16 Cover Feature
Design Means Business
Pick a product, mix with a bit of design and wait for the money to roll in. Design is a small part
of product lifecycle, conducted in a dusty office at the side of the workshop. Isn’t it? Not quite -
William Knight reveals the real business significance of design
Design
is a bag of pick it’s easy to get wrong, however, he
and mix. There explains. “There is a danger that
is design in order to make a product companies get their initial stationery
work, design to make objects easy to printed by one company, they will get
use, design to make something beautiful a website produced by another, and
and there is design to achieve all of these then marketing literature produced by a
things. different printer. in that small example,
steuart Padwick, of Padwick Designs a lot of things to do with that brand
and founder of the Design Bar, says ‘good can go totally wrong. This creates an
design’ can only be established within a inconsistency.”
context, and for business this context is Realisation that a consistent image
commercial. “good design in terms of a helps sell products and services has
product, is a product that sells,” he says. escalated, and businesses have grown
To illustrate the point, Padwick in their appreciation of the issues. “The
relates the story of the ‘specialist’ whose more sophisticated language we use
lifelong trade to create a comfortable to talk about our business, the more it
privvy seat backfires because clients are allows us to better articulate what clients
spending too long inside. in one case the need to think about. Apple is a very clear
answer was to rough the seat edges and example of how the product is the brand,”
keep the room cold. explains Adam White, Creative Director of
Design must be fit for purpose, but: design studio Factory Design.
“it’s no good having an exquisite bit of “Brand used to be just logo or
design that doesn’t sell,” says Padwick. corporate identity, but those descriptions
This is perhaps the basic position isolate the personality of the company
of design in commerce, and such a from the product. Brand is now a more
conclusion may seem obvious, but is it encompassing word. it’s an incredibly
obvious that the sales of one product can important time for manufacturers to
influence the sales of another? understand that they can use whatever
Those brands usually associated with skills they can afford to re-colour or
recognisable design, either in motif or present advertising material, but if their
product features, realise that consistency product range doesn’t reflect their brand
of design aids recognition and can then they will fall on their face,” he says.
help potential customers make buying White’s analysis comes from an
decisions based on experience with observation of emerging economies.
previous purchases. “We’ve noticed in the last decade and
“Consistency is the most important a half, as China became the product
thing that you can say about a branding engine of the West, that more and more
agency,” says nick Brand, founder of buyers were just going out there and
Brand Design. “it’s vital to make sure that being offered design thrown in. They
the brand, a logo, fonts and typefaces, were filling up and getting broader and
marketing material and anything that’s broader product ranges, but with no
associated, are always consistent. if that integrity from one product to the next
brand is consistent throughout, then the and no product-brand coherence.”
customer will get reassurance.” The simple manufacturing of ➔
designmeansbusiness d.indd 16 30/6/09 14:32:06
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