What’s wrong with design consultancies? Who has it right?

Design Discussions general design discussion
1

There are a lot of design consultancies out there. Who do you think is doing something great? Who do you thing the designosaurs are that just need to die off? You do not have to name names here but an example of what is right / wrong would be great. I am not trying to stir up the sh*! Here, but rather see if we designers can solve some of the problems in our own working lives.

It is not about the quality of their design that I hope to discuss here but rather I hope for examples of great businesses, working practices, employee / client treatment, community involvement, and true green practices.

Where is the design consultancy headed? How does the ever increasingly connected community change the game? Does technology disrupt the current business model? Or is design just design and the technology is just a tool?

2

interesting topic,

as evidenced by some of the big guys out there (frog, ideo etc.) i think many design consultancies are starting to see the value in broad spectrum, full service, integrated/strategic design.

as more and more players come to the industry and everyone and their cousin can do CAD, there is more of a need for a holistic approach.

in recently founding my own design consultancy, i’ve taken a similar direction, specific to my industry (footwear).

with over 6 years of footwear design/management experience, and through lots of hiring of freelance designers, i often found that the services/scope of many freelancers (not necessarily large consultancies- which dont really exist in footwear design), provided me with partial solutions and left me to figure out the integration of their product and development issues.

because of this, i founded The Directive Collective, which offer complete creative services from branding/identity to design/concept as well as technical development and graphics/packaging/marketing. one stop shopping. most important i think in my offerings is a strategic approach whereas most freelancers are just guns for hire looking to do 1 upper/outsole with little concern for the fit for the brand/market and the technical aspects for commercialization, not to mention the marketing/positioning angle.

so far, 9 months into my business, ive found terrific response to the full service approach, and see it as a way to move forward to distinguish my consultancy from other (often out of work) designers just messing around with pens and markers.

R

3

These are just opinions… so don’t bite my head off.

Personally - I am a bit bored of seeing the very large consultancies begin to offer “everything” under the umbrella of design/brand strategy.

Examples: Frog, IDEO, Ziba… - Personally, I think that with the wealth of services that these firms offer that perhaps they have given up the ability to be seen as extremely cabable at one discipline - for example in the 90’s the perception of Frog (IMO) was that they were at the cutting edge of ID. Now that they have branded themselves as a “Strategic Creative Consultancy”… I can’t figure out if they want to do venture cap, ID, “Experience Design” ,websites… the list goes on.

I think Lunar has done a pretty good job at staying relevant from the point of view of a product development consutlancy that offers a broad range of strategic services but still seems to have it’s heart in the world of product design.

A smaller version of Lunar doing a similar thing… perhaps One&Co. or NewDeal.

Of course - most of these larger firms mentioned above have responsibilities to shareholders to grow and they still seem to be doing well - and are certainly relevant - so who am I to tell them that they are doing it wrong. Perhaps it’s like the garage band that makes it big and sells out arenas every ot only to long for the days when they were able to play at small clubs.

As a partner in a small ID consutancy I guess I look to firms like Lunar, New Deal etc… in how I would like to model my firm. But who knows… Maybe Lunar dreams of being the next Frog?

Ok… I’m rambling.
my 2cents.

4

I have to kind of agree with you Van… in my opinion the big “ID” firms don’t seem to be focusing on bringing very much ID to production. Making better things and getting them out into the world … not writing a research thesis and letting the client hire another, smaller cheaper firm to actually design the product… (someone look up the process on the Swiffer… if you can be proud of tricking the consumer into buying something they don’t need with disposable refills that have exorbitant mark ups just so people will have to repeatedly buy… sorry, tangent)

Anyway: Firms that are doing product design are many:

Astro
Altitude
Lunar
New Deal
One80
Evo
Radius
HLB
Bresselgroup
Lifestyledesign
RKS
Design Central
ECCO
Metaform
ELEVEN
Ptiority
PDT

and a lot more. These guys design things.

5

I could be wrong about thins, in fact, I’d love to be wrong about this. Maybe they are just more behind the scenes and don’t feel they need the PR? (overly optimistic?)

6

Man… I kinda like my swiffer.

The duster, not the wet thingamagig- not good for dogs.

7

I thought of another “big gun” that I think is doing it right.
Teague… producing some great work of late and have been able to expand their services while still appearing as “ID specialists”. They were flundering in the land of Boeing for a few years there but have really pulled it out as of the last few years.

Yo. - Thanks for the heads up on Priority. Can’t believe they have done that much work and I had never heard of them.

8

We just picked up a project from the probably most well know ‘process’ house. They did all the upfront design work and research and its good and reasonably detailed. Now we have it to do a lot more detail work on it, but its more of an issue of client preference I think.

9

Yeah- The whole trend of big picture thinking seems to have watered down the basic offering of great product design. Pininfarina is a place that I think of as far as good design. They are unabashedly product (in this case automotive) focussed with engineering and design integrated real tight.

We need to have an understanding of the market environment to inform us but as industrial designers but I think that we cannot veer too far from the physical design of a product. We need to have a strong sense of crafting the product.

10

Okay, sorry for the long post, but…

Having worked for both a very small design firm and a very large one, I have seen the large design firms loose work to the small ones and vice versa. This is not about being the best design firm. Companies will do what they think is the best for themselves. And this is the way it should be. IMO

No doubt there are a lot of great design firms out there that have done some seriously good work, but at what cost?

There are ego maniacs, slave drivers, low ballers, and freeloading design bosses who don’t pay crap, give no benefits, and demand the world out of the employees all the while reaping the rewards of well paying clients. Who has worked all night to meet the deadline and did not get paid one cent more while the design firm invoiced all the hours you just put in for free?

This is in contrast to companies like Google, Yahoo, most of the biotech firms and many other non-design industry companies, who have great employee benefits. Profit sharing, stock options, free snacks in the lunch room, massages on Fridays, and the list goes on and on.

What I would like to know, Are there any design firms out there who treat their employees well? I know IDEO does to some extent. I know frog does to some extent. I have heard Apple does. Again, I am not really looking for names here. Just some examples of what design firms are doing to attract and keep good design talent. Do small design firms have the means or creativity to offer something that can attract great designers or is it about just about having a job to offer? Or maybe there are so many designers out there firms don’t need to do anything.

Is there any design firms out there that do something great for the community (of design or in general)?

Who do you think deserves and award for great business practices? Who does such a great job in how they treat their employees that there should be wild stories about them (like there were about Yahoo)?

Is the job of design so great and the job of working at Yahoo so bad to account for these differences in business practices, employee treatment, and community involvement?

And, if their thought on employee salaries is to pay as low as they will accept, what are their thoughts about their clients?

I know it sounds like I am just complaining and am just pissed off here. But really I am not. I am just trying to get some ideas here that can’t be looked up or researched without some serious investment in time and money.

What can design firms do better???

11

I don’t think any one firm has it right and many are looking for new revenue streams. I do think the larger firms have gotten a bit dilluted with all the big picture strategy. Not all clients can afford or need that. Some may be start-ups or smaller copanies just looking for good competent industrial design.

I do like the fact that there’s a large variety of different small boutiques now. I think this adds to the diversity and idnividuality we see. I think the net is opening up more Wild West type opportunities for designers to create their own angle and niches.

12

This ones for id4me. What you’re noticing seems to be the basic element of profit. It’s why we go to china to manufacture. The bigger the difference between what goes out and what comes in gives you profit in a simplified way.
-Companies hire design firms for 10k-500k for a product design. The product will make waaaaay more than that if it’s successful in the market. The company makes profit off of the design firm that way (extremely simplified but you get the picture).
-Design firms hire designers to design and charge clients for the designs. The bigger the difference, the bigger the profit. So you pay your designers the least that you can for given conditions (market, competition, etc) while charging your clients the most that you can for what you offer. That’s how the firm makes profit. They have to pay out less than what they get to charge for the work, they’re a business.
If you want a bigger share of the pie for yourself, you have to be higher in the chain by going as close to the “selling to the masses” phase as you can. That may mean freelancing or consulting directly for a big corporation (bypassing a consultancy that’ll pay you much less than they’re billing, even if you would be the only one doing the work), or even higher up would be to become a corporation yourself that makes/ directly sells your own products. The closer to the customer you are on the chain, the more potential (and risk!) you have for the big bucks.
Granted this is an extremely simplified version, I think you get the picture. If you have an idea for a great product you can market your idea / skills to the 10 local firms for $, the 20 global manufactures for $$$ or (with extreme risk) make it yourself and have the billions of people in the world to potentially market to for $$$$$$$ (what corporations typically do).
These aspects are why you generally don’t get the best pay as a regular “in the trenches” designer in a firm.

I see I’ve run off on a slight tangent so to go back on track, I just don’t think there’s anything else a design firm can do short of being well managed and making the work environment as pleasant as possible for their designers. This can be done by having clear goals and expectations, trusting your design talent (no micromanaging) and giving your people the tools they need (space, resources, equipment, respect, programs, etc) to get their job done with the least amount of drama. Most of us are in the field partially because it’s kind of fun and not drone work like a McJob. So if the environment is fun, work doesn’t seem like work drudgery and being able to enjoy every day and not wake up hating that you have to go to work makes up for the lower pay.
I don’t think the pay issue can be overcome unless the firms have other revenue sources such as their own products in production, being on retainer for a company (consistent money), having very low overhead possibly by being virtual or through other tactics, or they’re already so successful that they constantly have positive moneyflow to the point where they have to turn down work / don’t have to ever worry about it. If those conditions exist, they can probably pay their talent more. If not and they’re basically hunting for the next big project to make sure they can pay everyone and expenses, you’ll find the pay for the designers will stay low since that will probably be their biggest overhead.
With all of the competition out there it’s probably like that for a lot of places. So I’d say that they should just make sure the work environment is as good as it possibly can be for the designers and give them the tools and respect they need to create. Don’t skimp on your designers tools and mental / emotional health, that’s the foundation of your firms design output.

13

I am quite familiar with the purpose of being in business. And, I am sure designers do not get into design for the money. I know I did not.

There is another post on why there are not any 40-year old designers. This is a great question. My guess would be that most designers move up or move out. If asked another way, Why can other industries attract and keep great technician level employees and industrial design cannot?

I would argue doctors, nurses, IT support, programmers, mechanics etc. are technician level employees. Some do move up but most stay at mid-management or below. Designers make about the same pay as these careers. But designers do not stay designers (in the traditional technical sense).

So, if it is not the money, what will keep designers around?

This led me to the question I am asking now. Who is doing it right?

Also, why should I even care about this? The short answer is that I feel if we, as an industry, cannot get past the transitory existence we have now, how can we move to the next level of gaining respect for our industry?

So, here are a few examples of things I have heard about or have had myself as employee benefits.

1.Your own project time – I think this originally came from Philips Design, but I had seen another small firm doing it. Basically, 10-percent of your time is for you to work on your own pet design project. And not just in the slow times.(up to 200 hours a year) (@$100/hr this is a $20K gift)

2.Entrepreneur program – The design firm will help you fund your great idea. Even if they take a piece this is a great gift. I am not sure if Lunar did this but I heard they did.

3.Paid parking – From a SF based design firm.

4.Fruit / snacks – I have heard frog does this and many high tech firms also do this. I am sure it is a ploy to get you to work longer but it is still nice.

5.Paid time off to help charity – Most of the designers I know would love this as we are social / environmental activists.

6.Paid IDSA memberships – Great if you take advantage of what they have to offer. (Is this a tax write off for the business?)

And a free and simple one, how about giving credit where credit is due. Basically, don’t be an ass and pretend you did something when another designer working for you did it.

Well, that’s my 2-cents.

14

I think is depending mainly on people approaches to design first (intending with this the designers and also who takes them hostages…)
and secondly
on the market they are operating into (to be a designer in USA is a different job from being a designer in Italy for example).
From my experience I can say that I was doing my best in design either working in an American WalMart-type design firms as well as I am doing right now in a little Italian firm.
Both situations has pro and cons…
I don’t think the difference is there!

From my experience I learned (up to now) that the real key to do GREAT DESIGN is finding clients that are willing and that are capable to pursue the goal of doing what we call in Italy a “figata” (something astonishing, cool, exciting, smart, sexual, emotional, and anything you can associate with positive meanings)

so if you don’t have this condition from the beginning
designer “figata” approach + client “figata” approach= “let’s go we can change the world!!”
there will be 99.99% chances that another product designed will be out there and sell (more, less or nothing) without a spirit.

As a designer you will fight as hard as you can to achieve the goal but at the end, if the company is not fighting with you, it will be a failure for sure.

The second factor that is “the market place where you operate as a designer” is too long to explain in few concepts, it involves the cultures of the area, the economy and the business behaviours of the system around you: it takes time but this is something you can manage to know and understand… Still what will remain very difficult for a big or small design firm is to judge and manage the previous issue.

So which are companies that have potentials for 100% GREAT DESIGN?
Not many
And which are the companies that are doing DESIGN?
Some
And how many companies are doing JUNK DESIGN?
All the rest

As the scenario suggest: not an easy task

15

[quote=“yo”]I have to kind of agree with you Van… in my opinion the big “ID” firms don’t seem to be focusing on bringing very much ID to production. Making better things and getting them out into the world … not writing a research thesis and letting the client hire another, smaller cheaper firm to actually design the product… (someone look up the process on the Swiffer… if you can be proud of tricking the consumer into buying something they don’t need with disposable refills that have exorbitant mark ups just so people will have to repeatedly buy… sorry, tangent)

Anyway: Firms that are doing product design are many:

Astro
Altitude
Lunar
New Deal
One80
Evo
Radius
HLB
Bresselgroup
Lifestyledesign
RKS
Design Central
ECCO
Metaform
ELEVEN
Ptiority
PDT

and a lot more. These guys design things.[/quote]

You mentioned these firms are heaper than the large firms. By how much? What the the large consultancies charging? Can we take a survey using some common items?

What do you think these firms are charging per project? I am curious because I want to be close and not too low or high. Lets say, for example, it’s a computer router case restyling gig, 3 concepts in 3D, client chooses one and you refine and final deliverables are renderings and surface CAD. Would 1 router casing project be around $15K? $25K? $30K?, $40K, 50K? or 60K?

What if the client wants to use the same design but rescaled and used for a whole line of products? 3 more smaller cases based on the same design language you created for the first? How do you charge then? Do you just charge CAD or do you take into consideration they are going to make so much more money off the same design by using it on more items?

Other common items are a PDA, laptop, toaster, clock, cellphone, handheld electornics like a remote control…Any rough ball park figs for a standard process where they get 3 concepts and then one final design and CAID?

What are the bigger firms charging, and usng as a fixed fee for simiar items? What are the good mid to smaller ones charging? Any insider hints?

16

I disagree with the sentiment that consultants might focus less on strategy and more on doing “good ID work” (which I will assume means good function and good aesthetics).

Design work is becoming more and more of a commodity whether we like it or not, and the holistic, strategic approach is something that will help design firms emerge as a reliable partner to businesses.

I see design firms as a group trying to mature, and still figuring out how best to offer strategy. Some people do a good job with it and some don’t. The problem that currently exists with design strategy is that it oftentimes isn’t actionable. It can feel like a waste of resources in the long run when the flow from definition to design isn’t a fluid one.

17

This thread reminds me of a good article, which put me in my place:

http://www.noisebetweenstations.com/personal/weblogs/?p=1965

This is a great perspective on how design currently fits in the business “toolbox,” and how we can do an even better job at what we’re already doing.

18

If that’s all a design firm is offering, then there’s definitely something wrong. As far as I’m concerned, that type of “first era design” is over. It’s been a race to the bottom and it’s been commoditized and globalized. I stopped working that way over a decade ago.

Now I’m only interested in hiring “third era” firms. The ones that understand that design is about people and process and lead the customer to the solution with design planning, strategy and tactics. There is a lot of important innovation going on in this area, and if you’re not moving in this direction fast, you’ll quickly find that these types of projects have zero value for designer and client.

19

Tell that to Philip Stark, Marc Newson, Ross Love Grove, Jasper Morrison and Karim Rashid… they seem to be doing pretty well for themselves.

I have to respectfully disagree on that idea of 3 design eras. There has been a split in what “Industrial Design” is since day one. Loewy vs Eames, Teague vs Dryfuss…

In reality, there is a middle ground. And like with all other things on this planet, moderation is where it is at. Strategic thinking should be integrated into everything we do.

I could be wrong, but I think there is a bit of the impression that some of the extremely high priced (high 6 digit) strategy projects are a bit like selling snake oil… does it really work? Can you really know?

I’d like to see what huge product that changed the way we live was designed as a direct result of a large strategic program. Did a huge strategic research phase make the wii awesome? or was it a small team of product guys that said “wouldn’t it be cool if a game system did this?, hey you know, other people besides gamers would really dig it, and then we wouldn’t just be competing for the same limited market space as every one else…” It comes down to strategic thinking integrated into design vs design integrated into strategic thinking… how did Apple hit on the gen 1 iMac or the iPod? Maybe there was a giant research deal at the front end but I don’t get the feel there was. In my experience, a lot of ideas that really broke the mold here came not from focus groups and thesis papers dissecting mounds of data, but from a few clever people getting together and saying “what if we did this instead of that?”… what if usually goes good places.

I need to get back to my game Guitar Hero now…

20

As the number of styles approaches infinity, the demand for those styles approach zero. The market can only bear so many celebrities selling different flavors of the same product.

I have to respectfully disagree on that idea of 3 design eras. There has been a split in what “Industrial Design” is since day one. Loewy vs Eames, Teague vs Dryfuss…

Those are all first-era, typified by the “designing of things” (Loewy’s style v. Dreyfuss’ ergonomics aside.) Technology represented the second era, and today it’s really about systems and people.

I could be wrong, but I think there is a bit of the impression that some of the extremely high priced (high 6 digit) strategy projects are a bit like selling snake oil… does it really work? Can you really know?

I’d like to see what huge product that changed the way we live was designed as a direct result of a large strategic program.

I can tell you that it does when the stakes are high and the system is complex. For many of us, this is the new reality.

There’s no way I could do what mpdesigner is proposing for the stuff I’m asked to design. They’re wicked problems requiring incredible interdisciplinary coordination over many years of development: Advanced Research, Clinical SME’s, Customers, Users, Software, Embedded, Hardware, Marketing, Regulatory, Quality, Product Management, Program Management, Corporate Strategy, Brand Strategy etc. etc. These projects cost millions and earn billions.

Putting a couple of sketches in front of my “client” (whoever that is) and asking them to pick one isn’t really going to cut it.