Logotastic

I read an interesting article the other day on the Harvard Business School blog – the primary focus was on social media – and the design of social media resources as formal business processes. The article resonated with me for a number of reasons – and in particularly the reference to the Wikipedia entry for ‘design’.

“ If you take a trip over to Wikipedia and enter the word “design” you’ll see this at the very beginning of the entry:

Design is the planning that lays the basis for the making of every object or system. It can be used both as a noun and as a verb and, in a broader way, it means applied arts and engineering. As a verb, “to design” refers to the process of originating and developing a plan for a product, structure, system, or component with intention.”

Says it all really! There’s an art to any type of design – solid foundations mean that the outcome is reliable, dependable, hard wearing – and yet in our creative agency, we are constantly surprised, bemused, deflated by the DIY attempts we are often presented with.

What happened to Graphic Design ‘Artists’ – art school trained ‘designers’ becoming so mainstream? Was it that art school attendees all decided to be ‘graphic design artists’ and now we have mass saturation? Or is it down to Adobe – creating a suite a resources with features that the masses can tap into (without any real design composition grounding)?

I see an innumerate amount of logo designs and flyers dropped through my door which are clearly home made. The DIY mentality – I’ve got the Adobe suite so I’m a designer – bugs the hell out of me (can’t you tell). And it’s not just because of the poor design I see around – but because of what it has done to the industry.

And what this mass saturation of everyone being a ‘designer’ has done – is significantly reduce respect and the financial compensation for designers. Having worked in the marketing industry for 20 years – I’ve seen the demise of the ‘hourly rate’. Once upon a time senior designers commanded the same hourly figures as lawyers and accountants – but whilst the professional service boys and girls hold onto their high end rates and prestige – designer’s rates have reduced by 75%.

Which, I hasten to add, for some of the output out there is absolutely justifiable – but for those trained and talented ‘professional’ designers – this is just demoralising.

When working on campaigns with organisations – the design area (which is crucial) is often given the least amount of emphasis. People expect design to be ‘knocked out’ in a couple of hours – without understanding the depth of technical, creative and fundamental communication that has to be considered.

Is it because most people use ‘microsoft word’ for simple word processing and therefore expect amendments of often complex graphics to be administered with the same speed as hitting a backspace or delete button?

I am still fighting the corner for designers everywhere – and I’m not even a designer. I did go to art school – and I did switch from fine art to graphics half way through because I saw a more commercial and practical application in design. However, that was over 20 years ago now, and whilst I only practiced graphic design for a short time (and at a time when light boxes and dark rooms and cut and paste existed) – the same grounding design principles apply – even though the technical application has moved on considerably.

As a marketer, having worked with a range of design companies over the years – then at least, given my background, I have empathy and respect for their output – and understand the often time consuming complexities that perhaps those that have never ‘trained’ in the industry would respect. So, join my crusade – let’s wipe out poor design – leave design, logo design and branding projects to the logo design and branding professionals.

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