Response to Andrew Hoffman
– Digging Deeper into “Good Business”
By Michael McPherson, Partner and Creative Director, Corey
McPherson Nash
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| Michael McPherson |
In his response to my eBulletin article “Redefining
‘Good Design is Good Business’” Andrew Hoffman
makes a passionate call to his fellow
design consultants to stand behind the GD = GB mantra and to “act
together” in order to objectively quantify the value of design.
As I stated in my article, I agree that good design is good business,
but my whole point is that if we need to rely on a quantitative
study to make our case, we’re doomed before we even start.
He states that the measure of design should be “Did it meet
its stated goals?” and “Did it make money for the client?”
These are great criteria, but the answers are not simple. What if
the design met its stated goals and did not make money for the client?
Is it a total failure? What if it did not meet its stated goals
and still made money for the client? Then is it good design? Should
“making money for the client” be one of the goals of
every design project? And how do we know whether our work made money
for the client if there is no way to isolate this factor from all
the other factors that influence sales and profits?
Hoffman goes on to state: “We all intuitively ‘know’
that good design sells.” Who are “we”?
Designers? Good design sells? Most of the stuff I see that sells
is atrociously designed. It is possible to create a profitable business
with good design as a core value, but it is obviously possible to
create a profitable business without design even being on the radar.
It is a sad fact about our current consumer culture that good design
is not a value that is widely shared either by producers or consumers.
Martha Stewart in Kmart and Michael Graves in Target are the exceptions
that prove the rule, and even these products are compromised by
the depressing retail environment in which they are displayed.
It is interesting that Hoffman cites Apple in support of his point.
There is little doubt that Apple would not have survived without
a serious commitment to quality design—but I don’t see
Steve Jobs standing next to Warren Buffett on the cover of Fortune.
Apple is a great company, but it commands less than 5% of the market.
And to what do Dell and Microsoft attribute their dominance? I would
bet large sums that “good design” is pretty far down
on their list. That’s a shame, since they both have the resources
to invest in design, and, as we tell our clients, a little design
goes a long way.
Hoffman asks if it is possible to “prove” that good
design leads to profitability. Of course, we designers would all
love it if the link between “good design” and profitability
could be proved! But to me it seems like the obstacles to such a
Q.E.D. are insurmountable. For one thing, how do we define “good
design” in any kind of objective manner? If an ad campaign
or a product wins lots of design awards from peers and yet fails
to make the client a profit, does that mean it isn’t good
design?
Maybe, but maybe not. It depends on a myriad of factors outside
the control of the designer, and maybe outside the control of the
client. The studies that have been done linking good design with
enterprise performance show some positive correlation, but they
do not show that good design causes good business results.
As I mentioned in my previous article, it could be that businesses
that are doing well financially invest more in design as a way to
show to their competitors and their customers that they are healthy
and committed to quality. They may also believe that their investment
in design will lead to a long-term return, but this is more an act
of faith than a slam-dunk.
Hoffman encourages designers to engage the client in a discussion
of business goals and how design fits in with the client’s
business strategy. I couldn’t agree more. Any designer who
is regarded by clients as a serious business professional and partners
makes a sincere effort to understand the details of their client’s
business, competitive landscape, and customers. They also monitor
the effectiveness of their work in helping the client achieve their
goals long after the active phase of the engagement is concluded.
This should be elementary, but the sad fact is that too many designers
are less interested in their client’s success than they are
in nurturing their reputation with their peers. A realignment of
the attitude of designers toward the business goals of their clients
will go much further in raising the image of the design profession
than any number of academic studies supporting the value of design
for business performance. If clients aren’t already assuming
that an investment in design will benefit their organization, handing
them a white paper is not going to convince them.
I don’t practice design just because it enables me to make
a living by serving clients. I practice design because I love to
engage in partnerships with clients to find great solutions to design
problems. And clients engage designers because they believe that
our services will help them achieve their goals, most of which might
not be quantifiable in terms of financial performance. That is the
attitude toward design that Thomas Watson, Jr. brought to IBM’s
design program, and that same attitude is what makes Apple a great
company in spite of it’s puny market share.
If we agree with Ralph Caplan’s elegant definition of design
as “the process of making things right,” good design
is more than a tool for making sales. It is valuable as an end in
itself to everyone who can envision a more graceful way to live.
This article appeared in the November
2003 eBulletin.
Feedback on DMI Viewpoints and article proposals
are always welcome! Please email jtobin@dmi.org.
All articles reflect the opinion of the author and not the Design
Management Institute.
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