DMI Design/Management Annual 36: Design at Scale
October 25-26, 2011, New York City

		Vandna (Cheena) Jain

By Vandna (Cheena) Jain

As we react to the ever-changing world and seek to understand its complexities, we find a drastic need to reinvent our ways of thinking and create new solutions. The idea of "Design at Scale" is a unique premise because, as we heard from our speakers, our understanding of design must be considered at different levels in order to accommodate for an intensely diverse, connected, and rapidly transforming population. The simple truth is this: At all levels of interaction, we see new information and content being formed and communicated every second of every day. Design is a means of connecting people to that stream of consciousness and each other in ways that build relationships and value. Leveraging design to develop systems at each cross section of society not only helps people connect, but acts as a tool for businesses in the future. But more so, considering design at scale forces us to consider the different stories people and brands have to tell, and how important this need for storytelling and experiences has become at all levels of business, society, and creativity.

David Butler and Gerardo Garcia

The speakers of this exploratory conference not only presented ideas of design effectiveness, but also presented their "design stories" through an extremely varied range of projects, methodologies, and initiatives. As we heard from Coca Cola’s David Butler and Gerardo Garcia, a major corporation can reach the most local settings, allowing a company of their magnitude to not only increase profits, but also create experiences and brand value in the most unexpected ways. The central theme of their presentation, "We win when we create design systems that create shared value," helps us understand the impact of the symbiotic relationship and productivity that their large scale design-based initiative produces for both their organization and smaller communities. From this, their global brand gains a unique story to tell, which further influences their teams and their initiatives.

Jake Barton

Jake Barton, of Local Projects, discussed mass collaboration, but more so he allowed us to recognize the influence of social media, pop culture and personal storytelling. When we consider mass collaboration, we can see how sharing content and intimate moments at a global, collective, and pervasive scale can allow even one person to influence many or be a part of something bigger. Design and participation leveraged with the concept of collectivity lets us see beyond a world where information is constantly changing to see new ways to create longevity and a sense of legacy for society’s story. Through design at this large scale, we can archive the historic contexts of today’s world while creating memorable experiences for both the person who accesses the information and the person who shares their expressive narratives and interests.

Beth Comstock and Lorna Ross

Beth Comstock’s presentation discussed the fact that "design creates experiences that matter." When we have visions, it allows us to create possibilities; however, unless we tell the story of how this vision will allow us to solve or simplify problems and/or be effective in many ways, it will never see fruition. In order to innovate and implement, we must realize that we need to work together, but also understand the narrative (or outcome) that will be worth our united efforts. Lorna Ross, of the Mayo Clinic, had parallel insights. She encouraged us to "make the invisible visible and create a compelling case for design" and, in some ways, that through our experiences "we can know something without fully understanding it." At the core, again, we see that there is an inherent need to tell design’s story and how design helps us to create narratives that allow others to learn and innovate yet again.

Michael Bierut and Brian Collins

While many individuals will remember this conference as a communal discussion about how design affects business, my personal reflection again relates to the narrative of design. We heard from an array of speakers including some of my personal heroes like Michael Bierut, who told his personal story of design, and Brian Collins, who discussed the fact that we spark ideas through stories, not form. He reinforced the idea that a brand’s promise helps to create or influence the brand experience and that we must "drive story through everything."

So consider this, from a varying array of presentations and discussions, I took away one main idea from this conference: Regardless of the size of a community, local or global, what remains ever present at the onsets and outcomes of successful design endeavors is that there is always a narrative that is created allowing us to engage, educate, or enrich businesses, society and innovation. This narrative could be a design system and how it effects brands and businesses on many societal levels, or it could be as foundational as creating a brand story that creates value among the people who interact with it, both internally and externally of the organization. Moreover, sharing these experiences and narratives creates an awareness of what exists around us and what part we, using design, have to play in this changing, connected society. In the end, we must use design, as Brian Collins stated, to "Persist! Persist! Persist!"

Biography

Vandna Cheena Jain is an art director, designer, and design consultant based in New York City. As an avid storyteller, her professional mission is to help brands tell stories. Through her background with photography, marketing, design management and design, her focus lies in transmedia storytelling. Currently, she is a Senior Art Director at Ruth, a division of Edelman that specializes in brand development and experiential marketing. Last year, she produced a dissertation regarding design effectiveness and the future of print and online media, relating to user experience, storytelling and the shift in media consumption.

While having a background that was initially focused in design and advertising, she has been passionate about elevating brands by developing not only their relationships with consumers, but also their brand narratives. In the future, she hopes to influence the design community by writing about media consumption and consumer engagement. Currently, she is looking for new opportunities for creative projects, including design consulting, design thinking, and design management. You can check out her work on www.vandnajain.com.