Bradley: The Brand Agency is in the business of design, but primarily, we’re in the business of brand. To meaningfully develop brands that break through strategy must lead. Looking back on how design has changed in purpose over the years, the influence of every decade is clear in how to design as a strategic brand leader. We’ve always known that to pilot design you needed to be strategic. Attending the Design Leaders Conference this year we were introduced to some new ways of thinking about the development of the relationship between design and strategy over the years. 

Designers play a role in our social and commercial economy and it has changed significantly in the last hundred years. Marc Català of Mucho talked through his presentation Staircase to Design Heaven, an adaptation and evolution of the Design Ladder, developed by the Danish Design Centre in 2001.

How it started 

Designers acted much like artists, designing what they wanted not having or following a brief as such. Realising it might benefit from some process behind design, we saw the emergence of Bauhaus and a more architecturally led design practice and style.

Design as Style

Moving from the Bauhaus movement of the 1920s where design as a process was borne of a belief that form follows function. Designers today find themselves in positions of greater responsibility. Not only for the creative endeavour of a company but also its strategic positioning and visual communication in the marketplace. Design was seen as a style which essentially operates on a surface level only after the Bauhaus movement. Commissioned to make objects beautiful, designers didn’t really bring any intrinsic added value.

Design as Solution

Into the 50s Design was seen as the problem-solving exercise or provider of a solution to a particular need or desire. Essentially, it was a transactional relationship with little value being added. Come the mid 60s we reached a golden age of design. People could make and design things with more expression and more choice. The process of design was cemented and we entered the ‘Mad Men generation’ of advertising so to speak.

Design as Narrative

In the 80s designers were given the opportunity to contribute to the narrative of a company and develop brand identities that were internationally recognisable. Think Apple, Ford and Coca-Cola. This new found responsibility afforded the designers the opportunity to become storytellers. Enter the beginning of brand consulting and strategy led design. As international brands began to sell their products globally, they needed to appeal worldwide. They needed a narrative, a brand story to tell.

Now afforded the privilege, designers get to ask questions about the ‘why’, the ‘how?’ and the ‘what?’ of an organisation. We begin to see how the higher on the ladder the more value you contribute. Design as a narrative provided designers with the opportunity to deliver real value. This is a powerful tool and comes with great responsibility. 

Design as Direction 

Here we begin to see the new steps on the ladder. The integration of storytelling with form and function, allows designers to create solutions of not only beauty but real meaning. Now designers have an opportunity to provide direction to their clients. Developing brand strategies is often about helping companies make difficult decisions. Design that works to define company behaviour and customer experience provides an opportunity to create a deep sense of cohesion and culture within a company. The role of design moves beyond beauty, form and function to deliver a holistic experience for an organisation.

To provide this direction means taking an integrative approach to understanding an organisation’s culture in order to develop a client experience that works for them.

Design as Philosophy

As we look into the future, design has the potential to be a tool for knowledge. Design can become a philosophy, an activity designers undertake together with their clients, and their customers. In this way they can seek to truly understand the fundamental truths about themselves, and the world in which they live, operate and relate to each other. In this mode of co-creation, we can solve this problem from all directions, so that a sample size has a chance to contribute. Following this co-creation process has the potential to become a design philosophy, just as this insider knowledge allows you to become a strategic brand leader, built on the foundation of creative strategy, brand design and business intelligence. 

For the designer, and agencies, we need to think of a design philosophy as a mission statement for our teams. It allows us to establish a core set of beliefs about the quality and integrity of our work and the set of standards by which we want our designs to be appraised. Adopting a design philosophy allows agencies to differentiate themselves. This way they can communicate through the marketplace why they are the agency for you.

Great food for thought about our own agency and what kind of message we give our prospects and clients alike about our design process, philosophy and the leadership we commit to with strategy. We’ve been shaping our own design philosophy whether we’ve labelled it as such or not. We can clearly see the influences over the years on design as a strategic brand leader. 

Andrew Bradley

Discover what insights our Design Director Paula McKenna brought back to the studio from the event here.