO2 emissions must fall by at least 50 per cent, yet energy demand is expected to double. For all the good intentions, could it be too little, too late?
This article was written for Design Week’s Sustainable Design Supplement, June 2010.
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September 11th, 2009
As the seams at Apple’s App Store threaten to burst, the volume of iPhone mobile phone applications continues to soar. Stacks of apps, from both independent developers and big commercial clients, from trivial little games to a major music platform, are lined up and waiting for the green light from Apple so they can enter the store. The apps micro-payment market is booming. For digital designers, this is a coming of age in mobile apps possibilities. The iPhone’s 480×320-pixel screen ‘real estate’ and button-less operation have opened up graphic possibilities and a new level of intuition in interaction design. And with brands starting to see the value of mobile apps to their marketing mix, the opportunities for professional designers are ripe.
The iPhone is certainly not the only touch-screen mobile around (handsets using Google’s Android platform are emerging, and others run on the Symbian platform) and it’s easy to forget just how small the iPhone market really is: O2 says it has sold ‘more than a million’ handsets, but that’s in a mobile market, says Ofcom, of more than 75 million connections. Yet the iPhone is clearly the designer’s favourite. ‘It is ahead of the competition and although at first sight it’s similar to a Google[-powered] phone, it’s quite different to use,’ says Alasdair Scott, director at mobile group The Bright Place, which has developed a series of i-Trump apps based on the original Top Trumps card game.
Of course, mobile apps did not appear with the advent of the iPhone; there are many available for older handsets, mostly using the Java language, but their visual and interaction capabilities are far more constrained. The arrival of larger screens and touchbased interaction means that visual elements are becoming as vital as coding, opening the door for developers to work in collaboration with graphic designers.
‘There’s a real talent to designing with very few pixels - originally we had 32×32-pixel, black-and-white icons. Now things are a little bit easier. The iPhone gives you proper screen real estate and 57×57-pixel icons, so the experience compared to a Java app is very different. And because of the mechanics of how an iPhone app is constructed, you’re looking at the space as one element, in which you can hang different bits. In the old days of the Internet, you had separate elements like pictures, text and headers and they all looked a certain way,’ adds Scott.
As graphic possibilities increase, so does the importance of visual impact. Advertising agency Fallon’s visual identity work for the BBC’s national radio stations was conceived in 2007 with mobile platforms in mind, and has come into its own in BBC Worldwide’s new Radio Times iPhone app, itself a great bit of information design by US group TV Compass.
But ensuring stand out from the crowd is harder than ever. The ‘open’ distribution platform of the App Store has attracted a swathe of independent developers - some hobbyist, and others seeking to making a living - but often without any real training in visual or interaction design. Independent developer Ed Lea acknowledges that without higher quality design, apps are now less likely to be seen. ‘I’ve noticed a huge shift in the Apple Store since it launched last year. Getting applications noticed is now very, very difficult. Working with a designer to create an application that’s both aesthetically pleasing and well thought out certainly wouldn’t harm [its chances of success].’
Having held number one spots in the App Store charts with his MMS and TV Plus apps, Lea brought in illustrator Emma Anderton to create a character for his latest offer, the ‘novelty app’ BoomBot, which reads out text entered into the phone.
But perhaps the biggest shift for professional designers will arrive when corporate clients start to explore the marketing possibilities of mobile apps. ‘They are very much part of the marketing language, converging around websites, widgets and phones,’ says Jon Carney, chief executive of digital and mobile consultancy Marvellous. ‘And there is a branding impact in using apps too - it’s part of a whole move from being a message holder to becoming an enabler. In this way, everyone has a chance to do something interesting.’
This article was written for Design Week’s Interaction Design Supplement, autumn 2009.
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July 9th, 2009
In the wider world, beyond consumer products and services, one of the most remarkable events of the past 12 months was the successful election campaign and inauguration of Barack Obama as president of the US.
It was remarkable not only historically and politically, but also in terms of marketing, for Obama’s campaign communications and branding have been hailed in design circles and beyond as consistently slick and well-executed.
Street artist Shepard Fairey’s screen-printed ‘Hope’ poster swiftly became its defining image (and an iconic piece of graphic design in itself), but the Obama brand was much more than just a poster. The campaign also embodied a shift in sentiment, important not only to politics, but also in how brands talk to consumers - toward trust, honesty and authenticity.
With malfeasance seemingly rife among politicians and bankers playing fast and loose with other people’s money, public trust has become the scarcest of commodities when it comes to big business.
The design industry is subject to the effect of this in several ways. Design is often the only direct touchpoint between brands and consumers, making an understanding of the mood and sentiment of the day crucial for consultancies advising their clients. At the same time, when companies cut marketing budgets and put projects on hold, agency margins are squeezed.
There is no denying it has been a tough year so far, but the picture for design agencies appears to be mixed: some agency heads are describing conditions as ‘the worst they have been for a long time’, while others are enjoying record business wins as clients shop around for the right partner.
According to Doug James, director at brand consultancy Honey, design agencies need more business acumen to remain profitable and successful. ‘It’s about setting a business up, knowing all the metrics and which ones to watch - the key performance indicators. You need to know where it is you make money,’ he says.
Sara Fielding, senior consultant at consulting firm Results International, agrees that this is a primary concern. ‘There has to be greater clarity and understanding of finances, especially net profitability, not just for the business as a whole, but by client and by service offering,’ she says. ‘Only with these systems in place can they really see where the money is being made and be able to argue factually and convincingly for fairer fees.’
In a recession, the pressure on business metrics is unparalleled, but there are  opportunities as well as challenges in the market, according to Iain Johnston, chief executive of marketing services group Loewy. ‘There are a few things happening on the client side and on the agency side that are coming together,’ he says. ‘There’s more focus on value for money and effectiveness - on exactly what you are trying to achieve. Things you can’t show a return on are the first to go, but there does seem to be a flow of work coming through.’
Not surprisingly, clients demanding greater effectiveness and value are becom-ing the norm. Skincare brand Nude has an ongoing partnership with design agency Pearlfisher and the two are collaborating to become more efficient.
‘A more challenging economic climate can often encourage innovation; it forces us to look at what we’re doing and how effective and efficient it really is,’ says Annmarie Harris, marketing manager at Nude. ‘Design spend, like everything, needs to be well-managed and monitored for efficacy. For brands in fast-moving industries like the beauty industry, to stop spending would run the risk of quickly becoming outdated or worse, irrelevant. However, well-utilised, innovative design can achieve fantastic awareness and be very cost-effective. My advice would be to keep spending, but do it cleverly,’ she adds.
According to Jackie Roberts, senior brand manager for tampon brand Lil-lets, measuring the effectiveness of design investment is crucial. ‘All activity should pay for itself by driving sales,’ she says. ‘While it is difficult to establish the effectiveness of a pack redesign in isolation, it plays an important role in optimising the results of the broader communications activity.’
Loewy-owned product design group Seymourpowell has worked with Lil-lets on the development of a new applicator product. ‘We have invested heavily in the current market conditions to establish this as a better alternative to the market leader in the category. Ultimately, success is measured through sales, but we have measures in place to track individual elements of our integrated communications plan,’ says Roberts.
That efficacy and value for money are being demanded at all stages is due in large part to the rise of measurable digital channels. The continued decline in spend on (and the impact of) traditional advertising appears to be benefiting design generally and in particular digital and packaging, where the ROI is greater.
While digital is becoming more important in brand communications, this does not mean businesses should turn solely to digital specialists to work on brand development, warns Nicolas Mamier, European vice-president of branding group Elmwood.
‘Digital is an increasingly important route for communication and therefore features high on the list of requirements from any agency, but I do not believe that means companies should default to using digital specialists to manage their brand,’ he says. ‘Clients are looking for original brand thinking that makes use of the opportunities offered by digital channels, tools and platforms, not just digital thinking.’
The shift away from traditional advertising also has implications for a client’s strategic needs, says Jon Davies, managing director of packaging design group Holmes & Marchant.
‘Above the line doesn’t hit as many consumers as it used to, which means the high costs do not see enough ROI,’ he adds. ‘But ad agencies have long been the strategic partner for brands, investing heavily in planning support for their clients, paid for by the high fees. Recession reduces fees available and pushes clients to ensure they get ROI. So this old ad agency model is no longer sustainable and clients are looking elsewhere for strategic partners with more relevant products; namely, design and digital. The more grown-up agencies have invested in planning to support this shift.’
By introducing planning to design agencies, their thinking is not confined to creating standout packaging, for example, but ensures that there is a full marketing and communications strategy underpinning and supporting the design work, claims Davies.
The whole story
Bob Blandford, design creative director at integrated marketing agency Haygarth, believes we will see more of this. ‘There will be even more focus this year on brand planning, strategy and positioning. [It is] key not only to design work, but in informing and directing the wider communications strategy.’ In an echo of Obama’s holistic design and marketing campaign, the strategy may well include a ’story’ that can be promoted through channels such as PR activity, social media and advertising.
One of the most prevalent of these ’stories’ to hit the FMCG packaging world recently is nostalgia. The apparent reassurance to consumers of bygone days and enduring brands has driven a boom in ‘heritage’ design.
‘There has been a growing number of successful marketing initiatives that hark back to, or celebrate, the past,’ says Barry Seal, managing director of branding group Anthem Worldwide. ‘[Examples include] the relaunch of Wispa, Milky Bar Kid advertising and Marks & Spencer and Selfridges’ anniversary celebrations. This is a powerful and effective way to reconnect to the past and bring back the feeling of the “good old days”.’
Another recent branding theme has been that of the ‘local’. Amid a backlash against globalisation and as consumers focus more on their immediate communities, brands are talking up their local ties or knowledge. However, this is not the same as having a strategy, warns Jim Prior, chief executive of branding group The Partners.
‘I don’t think brands should go down the knee-jerk local response, where they say “Look how we’re in touch with the people of Bangalore”, or wherever,’ he says. ‘This is just a reaction and it rings hollow. It’s the time to be assertive and confident about your brand globally, but be aware that the world isn’t a homogenous place.’
The same can be said of nostalgia branding. Brands with heritage by the  truckload, such as Hovis, can capitalise on it. Jones Knowles Ritchie’s pack designs for the bread brand neatly marry its long history with contemporary colourways and clean typography. Nonetheless, it has to be based on something real and authentic, not simply a tactical reaction. ‘That heritage seems an opportune add-on to a brand could be seen as an indictment of the short-termism of the brand manager rather than a celebration of their ability to catch the wave,’ says Smith & Milton director Howard Milton.
Again, it comes back to the attributes of openness and trust. ‘Consumers are seeking honesty and co-operation and design’s role is to communicate this effectively,’ says James. This is changing the way in which brand language is formulated, according to Terry Tyrrell, worldwide chairman of The Brand Union. ‘Amid this landscape of broken promises and brands, people are sceptical and suspicious. Today’s consumer seeks transparency and authenticity, respects candid answers and expects quality,’ he adds.
This leads to another trend in branding programmes: the real need for change to be internal, as well as external. ‘More clients understand that the way to drive their brand forward is as much about internal alignment as external activities. It’s about understanding and buy-in at all levels of the company,’ says Prior. The Partners has been working with global financial consultancy Deloitte on the firm’s brand positioning of ‘leadership and staying ahead’. According to Deloitte UK head of brand Pia DeVitre, the project focuses on the ‘tangible actions’ of the company and its staff. She believes that working on branding is more important than ever in the current market. ‘This recession has made us focus on the things that really matter,’ adds DeVitre. ‘Brand really matters and we still have budgets to support key components of the brand strategy.’
Broader outlook
Such strategic consultancy includes much more than tangible design work. It is those agencies that under-stand their client’s business issues - and are savvy about providing consultancy outside core design work - that are faring well. ‘Clients need something more than just shelf stand-out and pretty design. This could mean consultancy on distribution methods, cost-savings, materials, innovation and so on - whatever helps their business,’ says Davies.
Materials are a key factor in another major trend affecting brands and design - the ongoing drive toward more sustainable processes. Sustainability is now a key factor in most structural design briefs, whether for ethical or PR reasons, or simply to save money by reducing costs. Design can help brands find more sustainable and efficient ways to deliver their products and services. ‘It’s about being smarter,’ says Harris. ‘With Pearlfisher’s guidance and expertise, Nude is in the process of reworking some packaging to better suit our sustainable goals, without destroying our margins.’
According to Johnston, large-scale FMCG brand-owners are ‘taking a major lead on sustainability’, the fruits of which are likely to be seen in the next 12 to 18 months. ‘The focus is on minimisation in general, from packaging and recycling to supply chains and distribution,’ he says. ‘These projects aren’t going on hold because of the recession and they will make a big splash when they are announced.’ However, he declines to name the comp-anies he is referring to.
There is still some way to go before most companies embed sustainable processes into the way they think and operate. Anthem Worldwide’s parent company, Schawk, recently surveyed major US FMCG and retail companies and found that 83% are being affected by packaging sustainability, but only 28% had a comprehensive plan in this area. The survey also revealed that more than 60% of clients look to design and pre-media vendors for up-to-date information on sustainability. ‘Clearly, more needs to be done in terms of shaping both thinking and best practice, so the design industry has a key role to play in educating the marketplace,’ says Seal.
Sustainability is, perhaps, an overarching issue for most brands now, but all clients have different requirements and problems. Some may be solved by traditional market-ing techniques, others by restructuring a business’ processes or even its culture. Design can tackle all of these because
first and foremost the discipline is about problem-solving, and whatever happens to the various marketing channels, businesses will always have problems to solve.
‘One of the great attractions and anomalies of the design sector is that it’s all sorts of different things,’ says Prior. ‘But designers tend to be problem-solvers. The great consultancies think neutrally about what the solution might be. If there’s one unifying theme across design, I think that maybe this is it.’
This article was written for Marketing, 1 July 2009.
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June 4th, 2009
It’s hard to imagine just how many tests, adjustments, tweaks and overhauls consumer electronics might undergo before they end up in our hands and homes. Every button, function and finish will be considered and reconsidered, just as shape, size and form may go through numerous iterations. Mass-produced consumer products in particular are objects of huge investment and getting it right before the factory line rolls is imperative. In fact, research and development stages are arguably more critical to a product’s success than the persuasive marketing and advertising that will follow: if people don’t like it, or don’t like using it, they ain’t gonna buy it.
Part and parcel of this process is prototyping. From rough, colourless scale models through to facsimiles of the final article, prototypes aid designers, clients and consumers in ensuring everything is on track. Mark Delaney, director of design at Nokia’s mass-market division Connect, says that prototyping is ‘absolutely core’ to the way that the company’s phone handsets are developed. ‘Designs come out of your head and on to the sketch sheet, move rapidly to CAD - which is “real” and responds to the internal components you’re working with - and then straight after that we’re looking at a wax model in 3D. Literally from day one, models will be appearing,’ he says.
Prototypes for Nokia’s recent 6303 handset, for example, include an initial and basic form proposal 3D ‘print’, moving on to an aluminium
model that demonstrates the weight and material feel of the product. ‘Grey’ models then experiment with visual details and proportional differences created by the arrangement of internal components and finally a full appearance model is produced as part of a larger colour and materials study.
Similarly, when motion-capture hardware company Vicon wanted to refresh its image in the professional marketplace, design consultancy PDD used prototypes to develop a cleaner minimal aesthetic for its T-Series cameras. ‘They wanted to rebrand the products alongside the company and the visual aspects of the cameras were part of this,’ says PDD senior design consultant Oliver Stokes. Initial foam prototypes showed the camera’s form and scale, while sprayed foam models explored split-lines and colours.
As well as helping designers to judge things like scale, form and tolerances, prototypes are also regularly used in consumer testing, as LG Electronics head of design Europe Luke Miles explains. ‘Initiating dialogue with consumers is a useful way to gain feedback on general concepts and enables designers to make adjustments in the early stages,’ he says. ‘Initial “white” models can be printed with an extremely quick turnaround and are used to help analyse proportion and ergonomics, while milled models at the second stage [provide] more detail, specifically the build culture and its effect on the prototype’s external appearance. These models are often tested with consumers to get a clearer analysis on form, colour and materiality.’
There are many different ways to produce a prototype model, so it is crucial that the right approach is chosen, says Mark Hester, senior consultant in design development at PDD. ‘It’s very important to tie in research with design and prototyping, so we work with our research department to find out what kinds of prototype are best for different situations. For example, if you’re consumer-validating the finish of a material, it can be distracting if the form and size are not quite right. In consumer electronics especially, the limitations of a prototype or model shouldn’t be allowed to affect the outcome of research,’ he says.
According to Stokes, using prototypes to test ideas with consumers can increase the chances of market success and cut costs by weeding out poor designs at the early stages. However, consumer electronics design is often concerned with breaking new territory, and innovation through novel forms, materials and interfaces is something we’ve come to expect. Yet consumer testing is not known for generating mould-breaking ideas; quite the contrary. What, then, is the danger of death by focus group?
‘With new products and features you can often get quite negative responses from testers, simply because they are new,’ says Delaney. ‘We really have to unpick why people are saying “no” to something in prototype and we’ll do this in quite a lot of detail, looking at their world view, tastes, background and so on.’
If you want to shake up the market, standard consumer tests should be avoided. Patrick Hunt, director at product design group Therefore, believes that so-called ‘disruptive’ products - much sought after by consumer electronics brands - call for a new approach to consumer testing altogether. ‘Generally, our clients do much less concept testing directly with customers today than, say, five years ago. Top-tier brands have their own product vision and a desire to get new products to market quickly and it’s long been known among designers that consumer research can mean driving forward while looking in the rear view. The type of research where developers test prototypes on consumers behind a oneway mirror is declining in technology-driven products [because] paradigm-breaking products do not survive this process.’
This article was written for Design Week’s Prototyping & Modelling Supplement, 2009.
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May 7th, 2009
In 1964, designer Ken Garland led a call for graphic designers to consider how their skills might be turned to ‘more useful and lasting forms of communication’ than those demanded by ‘gimmick merchant’ clients. The First Things First manifesto, as it was called, was a cry for less triviality, transience and wastefulness, and for more value.
A second FTF manifesto, drawn up in 2000 by Adbusters and signed by 33 design industry figures, also lamented how graphic designers’ ‘time and energy is used up manufacturing demand for things that are inessential, at best’, in a culture of ‘uncontested’ consumerism. Of course, it’s not only graphic designers who are complicit in the creation of desire and the promotion of disposability: in our screen-based, electronic gadget-filled lives, the hand of the industrial designer is also ever-present. And FTF’s notions could apply just as much here as in graphic design.
Ethics aside for a moment, it’s clear that ‘uncontested consumerism’ helps enormously to pay the designer’s bills and keep the whole merry-go-round spinning. Yet the huge groundswell in support for Green practices has planted environmental considerations in the agendas of most consumer-facing businesses, making unfettered materialism - delivered at any cost - a much harder sell. Now, commercial designers and clients are facing a moral conundrum together: how to keep producing masses of stuff for the market, while committing to reducing waste and environmental harm.
For consumer electronics companies, the answer seems to lie in improving the Green credentials of (usually just some of) their products, rather than a wholesale rethink on how many of those products we actually need. Indeed, changing the business practices through which global companies have thrived is surely like turning the proverbial oil tanker around - a gradual, lumbering process.
Fortunately, Green sells. South Korean groups LG and Samsung, as well as Chinese company ZTE, have all recently unveiled mobile phone handsets with built-in solar-charging panels, for example. Good news? Perhaps, but as consumers ditch their current units in favour of these eco-powered entrants, the conundrum rears its head again: sustainable design equals more demand equals more resources. Truly ecological design demands a shift away from planned obsolescence and constant marketing.
Despite this, designers shouldn’t find the moral scruple too debilitating, because it is design which is instrumental in finding better materials, more efficient practices, better packaging and many other improvements that can ameliorate the unavoidable cost ofproducing and distributing products on a mass scale. To put it another way, if we’re going to have products delivered on a mass scale, they may as well be well designed.
So, how are we doing? Well, not surprisingly, Greenpeace International has been keeping a watchful eye on the electronics industry and earlier this year published its Green Electronics Survey to answer just this question. A few big companies - Apple, Microsoft, Nintendo and Philips included - were conspicuously absent from the report, having declined Greenpeace’s invitation to take part. From the 15 companies which did participate, 50 products were assessed in terms of their use of hazardous substances, power consumption, product life cycle and the environmental costs of manufacture.
Overall, it’s good news. Hazardous chemicals continue to be phased out, while the growing use of LED displays in laptop computers saves energy and avoids the need for mercury in backlights. In larger products, such as TV sets, more post-consumer recycled plastic is being used, although computers and mobile phones, on the whole, are lagging behind in this regard.
‘The electronics industry continues to make progress in launching products with reduced environmental impacts. Product scores are increasingly closer together, suggesting a more competitive environment in a “race to the top” to produce truly Green products,’ reports Greenpeace.
Of special note is the Lenovo L2440x monitor, which was found to be way ahead of the competition in terms of toxic materials, and also features recycled plastic for nearly 30 per cent of its plastic parts and an LED-backlit display. Toshiba topped the notebook category with its Portégé R600 model, thanks to the elimination of many toxic chemicals.
The highest-scoring mobile phone was Samsung’s SGH-F268, which is built without the use of brominated flame retardants, substances that can release hazardous bromine when burnt for disposal. Nokia’s 6210 Navigator was the Greenest of the smart phone/PDAs tested, mainly thanks to its energy efficiency and product life cycle.
Interestingly, the Pearl 8130 product submitted by leading PDA brand Blackberry lost a lot of points because of poor energy efficiency, failing even to meet the Energy Star standard.
Although Greenpeace International’s survey is far from exhaustive and relies on voluntary product submissions, it nonetheless paves the way for better products in the future. ‘Taking the top scores within each criteria and product category, a pathway to the design of truly Green electronics products becomes clear,’ says the report. In other words, a combination of all the best attributes in each category would create a significantly Greener product than currently available.
The next step is for these piecemeal Green practices to be integrated into a company’s whole manufacturing, distribution, marketing and end-of-life processes, replacing environmental lip service with a new ethos. First things first, and slowly, slowly the tanker may turn.
This article was written for Design Week, 7 May 2009.
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November 6th, 2008
The first performance spaces to greet visitors to Leicester’s new Curve theatre, which opened to the public last week, are housed inside a trio of 3.5m glass vestibule entranceways, each containing 288 LED spotlights. Intersecting Curve architect Rafael Viñoly’s louvered glass facade, the LED-filled cubes are precisely controlled by computer software, tracking visitors passing through them and translating their movements into a reactive performance of light and movement on the vestibule walls.
This kind of interactive lighting design is possible thanks to the programmable capabilities of LEDs and a growing convergence of lighting and display design with software coding. Although the light-emitting diode itself has been around in practical appliances for well over 40 years, there’s a new breed of designers-cum-programmers who are using increasingly cheap microchips and open-source code to create dazzling, interactive visual effects from banks of multiple LEDs.
Moritz Waldemeyer - arguably the premier exponent of LEDs’ capabilities - explains how it works. ‘You can effectively now get a whole computer on a tiny chip that costs about 50p and you can programme this chip to add intelligence to the LEDs. It is a marriage between computer technology and lighting,’ he says. Waldemeyer’s background as an electronic engineer offers him a programmer’s view on just how intricately these lights can be controlled. The throne-like By Royal Appointment chairs, designed by Waldemeyer for Gallery Libby Sellers’ Grandmateria exhibition last year, illustrate this well. Sensors in the chair read the colour of the sitter’s clothing and LEDs on the rear project this colour on to the wall behind, creating an ‘aura’ inspired by the halos found around royal figures in medieval paintings.
Not only can LEDs precisely match any colour (while incandescent bulbs generally require filters), they can also react ‘intelligently’ to information from software. The installation at Curve is designed by Jason Bruges Studio and programmed by Chris O’Shea. A wide-angle camera reads the outline shape of visitors walking through the glass boxes and then software translates this into instructions for a controller built into the LED circuits. This controller instructs the lights to dim to create a mimicking silhouette of the visitor on each wall. Further dynamism is built into the system by altering the cubes’ background colours to reflect the volume of people moving through the vestibules, as well as turning them red just before a theatre performance is about to start and green at the end to indicate the exits.
Another example of the fine control over LEDs is seen in Moving Brands’ installation promoting the launch of the Ross Lovegrove-designed Kef Muon loudspeaker last year. In collaboration with programmer-designer Karsten Schmidt and O’Shea, Moving Brands designed a pulsing LED floor which burst with light in response to the sounds emanating from the speakers. The light responses were actually plotted by the computer in three-dimensional space, of which the LED floor was effectively a two-dimensional slice. This created an effect O’Shea describes as a ‘liquid oil pool’.
Dynamic colour control is also at the heart of New York artist and designer Reed Barrow’s Monument to an Amaranth installation, housed at the Tommy Hilfiger Denim store in New York. ‘The use of LEDs was really the only way to accomplish the original concept for the work,’ says Barrow. ‘I was able to assign each LED node within the tube an individual colour which mimicked a pixel on a TV. [This gave an] amazing amount of control and versatility in colour. The interface between driver software and LED hardware made the project possible and as cost effective as it could be.’
LEDs are also significantly more efficient than incandescent light bulbs, with little power lost as heat and a lifespan of 50 000 hours upwards, compared to around 1000 hours for a conventional bulb, as Barrow notes. ‘Because of the location of the work on Broadway in Soho, the piece was intended to run 24 hours a day, so the energy efficiency of LEDs was an integral part of the design.’
The other great advantage of LED technology is that it is becoming brighter and cheaper, almost exponentially. ‘With the cost, brightness and control all sorts becomes possible, including interesting architectural illumination,’ adds Waldemeyer, citing UN Studio’s LED-clad facade for the Galleria Department Store in Seoul, South Korea.
But LEDs can also produce beautiful effects without being manipulated by a computer or even changing colour, as demonstrated by Hector Serrano’s mesmerising Waterdrop installation for bathroom products group Roca. Each bulb is moved through space on a mechanical structure to create the effect of rippling water. ‘Here, interestingly, the intelligence was built into the mechanisms creating the wave movement,’ says Waldemeyer, who was partially involved in the project.
‘It was a proper old-school mechanism that could have been built with technology from the steam age. Amazing, isn’t it, that the result was so 21st century?’
This article was written for Design Week, 6 November 2009.
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October 6th, 2008
B&Q churns more than 10 000 SKUs a year. That’s stock keeping units, for those unfamiliar with shop speak. At Tesco they deal with no fewer than 13 000 individual product lines every year. And in a retail world where brand consistency and design clarity are vital, keeping tabs on that lot is no small task. Enter the in-house head of design – the pivotal figure who corrals a company’s numerous design projects and products into something coherent, connected and comprehensible, something the customers can understand.
Of course, it’s not just retailers that need to ensure their design output is always on message. Any large organisation - an airline, bank, public transport operator or global charity, to name just a few - has multiple customer touch points, perhaps overseen by different departments which may or may not be talking effectively to each other. In businesses like these design overview is a valuable investment, helping a company to innovate and respond while also remaining efficient. And the person who holds that position can be a rather powerful design buyer.
‘Tesco used to have an in-house design head, but there was a big gap before I joined and, in the meantime, categories started to fragment,’ says the supermarket’s head of design Alyson Jakes. Previous incumbent Jeremy Lindley left to take up the role of category development director at drinks giant Diageo two years ago and, according to Jakes, even though the supermarket continued to work with design consultancies, consistency started to deteriorate without an internal hand on the tiller.
B&Q packaging design and guidelines manager Jonathan Couper paints a similar picture. ‘Historically, the business has been driven in all aspects by the commercial teams, so design was guided by individual [product] categories. Some category teams did this very well, others less so. But this is a fairly disparate approach,’ he says. To combat this, B&Q management - along with marketing and customer proposition director Jo Kenrick - has set up a team that will police the messy and the random, instead sending out a coherent message across all products and communications. For example, there were previously ‘ten to 15′ different typefaces in use by the company, but now there will be just one.
Like many large businesses, both Tesco and B&Q operate a roster of trusted design consultancies. So why not use one of these groups to act as brand guardian, especially when an external group usually creates the company’s brand identity in the first place? B&Q, for example, recently worked on its brand ‘personality’ with Interbrand. ‘You’ve got to be inside the company to create the degree of change at the speed we need to do it,’ says Couper. ‘A consultancy could do what we’re doing, but not at that speed, and it would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds. You can’t afford to do that as a retailer.’
Although efficiency and cost savings may be one reason for employing an in-house head of design, it need not be at the expense of high-quality design. An in-house chief can champion design internally in a way that no external group could really hope to manage, despite the sterling efforts of many. They can also make the case for the rostered consultancies and demonstrate how good design management is a bottom-line investment for the business. ‘I show how there is a triangle of benefits from design - aesthetics, function and cost - but design still has to be fought for on a day-to-day basis,’ explains Transport for London head of design Innes Ferguson. ‘It’s used as a business tool in this organisation, not as an optional extra, and you need a good, strong internal team to make sure the quality is right and - in our case - that the taxpayers are getting what they pay for.’
According to Ferguson, an in-house design position might cost about £30 000 a year, but that same person can provide TfL with about £150 000 of work. ‘An outside consultancy could do it, but it wouldn’t provide value for money. And there isn’t a group in the country which could do everything that we need,’ he adds.
In many cases, an in-house design chief reports up to the company’s marketing director, and in smaller business it’s often the marketing team that manages design appointments and projects directly, with no design head intermediary. But according to Couper, having a position between the nitty-gritty of design’s detail and the macro view of a company’s marketing strategy is a great benefit. ‘A marketing director can’t focus on that level of detail, but they do have the overview on the direction of the business and we can ensure that the design fits with that.’
Jakes concurs. ‘I’m the eyes for the marketing director,’ she says. ‘A head of design has really close contact with the customer on the shop floor, which a marketing director can’t. It might be quite hard to sustain this role in a smaller company, but for a bigger business you really need to make sure consistency is there day to day, no matter how good your brand guidelines are.’
This article was written for Design Week, 17 September 2008.
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July 10th, 2008
It’s perhaps a little unfair to kick off a ranging look at the state of play in the design industry with a project that emerged in a flurry of controversy, but last summer’s farrago over the London 2012 Olympics logo neatly illustrates a few things. Significantly, it shows the passion and involvement everyone can feel for a piece of graphic communication, the emotional connection lying at the heart of design’s power to influence. Vocal criticism and defence of the Wolff Olins-designed logo shows that people instinctively relate, one way or another, to the creative ideas it presents. Somehow, although ‘only a logo’, it’s important.
We all respond to visual and physical design everyday, whether it be a logo, a store interior or a juice carton. And our reactions can have a profound influence on the fortunes of the business behind the product, even if designers have often found it hard to quantify this influence. This is one of the major challenges facing the industry.
The 2012 responses also highlight a problem that has long beset the branding industry in particular – the huge focus and weight placed on a logo or corporate identity to the virtual exclusion of all the other work the design agency has carried out. And this is not just in branding: whichever discipline of design you’re looking at – retail design, product design, packaging or whatever – a good design process goes much deeper than the ‘colouring in’ of the final output. Focusing on the ‘physical’ manifestation of design work can sometimes belittle this depth, leading to design becoming a commodity purchase – another obstacle for design to overcome. ‘The value of design and design thinking does tend to get lost or overshadowed when people view it as a commodity, which even some people within the industry do,’ notes Lloyd Northover chairman Jim Northover, whose clients include Lexus and Royal Mail.
Finally, in relation to marketing more broadly, the 2012 marque demonstrates something else too: it shows the relative permanence of design, in this case for at least five years. Although design may provide some of the materials to create a marketing campaign, it is seldom a campaign in itself; typically, design hangs around much longer than an advertising or direct marketing sweep. The importance of good, well-managed design over the longer-term is therefore very high. Yet many agency-client relationships are still conducted on a short-term, project to project basis, while ad agencies win accounts that they often hold on to for years.
Each of these points provides some backdrop to the challenges and issues facing the sector. In many ways, the design industry fares differently to other marketing services, partly due to its culture and structure. In fact, some still question whether it is really an industry at all. To many, its micro-business set-up is that of a cottage industry; one populated with independently-minded ‘creatives’ whose lifestyle proclivities and ambitions often actually eschew huge growth or empire building. There has been nowhere near the kind of agency consolidation experienced in advertising and according to Design Council research, around 60 per cent of UK design agencies employ five or fewer people.
‘It is also an industry which has traditionally focused on excellence of product rather than profits,’ notes Tony Walford, a senior consultant at Results International, a consulting and finance business specialising in the marcoms industries. ‘There are many small agencies run by design practitioners who are passionate about their product, rather than concentrating on the commercial aspects.’ Not that ad agencies necessarily place profits above creative quality, but design agencies do often struggle to balance the two.
As design continues its growth from origins in arts and crafts, there seems to be one cardinal challenge to meet. It must communicate and demonstrate the real depth of value it brings to business. To do this, it must strike up long-term relationships at a client’s boardroom level, breaking free from project based, commodity-bought work and forging deeper partnerships with clients. As Scottish & Newcastle chief executive John Dunsmore notes, continually running with project based work means that design agencies ‘have to roll sixes every year’ to survive.
‘Design is the least profitable of all the marketing services sectors, because we’re treated as a talent commodity,’ says Andrew Knowles, chief executive of packaging design agency Jones Knowles Ritchie, which has worked on Scottish & Newcastle’s Strongbow brand. Doug James, a partner at multidisciplinary agency Honey, which works with Tesco and Harrods, echoes this. ‘These big clients usually see you as a service provider with a specialist skill set, so we have to demonstrate the business effectiveness of our services and show how we understand the commercial requirements of a company. They need to start to realise that we can think for them to some extent,’ he says. Then agencies have to start charging for it. ‘I don’t think consultancies charge appropriately in terms of the impact their work has on a client’s business. But this impact does have to be demonstrated,’ says Interbrand chief executive Rune Gustafson.
According to Paul Castledine, chief creative officer of Birmingham consultancy Boxer, once a business impact is demonstrated agencies have a ‘tangible’ sell. ‘Design must be driven by insight and should be measured in its effectiveness. In essence, we are talking about turning an intangible sell into a tangible benefit,’ he says. Some clients are already demanding proof of design’s effectiveness. ‘We’ve seen big changes in client’s demands. Increasingly, they want their design to demonstrate real effectiveness and request a clear way to demonstrate the value and impact design has had on their brand,’ says The Brand Union managing director Simon Bailey, whose clients include Vodafone and SABMiller.
For agencies able to do this, businesses are willing to pay. ‘You see this come through in the pitch process, where clients are asking tougher questions from their design groups, but are willing to pay for it,’ says Jonathan Ford, creative partner at branding and packaging design agency Pearlfisher. ‘They are starting to realise they can get a good return on design investment and are making sure they get it right, so it can be a long-term investment.’
As Ford notes, long-term partnership-style relationships between client and consultancy are increasingly important. Since its inception seven years ago, UK financial protection firm Bright Grey has worked with design group Navyblue. ‘They are very much a partner in our business,’ explains Susan Sneddon, communications director at Bright Grey. ‘We share the same level of information with them as we would our own marketing team, which allows them to be a true extension of that team. We have the view that we will get more value from our external suppliers if we invest time and money in developing a relationship with them.’
With the huge consolidation of big business – and a concomitant lack of consolidation in the design sector – there are a large number of agencies chasing fewer and fewer clients. In this climate, long-term partnerships are even more important and many consultancies and clients are now viewing their relationships in this way. ‘Over the last year we’ve been working a lot more with above the line agencies and I think this is partly because clients are looking for longer term relationships with their designers,’ says Barry Seal, managing director of strategic branding agency Anthem Worldwide. ‘Ideally designers have stopped being suppliers and are starting to become partners with a business. It’s about having a real relationship with your clients, not just a supplier relationship. I can’t stress this enough.’
Or, as Knowles puts it: ‘If clients give us more lock-in at the senior level we’ll work with them to deliver effective design. But the project nature of the industry terrifies agencies because if the client doesn’t like your face, there’s something in your portfolio they don’t like or they’ve got a mate they used to work worth – bang, you’re out.’
However, for all the challenges in proving effectiveness, winning boardroom buy-in and improving agency margins, the picture for design is not at all bleak. There’s little doubt that the strategic – and financial – value of design is being recognised at a higher level amongst business, helped along by the Design Business Association’s Design Effectiveness Awards and the Design Council’s Designing Demand programme.
‘I don’t sense there’s any boardroom doubt about the value of good design,’ adds Knowles. ‘The uncertainty is more about how they acquire it and manage it. There are therefore huge opportunities for design consultancies to show how design can be of benefit to the business.’
As the economy wobbles and consumer credit dips, design must compete even harder to prove this strategic value to business. As Walford notes, design can be one of the first marketing services to be cut in a tight economic period and the last to be reinstated when things pick up. Indeed, within the last couple of months network-owned branding giants Interbrand (Omnicom) and The Brand Union (WPP) have both cited ‘uncertainty’ as a reason for senior redundancies.
But where agencies demonstrate their strategic understanding of consumer behaviour, along with the power of design to influence that behaviour, corporate chiefs are more likely to keep them in the fold. This is true not only of branding consultancies, but also in product, digital, retail and packaging design disciplines. Before taking the view from some of these sectors, it’s worth picking up another trend that connects them all and perhaps fundamentally changes the nature of all marketing communication.
Shifts in the way we communicate are creating what Seymourpowell director Richard Seymour calls a ‘paroxysmal change’ in the relationship between products, communications and marketing. ‘So much so,’ he says, ‘that most people, including design agencies, don’t know what’s going on; we’re right at the centre of it.’ What Seymour is referring is the transition from ‘push media’ – where marketing activity pushes messages about products and services towards consumers – to a Web 2.0-style of communication where people, everywhere, are sharing, re-appropriating and commenting on these messages like never before.
‘Push media is evaporating. Not the places to put it, which are still there, but what people are doing with it, which is that they’re talking to each other. It’s like going back to the Middle Ages. If the blacksmith in the village is shit, everybody knows about it,’ says Seymour. As an example, he cites a YouTube video that shows how to crack a Kryptonite lock with a biro. The video’s author reportedly said: ‘Your brand new U-lock is not safe’, causing huge implications for Kryptonite’s products and brand.
‘Basically, if you lie, you die. If you promise something great and the product isn’t up to it, there will be an onslaught,’ continues Seymour. ‘So, you start to see a re-emancipation of the object or the product as the truth. In this new order you see a new way of communication developing. If you say something in the old way – “we think this” in a pompous way – then there’s a massive negative reaction. This is a huge relief. It’s honest trading again. We can’t just take some stuff and advertise the bollocks off it.’
If this is the case, it affects not just design, but the way consumers receive all products, services and marketing communications. ‘It’s a fantastic time to be in the creative industries because we’re witnessing a complete change, a new dawn,’ argues Seymour. ‘And it’s not technology, not the “it” of the internet - that’s just the “how”. It’s anthropology; it’s emergent behaviour which arises from the tools we’ve now got.’
This is a version of an article written for Marketing, 8 July 2008.
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July 10th, 2008
Electrical and electronic waste is the fastest growing waste stream in the UK, with 1.8 million tonnes generated annually, according to the Government. It’s easy to see why: an abundance of super-cheap goods has led us to view many products as practically disposable. It’s easy to throw things away and replace them with newer, smarter ones at relatively little cost.
And nowhere is this disposability more prevalent than with mobile phones, an industry largely sustained by the perpetual upgrades of subsidised or apparently free handsets. Try telling staff in a phone store that you haven’t upgraded your handset in over two years; they are quite disbelieving. According to a Science Museum exhibition in 2006, over 1,700 handset upgrades are made every hour, around 15 million a year. In this scheme, where constant desirability is paramount, where does design sit? Is it curative or complicit?
When it comes to limiting the environmental cost of manufacturing and using electronic devices, designers and engineers clearly play a crucial role. ‘If the brief allows us to offer a solution that integrates a sustainable approach then we do it. Sometimes we do it when not asked,’ says Factory Design director Adam White.
But at the same time design as styling is a major factor in millions of handset upgrades. All the big players – Motorola, LG, Samsung, Nokia, Sony Ericsson and so on – have evangelised the power of design to create differentiation and desire. Design, like marketing, can encourage consumption. ‘It is fair to say that, as with fashion, a cool design is often why people want to change their handset. But with environmental issues firmly on the agenda, designers’ skills will make a significant difference to, say, a product’s lifecycle. They will also be used to make things pretty if that’s what’s called for,’ adds White.
Real sustainability, in any industry, can only be achieved with control over the entire product lifecycle and business system. ‘To have a truly sustainable product, it’s got to be designed in tandem with the business delivering it to the consumer and for mobiles it generally isn’t. It’s the network operators which control what happens to their products,’ says Ryder Meggitt, director of design at Element 06. ‘Controlling the whole process would change the design because you can look at ways to get repeat revenue from each handset. A phone would act almost as a service system, rather than a one-off unit with a one-time value,’ he says.
As ever, Apple’s iPhone emerges as a model to consider, with its user interface perhaps the most important feature for sustainability. The unit’s glass screen and multi-touch operation become a blank canvass, adaptable to any number of future functions by upgrading the software inside. ‘One way of reducing disposability is to keep high-level functions going, lessening the desire to upgrade. The iPhone is highly adaptable as it’s not restricted by buttons and layout,’ adds Meggitt.
Working with its exclusive UK phone operator 02, Apple might also start to ‘close the lifecycle loop’ and seek proper take-back of iPhone handsets at the end of their lives, allowing high value components to be reused in lower level phones. In the meantime, it already gains extra revenue from services, via iPhone purchases of music and videos from iTunes; in other words, Apple already controls some of what happens with its phones post sale.
Nokia designers are working on similar concepts, dubbed Homegrown, where a phone ‘wears in, not out’ by using digital, rather than physical, upgrades to its functions. In this light, Nokia Design head of strategic projects Rhys Newman rejects the idea that design is a vehicle to promote consumption of new products. ‘Within Homegrown design was more about defining a set of guiding principles that could result in products that are both desirable and sustainable,’ he says. ‘If you change the way that you create products and use materials that are 100 per cent recyclable, you not only create sustainable products in environmental terms but sustainable business models. Design in my world is no longer an inconsequential activity seducing people into purchasing things they don’t need.’
Eventually though, all handsets will reach the end of their product life and it’s at this point where the real business end of long-term sustainability kicks in. ‘When a factory is building an assembly line they don’t usually think about building a disassembly line too,’ notes Phelan Associates director Philip Phelan, echoing an emerging ‘cradle to cradle’ design philosophy. Phelan is working with Hong Kong group Product Solutions on a range of sustainable technologies, including solar power gathering ‘energised surfaces’ and electrostatic fabrics that generate power from movement.
But technology changes, although realised by designers, are driven by industry, says Phelan. ‘We wouldn’t have moved from Bakelite to modern plastics if people like BASF hadn’t been walking the streets to show the materials to design houses. There’s a plethora of new materials out there and designers are the focal point for a lot of the vendors. But at the end of the day it has to be money driven. And as designers, we’re able to help charge a premium on the product because of its new characteristics.’
This article was written for Design Week, 2 July 2008.
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