Demystifying Design: An Argument for Simplicity

This is an awesome and insightful read from Joe Duffy for anyone that's ever been lulled to sleep sitting through another creative brief that begins by explaining process as a way of presenting design or branding services.

Process is vital but first things first!

For once can we please just forget the mountain of stats, graphs, focus groups, polls and PowerPoint nonsense and begin by substituting all that pretentious, fancy-ass account executive flim-flam jargon and simply cut to the chase? Can we just use some plain, straightforward and honest language while we focus on creating and delivering a simple, compelling, differentiating idea, one that's ultimately and consistently executed?

"As a designer I see this as both an opportunity and a responsibility. The opportunity is to continue to use our craft wisely, to solve real business problems, to deliver a means to help people find products and services that are uniquely well suited to make their lives a little better every day. Getting there requires that designers and our clients keep things simple."

What is design? It's art and commerce, fashion and environment. It's industrial and digital, graphic and experiential. It begins with ideas--ideas based in purpose. It requires a plan or a process. It yields innovation, invention or creation. It is successful if it elicits response--attention, desire, interaction or purchase.

Design is as much a process as it is an end product. The process should be simple.

The best strategy behind design is all about collection and collaboration - of people, talents, ideas, perspectives. It's about truly seeing vs. just looking. It's about being curious about what you're seeing, what it means or what it could mean if used in a new way or combined with other ideas or images. It takes a certain appetite and ability to digest.

Honestly it's simple. The best talent understands that. Rarely does the most extensive or unique "process" produce the simple insights necessary to do more than document a situation. The proof is in the pudding. Talented designers create it.

Or as one of the masters of simplicity Tibor Kalman put it: The difference between good design and great design is intelligence.

That's Right,

HMK

Joe Duffy is principal and chairman of Duffy & Partners - check out his Duffy Point of View blog over at Fast Company.

Towards A Sustainable Communications Practice

Here's an excerpt from a nice AdPulp read that's more of a sermon than it is a rant from David Burn's article Towards A Sustainable Communications Practice.

I’ve learned some things in my ten plus years working in advertising. Perhaps the most important thing I’ve learned is that I’m ill suited for this business. Simply put, I have the wrong temperament. I lack all patience for the daily compromises that must be made. That’s what this business is, like politics, one compromise after the next. I also have zero interest in serving “corporate America.” I loathe corporate America. Note, I did not say I loathe business. In fact, I love business. Business with a higher sense of purpose can do a lot of good for its workers, its customers and the community at large. Take Patagonia. Patagonia doesn’t just manufacture outdoor clothing and gear to make money. Patagonia is not part of corporate America, they’re part of corporate Utopia. The company is a change agent on many levels. When the founder and CEO writes a book called Let My People Go Surfing, you know it’s far from business as usual in Ventura.

Let My People Go Surfing is the antithesis of the book most captains of industry keep near and dear. Their book might be titled Let My People Eat Shit Sandwiches, because that’s the primary diet in corporate America. The ingredients that go into preparing this dish include: incompetence, greed, poor communication skills, need to know power trips, headgames, meritless advancement, fear for one’s job and a commitment to maintain the status quo at all costs. What’s lacking from the menu: innovation, honesty, trust, instinct, real teamwork and a moral compass to name just a few.

All the agency politics aside, it all really does boil down to the Truth. I've been lucky enough to have spent only 2 of my 15+ years in the advertising working for an agency. For an industry that thrives on communication there's an amazing lack of it.

As far as my two years of dining on bullshit sandwiches, compromising everything I know to be real, true and factual all while playing "The Game" as the buzzword dropping big wig drones I worked for refer to it, David Burn's comment about incompetence, greed, poor communication skills, need to know power trips, headgames, meritless advancement, fear for one’s job and a commitment to maintain the status quo at all costs rings especially true for me.

Don Sexton, a professor of business at Columbia University, said it best in a recent Ad Age article: "Sizzle alone won't do it, you have to have the steak as well. Great advertising makes a lousy product fail faster." More on that here.



That's Right,

HMK