Staying relevant: designers need business skills Clients expect that you’ll deliver all the elements of the designer’s craft; brand consistency, slick on-brief design, coding, style guides, prototyping, testing  etc. If that’s all you offer you have about 12,000 competitors in Australia. Gaining business skills could reduce this to about 500 competitors. These skills can move [...]

I know what clients really want... Many clients brief designers having already decided what the problem is and the type of work that needs to be done to solve it. They come to the designer because they think they need a website or an app or a small campaign. Here-in lies the problem. Most clients [...]

I thank you. Working with great clients on interesting projects is the best feeling in the world. I love building a relationship, working together to achieve a common goal and then celebrating the rollout. But after that last deliverable is, well, delivered, the last communication between a designer and a client is usually the account: [...]

How designers are disrupting - themselves After three years of working with more than 100 design studios I've developed an understanding of how designers grow their business through disruption. If you want to learn more about disrupting your business you can use the Design Business Model section of The Business of Design. The Designing Demand [...]

What to look for in a partner. Running any business solo is tough. Running a design business solo has to be one of the toughest. It requires two distinct parts of the brain: a business brain and a creative brain shoved into the one head. While that’s far from impossible, it’s difficult to have both [...]

Design Business Council - the year in review 2016 is the 11th year of operation for the DBC. Founded in 2005 it aimed to; 1. Raise the professional practice of designers by assisting studios by developing business skills. 2. Generate more use of design by all Australian companies through direct promotion of design value case [...]

What is your onlyness? The term onlyness was invented by Nilofer Merchant, an author, and leading authority on creating business strategy to achieve success. Nilofer has honed her unique, collaborative approach to solving tough problems while working with and for companies including Adobe, Apple, Nokia, and HP. This is how she described coming up with [...]

Mackay Branson design vs Magistrates' Court Victoria   The designer: Carol Mackay of Mackay Branson design: a veteran graphic designer with vast experience in the alternative dispute and courts sectors. As well as Ombudsman schemes, clients include the County, Magistrates’ and Supreme Court of Victoria and VCAT. I have long relationships with most clients – [...]

What I have learnt about working holidays The cases are unpacked, the power connectors stored and the receipts organised ready for the taxman’s scrutiny. All that’s left is to plan next year’s adventure. Each year we get better at the planning and more adventurous in the execution. Here’s a checklist of what we’ve learnt about [...]

Designing in San Francisco. Visiting local design studios is one of the highlights of travelling. Sure it takes a bit of organising, but we get to kill two birds with one stone (as they say). The first is that we can chat openly to a non-competing fellow designer. The second is that we have the chance [...]

d.school prototype lab Week 2 San Francisco. Just back from a tour of the d.school at Stanford University — interesting because it’s a school that doesn’t award any degrees — it’s sort of a plug-in for other courses. Stanford University is one of oldest schools in America and celebrating it’s 125 anniversary this year. See more [...]

Working from San Francisco: week 1. It was always meant to be a working holiday but the first week could have skewed a little bit more on the “working” than the “holiday”. The end of the financial year is an important time in a major client’s calendar, so there’s lots to write, design and manage [...]