Recently a wise and knowledgeable man reviewed our website.
He said: ‘I do understand that you are managing design and that that is close to management consultancy, but where is your love for and opinion about good design? I cannot find it…’
I was flabbergasted.
We had gone through some great lengths to create a site that expressed a professional, analytical and business-like approach to ‘managing design’.
It had not even crossed our mind to talk about ‘great design’. Our audience would know this already…
But he is right.
In the last decade, where we all have worked so hard to professonalize design and design management, we developed the tendency to underestimate ‘talking about great design’.
Or at least, I did.
Not including ‘talking about design’ may have led to an impoverishment of the profession of design management. We need to balance our business-savvy, number-oriented design management work with the passion and stomach-feeling of design work.
First action for me?
At PARK we are currently developing an in-company education program on ‘the basics of managing design’. I’ll promise the students that this program will entail a lot of good discussions about great design!
Often we get so caught up in “doing” business that we loose track of why we are doing it. In our case, it comes down to (help) designing great things (products, services, and systems). However, since we are a visual profession, talk is overrated. Let’s actually see and be inspired by “great design”. If we are able to enjoy the fruits of our labor, that being surrounded by an inspired by greatly designed things, we will more enjoy the journey, not just the destination.
Completely agree. Better design management should lead to better design. If you don’t share a vision on what the end goal should be – in this case a point of view on what great design is – you will have trouble designing the processes as well…
An other thought when I read your post: Is your website designed to convince or to entice?