Promoting designers by job title only, not by an increase in salary is detrimental to the designer, to the design business and to the creative industry. Here’s why.
Designer’s websites show beautifully-finished designs but in reality, designing takes time and can get messy. We don’t tell clients that.
In design research you are trying to understand the customers beliefs, experiences, attitudes, behaviour and interactions.
Business strategists suggest we ignore competitors and only worry about what we can control. I would argue the opposite – the more we know, the better.
We aim to get recognised and paid for the value we create, not the hours we spend on the project. We want to shift from a cost focus to a value focus.
That’s what design-led businesses do. They see design has a part to play in every part of their business and the actively apply it.
All designers are design leaders by default. Bad news: not everyone is intuitively a design leader. Good news: the skills can be learnt
Clients don’t understand design value because it is design language, not business language
Designers make decisions every day. The more knowledge, the more confident you can be in those decisions. Use these reports to help build confidence.
HCD has served us well but with the recent pandemic there is a shift to humanity centred design
Design isn’t a career known for longevity, leading to many designers questioning their next step – that’s why many build a side hustle.
Giving honest feedback to creatives is challenging. Design thrives on the unpredictable but small business owners need to reduce risk and deliver predictable results. There lies the conundrum.