A good time to sell less
Money's not cheap anymore, and if designers want to thrive in tighter economy, they need to remember where the value of design really lies. So, DLB has something for you to ponder this weekend: What are you selling your clients this week that they don't need?
In an America whose economy is ravaged by the twin budgetary disasters of the Iraq War and the Wall Street bailout, money’s scarcer than it used to be. Coupled with the success of the Democrats in Washington this week, and thus the looming possibility of near-term financial regulatory tightening, the conventional wisdom says that clients are going to tighten their grip on their money, and thus, designers are going to have to tighten their belts.
Schematically, a more challenging climate for business tends to mean a more challenging climate for design. But does this have to be the case?
This question is one that DLB ponders all the time. We think that a big part of the problem is the function that both clients and designers alike understand design to serve. Specifically, back in the old America, money was cheap. This meant design could be used in the service of long shots for maximizing profits: just-maybe type social networking strategies, fancy textures on every element of the webpage, the list goes on. Basically, design didn’t have to be accountable for its ends, because companies could afford to bet on both red and black.
But when this kind of rampant blanket spending is no longer possible or desirable, it’s disastrous to think of design in this way. Further, stakes like these show the deep and serious wastefulness of such a concept of design. But how exactly did design come to this supplemental role? And what kinds of design serve today’s relevant function: helping companies survive?
The best way to start answering that question — which we believe is one of the most important and most difficult for design right now — is to figure out what kinds of design don’t. So this weekend, why not spend some time thinking about what fat you can cut off your design process? My money says your clients don’t really need something that you’re planning on selling them this week. Where can you cut that out and get them more by doing less?
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