It is my experience that design seldom can do much good for most second-
and third-tier companies and organizations. The reason for this is that
these sorts of entities almost always fail themselves before they even
enlist the services of a designer or a design agency.

More often than not, companies and organizations first need business
consulting before they need design–else all the design in the world can
do little good for them.

For instance, the following scenarios are pretty much regular fare in our industry:

* The client comes to us with an ever expanding list of print collateral they
need produced. They don’t seem to understand that so much of it is
redundant and they insist on spending 3 times what they should. They
prefer a scattershot approach to marketing collateral instead of
examining what their specific needs are and planning a targeted program
to address those needs.
* The client comes to us for a
website or a site redesign. Their reason for this need is to “keep up”
with their competition; to “look competitive.” They so often fail to
first make their business competitive and then reflect that difference with their online presence.
* The client comes to us for a website or site redesign in order to better
reflect the gravity of their brand. They so often fail to notice that
their brand is the problem; that the logo lacks gravity, that their
copy writing lacks gravity and direction, that their company culture
and client relationships are pure boilerplate.

Now, it is quite understandable that this can happen. After all, it is hard
for any of us to grasp just how much we don’t know and to take steps to
address those issues. What’s so very disappointing though is that when
these kinds of oversights and deficiencies are pointed out, they’re
almost always dismissed by the client as irrelevant.

In such cases, there is a high probability that the client will end up
being unsatisfied with the agency and its work. After all, design
cannot produce excellent results when it is being poorly employed.
Design should never be the first step in dressing up or “fixing” a
business or an organization.

Excellent design coupled with sound business strategy works. One without the other almost never does. But it’s too bad design so often takes the wrap for this failure.

Filed under: Design, Web Development