In this issue:

Viewpoints

In Favor of Messing Around

DMI Conferences

New Events Scheduled for the European Conference
Registration Open for 16th Brand Design Conference

DMI Education

Creating the Perfect Design Brief
Strategies for Designing Meaningful Brand Experiences
Using Design Research for Product and Brand Innovation Managing Design for Strategic Advantage
Managing Strategic Creativity & Innovation
The New Marketing: Understanding It, Working with It
Marketing Graphic Design Services
The DMI Senior Executive Workshop

All DMI Journal Back Issues Now Online
Free Download of the Month: Can the Benefits of Good Design be Quantified?

News & Events Around the World

Get up in the morning. Go to work. Set goals. Define tasks. Get busy. The path to success practiced tirelessly by millions. But wait, there's a lot to be said for a less driven approach—meandering, tinkering, playing, and dabbling—messing around.

Some messing around is a good thing. Free-wheeling, inquisitive experimentation without rigidly defined aims is worthwhile, not worthless. That's my premise.

If you already agree with me, you can skip this article and use this time to go mess around. If you need to be convinced, let me make my case.

Read the complete article

Article submissions are welcome; please contact jtobin@dmi.org.

DMI Conferences

Trends/04: Insight From Trends for Design Leadership
The 8th European International Design Management Conference
March 21-23, 2004, Barcelona Hilton, Barcelona, Spain
New Events Scheduled

Several exciting new events have been added to the program for this year's European conference. On Sunday night, there will be a special reception and dinner sponsored by the Barcelona Center for Design and the Government of Catalonia/Investment Promotion Agency. The evening will feature welcoming remarks from local VIPs and entertainment.

On Monday evening, there will be a meeting of DMI Europe, sponsored by OHIM (Office for the Harmonization in the Internal Market: Trademark & Design). The meeting will feature of a presentation by Virginia Melgar, Deputy Director, General Affaires and External Relations Department, OHIM, on “Protection of Design Rights in Europe.” All attendees of the conference are welcome to attend.

On Tuesday evening, there will be a tour of Barcelona design studios organized by the Barcelona Design Centre. Immediately following the conference will be an optional seminar, Using Design Research for Product and Brand Innovation, taught by Darrel Rhea, Principal, Cheskin.

Don't miss this important international conference! For more information, visit the program, schedule, registration, and hotel pages on the DMI Web site.

Pushing Beyond: Brand New, Brand Stories, & Brand Myths
16th International Brand Design Conference
June 2-4, 2004, Vancouver, Canada
The Fairmont Hotel

When can brands be new? Does every brand have its own story? What role does design leadership play in creating brand stories and when do stories become brand myths? Have we become too attached to brands or brands to us? Have brands pushed our culture to evolve or to devolve? And when, if ever, is the story over? Have brands become vicarious extensions of who we are?

This conference will address the provocative topic of brands as news, stories, and myths, and provide a myriad of insights to challenge or support our concept of brands and the roles we play in their creation, their rise to mythic or monolithic proportion, or perhaps their demise.

A host of branding luminaries from the fields of design, journalism, culture, education, and marketing will provide their unique insights and points of view. The goal of this conference will be to challenge the status quo and push beyond our preconceived notions about what brands are and how design shapes these notions. The speakers will endeavor to thoughtfully, intelligently, and creatively address how brands provide meaning and value to those who wittingly or unwittingly absorb and interpret them.

A Selection of the Speakers:

Shaping Future Brands from Contemporary Culture
Grant McCracken, Ph.D., McGill University (Invited)
In the Global Market, No Place is like Home: Successful Programs need New Approaches in a New Culture
Ken Delor, President, Delor
Brand Evolution to Shape Desired Future
Larry Bloomenkranz, Vice President, UPS Global Brand Management & Advertising, UPS
Future Brands Are in the Details: The Umpqua Story
Ray Davis, CEO, Umpqua Bank
Igniting the Brand Through Organizational Transformation
Martin Gierke, Manager, Brand Research and Education, Caterpillar
Episodic Branding: Japan’s Crystal Ball?
Aaron Stapely, Senior Creative Director, PrimoAngeli: Fitch (Invited)
Deconstructing Visual Identities, Building Brands
Jerry Kuyper, Senior Partner, Lippincott Mercer
Building Global Leadership Brands by Design
Jerry Kathman, President and CEO of LPK

Registration has now opened for this highly respected conference! Stay tuned to the DMI Web site for updates about the speakers and exciting new additions to the program. For more information, visit the schedule, registration, and hotel Web pages.
 

DMI Education

Creating the Perfect Design Brief
February 5-6, London, UK
April 22-23, New York City, USA
Taught by Peter L. Phillips, Design Strategy Consultant

A well-crafted design brief can function as a contract, an easy-to-follow road map for the entire design process, and an invaluable tool for securing project approval at the end of the process. This seminar explores all of the critical components of a design brief and how to use them to assure the success of any design project. More information.

“The knowledge I gained at the seminar has been an excellent asset to my design skills, and has helped me to work more successfully within my corporate environment.”
—Elizabeth Drury, Graphic Designer, National Life Insurance Company

Strategies for Designing Meaningful Brand Experiences
February 26-27, Austin, Texas, USA
May 20-21, New York City, USA
Taught by Dave Norton, Ph.D., Vice President, Experience Strategy and Research, Yamamoto Moss
With special guest Gregory Beck, AIA, Architect, Director, Urban Narratives (Austin session only)

Creating meaningful brand experiences is the key innovation that will drive growth and new value for your brand over the next ten years. This seminar will prepare your brand to engage in—and profit from—the most important shift in consumer demand: a desire for experiences that really matter. Designed to make you a more strategic thinker about branding, experience design, and value creation, this seminar will unveil key consumption trends and detail techniques for creating meaningful experiences for your target audience. More information.

"Dave is brilliant and his teaching methods are down to earth and truly applicable to everyone. This course really makes you stop and think about how to better connect with your customer and consumer, no matter what you're selling."
—Andrea L. Baytoff - Director of Innovation & New Business Development, Campbell Soup Company - Away From Home Division

Using Design Research for Product and Brand Innovation
March 4-5, San Francisco, USA
March 24-25, Barcelona, Spain
Taught by Darrel Rhea, Principal, Cheskin

This seminar empowers design managers to integrate research into the design development process with confidence. It will give managers the tools to become advocates for research that actually produces better design and supports innovation. By knowing how, when, and what kind of research to use in the design process, managers can maintain control of their programs, and produce more effective products and brands. Early registration is recommended, as the first three sessions of this seminar have sold out. More information.

"The most valuable overview of practices and concepts in research for design plus innovation that I've ever found in one place."
—Richard Bird, President, R.Bird & Company

Managing Design for Strategic Advantage
March 4-5, Chicago, USA
May 13-14, Montréal, Canada
Taught by Peter L. Phillips, Design Strategy Consultant

Traditionally, design has been viewed as a service within an organization—not as a strategic business resource. But this traditional view of design is rapidly changing in the fast-moving, highly-competitive business arena of the new millennium. Design managers and designers now need to rethink both the processes of managing design and the ways in which they communicate the strategic value of design to the success of the enterprise. More information.

"This seminar gave me tools and guidelines that I can actually use and take back to my colleagues to improve our group."
—Kristin Karaiskos, Design Manager, P&G

Managing Strategic Creativity & Innovation
April 1-2, London, UK
Taught by Alison Rieple, Professor of Strategic Management, University of Westminster-Harrow Business School (UK)

Designers are visionaries with important roles to play in the innovation process, and are key drivers of organizational success. And yet innovation, and the creativity that underpins it, is notoriously hard to manage. This seminar will explore why this is the case and how participants can work to overcome some of the problems inherent in bringing about something new in their organizations. More information.

“Alison Rieple is dynamic, organized, an excellent facilitator.”
—Gerald Boulet, Manager / National Visual Communication Design Centre, Parks Canada

The New Marketing: Understanding It, Working with It
May 6-7, Boston, USA
Taught by Bruce Clark, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Marketing Group, Northeastern University

It’s not just the “four P’s” of marketing anymore. It’s not just “brand” anymore. Over the last ten years, marketing has been inundated with new ideas that are changing the way marketers and designers need to do their jobs. Simultaneously, the end of the 1990s boom has put new pressures on marketing managers that only increase their demands on complementary functions such as design. This seminar outlines the new marketing practices resulting from these trends, how the new marketing affects design and other functions, and how to build and maintain effective relationships with marketing in this environment. More information.

Marketing Graphic Design Services
June 11-12, New York City, USA
Taught by Cameron S. Foote, Principal, Creative Business Newsletter

Without regular and consistent marketing, a firm often finds itself on a feast-or-famine roller coaster at best, and at worst, struggling for its very existence. This seminar has a practical, real-world approach that's ideal for anyone who wants to improve his or her marketing ability, learn techniques for prospecting for new clients, needs to know more about hiring and motivating sales personnel, or would like to achieve a higher success rate in converting presentations into projects. More information.

“This seminar was valuable in both new ideas and inspiration to do more marketing. I also gained a lot from hearing other design firm owners’ experiences.”
—Karen Shay-Kubiak, Owner, KSK Design, Inc.

The DMI Senior Executive Workshop:

Strategies for Developing, Maintaining, and Sustaining a
Powerful Brand
June 16-18, London, UK
Led by:
Stephen A. Greyser, Richard P. Chapman Professor (Marketing/Communications) Emeritus, Harvard Business School
Peter L. Phillips, Design Strategy Consultant

Among the most daunting tasks faced by senior executives in any enterprise is to develop, maintain, and sustain a powerful competitive brand in the global marketplace. The brand reputation of the company is one of its most important assets, and must be strategically managed at the highest levels.

The creation, and management, of a powerful brand requires an equal partnership between both strategic marketing and design expertise. This Workshop has been tailored specifically to address the problems faced by senior executive managers responsible for creating—or recreating—their company’s brand identity and meaning to multiple stakeholders.

The content has been designed to include case studies, lectures, and ample time for participants to share their own knowledge and experience in brand management. Participants will leave with an arsenal of new strategic management tools and state of the art knowledge of effective brand management. For more information and for an application, please visit www.dmi.org/executive.

DMI Publications

All DMI Journal Back Issues Now Online

The Design Management Journal is the oldest and most respected international publication on the subject of design management. Founded in 1989, the Journal has built up an impressive body of literature over the last fourteen years. Until recently, only articles from Spring 1997 (Vol. 8, #2) or newer were available as online PDF downloads. DMI has now converted all of the remaining 331 articles from volumes one through eight to PDF format. These PDF articles can be downloaded for free by all DMI members, or purchased by nonmembers online for immediate download from the DMI Web site for $5 each. Many of these early articles are timeless classics that still have relevance for today's managers. This month's free download is one of these classics.

Free Download of the Month
Can the Benefits of Good Design Be Quantified?
By Robin Roy
Design Management Journal, Spring 1994, Vol. 5, No. 2

The British Design Innovation Group is a leader in design-management research. In gathering information from a broad cross-section of companies, one of its goals has been to distill objective data on the benefits and strategic role of design in business. Robin Roy reviews two major studies he and his colleagues have completed, and proposes an agenda for the future.

This free download has expired. Click here to read the executive summary for this article and the opportunity to purchase the article for direct download.

Imagina 04
February 2-5, Monte Carlo
Imagina is an international digital entertainment and interactive content trade show. Info: www.imagina.mc

Environmental Graphics, Branding, and Identity Strategies in Retail Environments
February 6, Chicago, USA
This SEGD (Society for Environmental Graphic Design) workshop will establish the link between brand strategy, retail success, and physical design. Info: www.segd.org

SEGD 2004 Design Awards
Deadline: February 13
Applicable projects for the Society for Environmental Graphic Design
Award include themed environments, wayfinding & signage, placemaking, mapping, public art, identity, and more. Info: www.segd.org

Design is Visible: A Special Design Exhibition at CeBIT 2004
March 8-24, Hannover, Germany
For the first time at CeBIT 2004, design will be made visible in a special way and on an impressive scale in this exhibit. Info: www.ifdesign.de

Re:Charge Safari 04
March 12-13, Jacksonville, Fla. USA
A day-and-one-half of creative exploration and discovery on the campus of the University of North Florida, co-sponsored by the UNF Communications and Visual Arts Department, and the Jacksonville AIGA chapter.
Info: www.rechargesafari.com/2004

The Art Center Design Conference: Stories from the Source: Design Excursions Out of the Ordinary
March 18-21, Pasadena, Calif. USA
The first Art Center Design Conference will probe deeply into the ideas and issues that are core to design innovation today. Info: www.artcenter.edu/designconference/programprogram.jsp

Face to Face 04
March 19-20, Stuttgart, Germany
Co-hosted by AIAP, the Italian Designers' Association; BDG, the Federation of German Graphic Designers; and ADG, the Alliance of German Designers. Info: www.design-center.de/face

The Marksman Design Award 2003-2004
Deadline: March 31
The Marksman Design Award challenges students of industrial and architectural design from all over the world to design an innovative and original business gift: Info: www.marksmandesignaward.com

2004 IDSA Catalyst Award
Deadline: April 22
Open to any gold, silver, or bronze Industrial Design Excellence Award (IDEA) winner from 1999-2001. Info: www.idsa.org

Sappi Ideas that Matter
Deadline: May 31
Sappi Limited, through its annual Ideas That Matter grant program, has awarded grants to graphic designers around the world to design projects for the non-profit organizations of their choice. Info: www.sappi.com.