FestivalwithAttitude_DQ_Summer2011_JackieHawkins.pdf

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Less Mouth, More Trousers[1]

As Emily Dickinson famously wrote ‘being a poet is all. Being known as a poet is nothing.’ Can the same be said about designers? Today you can’t pick up a fork, sit on a seat, switch on a light, open a bottle or pick your nose without someone’s name being attached to it (OK, so I made the last one up, but give it time…give it time). But why? And how do designers feel about being known largely for their name, over their work?

The phenomenon of the ‘named designer’ has been traced back to the explosion of mass consumption in post war Britain. It was a way of individualizing mass-produced consumer products when consumption was becoming a bit of a blur. Fifty years on and products couldn’t have been further removed from the factory floor, appearing in art galleries and museums. French cultural theorist Bourdieu addressed the cultural significance of this move in relation to photography, claiming that photographs became ‘endowed with the dignity of works of art.’ It’s difficult not to concede that exactly the same thing has happened with product design, when the work of Lovegrove, Dixon, Boontje and the like has appeared in galleries all over the world. Even Heatherwick Studio, who arguably fall more into the structural/experimentalist camp recently showcased their extruded benches at the über trendy Haunch of Venison gallery in London. Known for representing Turner Prize nominees, you can’t get much closer to the art world than that. The trouble is, as Max Fraser sees it, that there is a danger of design taking itself too seriously, appearing ‘culturally highbrow. Let’s not forget that it’s only furniture!’

So, why do we seem so obsessed with knowing the name of a person behind the product, and are designers happily complicit in the ‘designer’ economy? “It’s all a bag of bollocks isn’t it? I’d be happy if I didn’t talk to another journalist again, I just want to get on with my work and that’s all that interests me” chimed one prominent personality at 100%Design in London, but in the same breath asked not to be identified as he conceded that it would be biting off the hand that feeds him. Having his face in magazines helps bring in new work. Thomas Heatherwick finds it all very curious “its interesting that one is seen as being available to comment on anything in the world. There is an expectation that someone creative just loves to talk, that they’re an auto-entertainment machine.” I wonder then how he might feel about Twitter and blogging ‘I feel a bit fatigued by the whole Pecha Kucha thing that everyone is desperate to talk…I don’t want to pontificate. I don’t want to be a pundit, commenting on a million things, showing you my home.”

There are those who are not naturally predisposed to being thrust into the limelight. My former employer, Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, a man ironically celebrated for his grand gestures of scale and proportion, who played homage to Brunel and Paxton at Paddington Station and Waterloo, was a man it appeared to me most happiest pottering in his office. Absorbed in his thoughts, with his characteristic round glasses perched precipitously mid-forehead (a disguise, an object beyond which he could hide no doubt) I began to think of him much like a mole that would come up to sniff the air from time to time and was only kept from his daily discombobulating by the irksome requests from the Media Department for him to commit to some new T.V. programme or radio show.

There is no doubt that the media are partly to blame. In the words of Baudrillard, ‘the media toss around sense and nonsense, they manipulate in every sense at once.’ We are all guilty of attaching significance to the provenance. This consecration by celebrity clearly does much to raise the profile of the project and the profession, while in parallel lending prestige to the client earning them cultural caché. With design being such an important part of the UK economy contributing £60bn a year – 7.3 per cent, with growth at twice the rate of the economy as a whole during the last decade, its hard to deny that it has its uses.

The difficulty is, that attributing one name to a product can often have us shifting uncomfortably in our (designer) seats. It is disrespectful to the contribution of the ‘team’ that did their fair share in creating it. The Millennium Bridge was famously reported as being the brainchild of Sir Norman Foster, even though Arup were the lead consultant, and somehow the sculptor Anthony Caro, not to mention the minions at all three studios, were forgotten along the way. “Whenever I talk about our projects, I always say ‘we’ (Heatherwick Studio) because that is how it is. Yes I’m a key ingredient in the collaboration, but design is very much an iterative process. There’s a real culture at the moment of the ‘genius’ or ‘sole creator’. In reality, I doubt there are very few out there.” I suggest that this might present a skewed image to new students “Yes, I think it is dangerous, it puts enormous pressure on students that they have to be this ‘hero’ person instead of being an important part of a mix. The process of thinking really comes alive when working with others.”

Like it or not, designers have become brands just like anything else. Look at Jasper Morrison, his name is a big as designers get, his products enjoy huge commercial success. Yet his success seems to have been tempered by feelings of malaise, as he revealed in a recent rare interview with Icon Magazine, claiming that design has become ‘a major source of pollution’ referring to the fact that some designers seem to design for magazine covers rather than designing for life, with the effect that ‘people don’t trust design, they think its shit – nine times out of ten you’re better of to buy an ordinary corkscrew than a designer corkscrew just because ordinary corkscrews know what they’re doing’. Like Heatherwick, Morrison is concerned about the new generation ‘Young students see what gets published and imagine that that’s what is design’.

You could argue that we are damaging our own industry. Our compulsion to add a branded stamp that presumably was initially intended as a mark of quality, has become a meaningless ‘show’, wrapped up in the all-pervasive overbearing reportage of recent times and obsession with endorsement by celebrity. Somewhere along the lines, the good quality less ‘sexy’ design that problem-solves and functions well, has got a bit lost in the fanfare of marketing noise. Not because it doesn’t exist, but because the media as a force that constructs and re-circulates cultural meaning of the role, status and practice of design, chooses not to concentrate on it.

So, what for the future? There appears to be an increased ennui with the usual fare found at design exhibitions and graduate shows in recent months: chairs and bookcases with designer labels attached. The current economic climate is perhaps partly responsible; we are questioning now more than ever the ‘necessity’ for the things around us. Certainly there is a lot of increasing dialogue on designing with ‘usefulness’ in mind: note the interest paid to a recent graduate’s re-think of the common household UK plug, and the achievement of a urine receptacle for women – the Peezy – winning ‘Best of Show’ at the Design Week Awards in London recently.

Part of the problem is that we as journalists contribute to the mystification of designed objects by showing them gleaming and smiling for the camera in pristine condition, forgetting that these are merely objects, devices by which we engage in humble activities like sitting, eating or entertaining. There is a whole fascinating revealing iterative process behind the finished result involving input from a range of disciplines that we almost never get to hear about. Why not report on the human experience of designing? And what about getting deep down and dirty with materials and production processes and techniques? Let’s see more on the process I say, right from sheet metal to manufacture, from squiggly lines on paper to presentation. By demystifying design in this way we show that design is, more often than not, a collaborative process, ‘hands-on’ and not about ‘sole creation’ or effortless endeavour.

I hope to see more of a focus on designing with social change in mind, taking quality and longevity more seriously and be less about fashion and disposability. I look forward to a time when we admire the combination of effort from designers and end users on issues that are of far more importance and relevance to most of us in the real world, like safety, transport, crime and climate change. Less chairs and more problem solving please. Less fashion and more durability. Less disposability, and more re-use. Less emulation and more innovation. Less adulation and more common sense.

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It will be launched at Sydney Design and is available in bookshops now. Please contact Leanne Rule with any enquiries bbetween@billyblue.edu.au.

BBetween3_JHawkins page 92

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Designers are faced with all sorts of challenges and none more so perhaps, than how to challenge oneself. In an industry where innovation, adaptation and progressive practice are benchmarks we commonly strive for on behalf of our clients, are we always the best at being introspective? Looking at ourselves and our industry and asking, is there something more we could be doing? Something different we could be offering than the multitude of other creative agencies essentially offering the same service? Do you ever ask yourself if you genuinely feel that you are being creatively stretched; that you are applying your creative problem-solving skills to maximum effect? Using your design skills to help tackle issues like runaway consumerism, climate change or social problems, or worse, are you worried that you may be contributing to the problem? For those of you fidgeting uncomfortably in your seats right now, and for those of you who may agree with leading thinker Roger Martin that humankind itself needs to become competent in ‘design thinking’, the time for change is now. In a landmark project, leading design thinkers Digital Eskimo in partnership with the Creative Industries Innovation Centre, are asking you, YES YOU, to help determine the future of the industry. To rethink how the skills inherent in design can be applied to a whole host of other complex and ‘messy’ problems, for the betterment of the environment and society at large. This is not to mention, the added value it will bring to the perception of the design industry itself.

Jackie Hawkins gets to grips with the recently launched ‘Change Agents’ project and chats with David Gravina, Principal of Digital Eskimo and Adam Blake, Director of Programs and Partnerships at the Creative Industries Innovation Centre.

What is the ‘Change Agent’ project and how did it come about?

DAVID GRAVINA  The project was originally presented as an idea at the AGDA Design a Better World conference last year, hosted by Alan Saunders. The conference asked whether Graphic Design could save the world. We answered this rather loaded question by positing that while it has a significant role to play (in shaping how our societies create meaning, interpret value and so forth) – it is the way designers think and the process of design that could really impact on efforts towards a sustainable world.

We have since partnered with the recently established Creative Industries Innovation Centre (CIIC) to create the Change Agent project, which aims to support designers who want to apply their creative problem solving skills to a much broader array of problems than the industry has tended to work on to date.

ADAM BLAKE Our involvement with the project is aligned to our mission to increase the competitiveness, profitability, productivity and innovation of Australia’s creative industries.The CIIC, hosted by the University of Technology, Sydney, offers a range of services to support creative businesses of all sizes in Australia, and also focuses on developing collaborative opportunities across and between industry sectors which strikes a chord with this project.

What exactly is a ‘Change Agent’?

DAVID GRAVINA  In this context a Change Agent is a designer who acts as a catalyst for change in society. We’re referring to designers across all disciplines who are passionate about the capacity of design to bring about transformative change in society for positive social and environmental outcomes.

We’re hoping to attract designers who don’t see design as being confined to a discipline or the creation of artefacts. People who see design as a creative problem solving process that can be applied to any situation. A Change Agent is a designer who is ready to engage with their colleagues, collaborators, clients and the broader community to embrace the opportunities that design offers for engaging with the more challenging problems. These ‘messy’ or ‘wicked’ problems tend to be those that are hard to define up-front, involve complex and interactions between people and systems and often continue to morph over time. The design approach is perfectly suited to addressing these.

Can you give an example of how such principles have been applied in practice?

DAVID GRAVINA One example that’s particularly close to us at Digital Eskimo is a project we worked on last year. Businessman and Peak Oil expert Piers Dawson-Damer came to us with a brief to create a Peak Oil viral campaign that would frighten and shock Australians into action (Peak Oil refers to a point in time at which the maximum rate of global oil extraction is reached). From insights garnered through research we designed a response that barely mentioned Peak Oil but instead aimed to inspire people to return to a more local way of living – thus avoiding the contentious and divisive themes of Peak Oil and sustainability, while still championing intelligent responses to its impact. It turns out that whats good for your local community is almost always good for the environment and local resilience.

Through the Design process we were able to completely rethink the project’s strategy and purpose, ultimately creating the live local project. The first prototype – all design processes should emphasize prototyping – for the idea is a website that hundreds of people have used to document stories about their experiences improving their local communities. We call these endeavours ‘experiments’ and they range from simply smiling at your neighbours, to giving up your car – to a blow by blow account of making your house more sustainable. live local has since been incorporated into a not-for-profit organization, of which Piers and myself are  Directors, and is in its early phases of development. We are now designing the strategic plan for the organisation which includes partnerships with local councils and other organisations that can use the platform to provide a voice for their communities.  We are also exploring the project’s potential as an educational programme in schools, a television show and a social change campaign much like the Life.Be in it. campaign. www.livelocal.org.au

Another example, this time from the UK, is live|work. They were commissioned to reduce energy usage in households situated in a mining district. Through their research, they began to understand that energy efficiency was an abstract concept that was hard for the target audience to engage in, and actually not a huge financial priority.  Using these insights, they designed and developed ‘Saverbox’. Saverbox is basically a home improvement energy saving loan that’s paid for through the savings households make on their energy bills by reducing their energy use. All this information was actually programmed to be displayed on the home television which visually represented energy usage and how this was affected by consumption, thereby encouraging people to use less. It was an innovative project that not only reduced emissions, but made energy efficiency accessible, desirable and affordable for everyone. http://www.livework.co.uk/our-work/DOTT-07

How do you propose that designers can start to enact Change?

DAVID GRAVINA  We propose to co-create a shared ‘toolkit’ that designers can utilise to map out and action a change programme for themselves or their practices. This may take some people say 2-5 years to complete, with the goal being to go as far as personally viable and desirable.

We don’t want to be too prescriptive as to what this tool kit will look like – this is a collaborative project so the people involved will have a big say in how it evolves. However we envisage that it will likely contain a method library of case studies, stories, processes, materials and other useful design tools that we can all share and draw on, as appropriate.

ADAM BLAKE  This online toolkit will allow us to collectively build and share leading design thinking, practices and tools that facilitate people working in the creative industries to make a real contribution to sustainability. I think we all realise that often we need to draw on knowledge beyond ourselves, in order to ensure we are achieving best practice. This open source toolkit provides the opportunity to do just that.

Why does the design industry need this project?

DAVID GRAVINA  Design has been primarily employed for servicing consumer capitalism since the 50s and the rise of the consumer product and advertising industry. With few exceptions the design disciplines have struggled to reduce their reliance on the consumer product and advertising industries. As a result, for the most part, our role has become one of servitude to our clients rather than trusted strategic partner. We have become part of the problem, ironic for people who often become designers to solve problems.

The winds of change are blowing and whole sectors are positioning themselves for a resource constrained future. The design industry on the whole is only just beginning to engage with the shift. An increasing number of designers are looking to rethink their approach to value creation and their relationship with their clients and society, whilst a number of agencies and individuals have been forging ahead for years and have insights and methods to share. It is about each of us redesigning our own design practices and ultimately the design profession itself. Through the shared method library we aim to give individuals, collectives, agencies and practices of all shapes and sizes some of the tools and knowledge they need to begin the process of transformation.

We accept that changing such fundamental aspects of our businesses will take time. Designers will need to imagine, prototype and implement the new ways in which they will interact with their clients and society and this project offers a platform to begin that journey.

ADAM BLAKE Design and creative agencies have a great opportunity to apply the design processes they use in their daily work with clients to social, environmental and economic challenges, which we believe can have a positive impact on a wide range of industries across our economy. This is important for the CIIC as our remit is to uncover and support new market opportunities and approaches for the growth of the creative industries. The Change Agents project allows us to partner with leaders from industry, government and business in order to develop new ways of engaging the creative industries with other sectors. Designers as change agents act as innovation catalysts in this way.

So what is the next step for this project and how can designers get involved?

DAVID GRAVINA  We’re now calling for input from the design community to help shape the initial strategy and direction of the project. Towards the latter part of the year we hope to begin the creation process in earnest.

For those keen to get involved or want to learn more, they can contact me directly at Digital Eskimo on 9212 3366 or changeagents@digitaleskimo.net or visit www.digitaleskimo.net

ADAM BLAKE And for anyone interested in learning more about how the Creative Industries innovation Centre can help them, please visit us at www.creativeinnovation.net.au or email Adam.Blake@uts.edu.au or call on 8217 5000

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There are people you meet in life, who may amuse, entertain, even keep you on your toes, but there are few that truly delight, both intellectually and creatively. We all know them. They just have that extra something that makes us sit up and take notice, manage to keep our (otherwise waning) attention and make us miss them when they are gone. Robbie Robertson, Managing Director of experiential design consultancy, E2, is one such person. But (fortunately) you don’t just have to just take my word for it. The long list of brands that have come to E2 in the last two years of its short life is testament to their ability to not just offer, but to deliver something rather different indeed. E2 have completed over 178 projects in the last two years and are currently working on another 40, for brands both here and abroad, including Qantas, Commonwealth Bank, St George, Sony, Kodak, Westfield, Herman Miller, Virgin Mobile, News Ltd – and the list goes on.

It is not hard to see how clients are engaged by them. But reeling clients in with a fancy sales pitch is the easy part as we all know, but retaining them and nurturing them so that they become a part of the fabric of the place itself and wouldn’t even consider going anywhere else, is quite a tall order. This is where E2 excel. There are few consultancies that would clear desk space in the studio for clients to work alongside the team should they so wish (TrueLocal and BCU), agree to their client presenting creative back to their Board without the need for E2 to even attend (Tarocash and Virgin Mobile) or could win over a client by likening them to a Roast Chicken Dinner (Commonwealth Bank).

So, where did all this come from and exactly how are they managing to achieve so much, so quickly? The driving force behind E2 is the collaborative partnership of Robbie Robertson and Creative Director Alex Ritchie, both ex-Imagination in London – the pioneering consultancy arguably the forefather of experiential design – that has worked with some of the world’s top brands from Diageo to Aston Martin. But a more recent meeting of minds at branding giant Landor, compelled them to do their own thing “we saw a niche in the market: experiential environments but from an extremely strategic and multi-disciplined approach” explains Robertson. “A lot of companies are doing it and very well, but often as an add-on or a reaction to a larger brief, we look at environments not just from the usual floor management perspective but from a brand perspective, from a communications perspective, we look at it from a multi-faceted approach.”

At the heart of their philosophy is their belief in the ‘show me’ aspects of a brand’s delivery believing that it is experience, rather than information, that is the prime driver of human behaviour. This means placing as much of a budget into how the consumer actually interacts with a brand, across all five senses, and exploring how the brand can better respond to the needs and desires of the customer. As Creative Director Alex Ritchie explains “In our opinion, starting from the bottom up—from the customer’s viewpoint—rather than the top down from the corporate viewpoint yields a can’t-fail strategy. That is, consumer research that observes and studies consumers’ interactions with products and services yields the most valuable research. Not merely developing products and brand communications based on what the corporate R&D and marketing departments think their customers want. Observing how consumers interact with products or services, and then getting their feedback as to what they like and don’t like, as well as what they would prefer to see—and unlocking the Enjoyment Assets therein—helps companies and creative consultancies design the most satisfying customer experiences.”

This research and discovery phase is so important to E2 that it is not until 50% of the way through their carefully crafted 6-stage process that they even pick up a pen, which, by Robertson’s own admission “scares the living daylights out of some clients, but once we take them through the process they get very excited by it because they have the confidence that the creative solution that we are going to deliver them is based on evidence, as opposed to just ‘here’s 3 ideas just choose whichever one you think is great’”! He continues, “often creative agencies are asked to come up with 3 different options, well we don’t. We come up with one, because it is based on strategy. There is only one solution. There is only one creative environment that is actually going to work for them.”

For any potential naysayers, they sometimes go one step further, taking the solution to market and testing it giving the client confidence that before they even lay a brick, or paint a wall that the solution is going to work for them, ”we can go to the Board and say, not only have we actually tested the idea with your actual customer base, we know it can be done on time, on budget and here is the finalized package. Don’t take our word for it: take your consumer’s word for it” Robertson explains. But it hasn’t always been this easy. It has taken Robertson and Ritchie years of practice to hone the process that they eventually brought into play at E2. Equally, to convince clients that they really need to stop thinking about their brand in a 2-D fashion and start thinking about in which sense/s it has brand recall. Robertson highlights Singapore Airlines as a smart example of brand intelligence “do you know, that every single airhostess at Singapore Airlines wears the same perfume?”

It is an approach that certainly seems to work for E2. For Qantas it’s about investing as much of their $10 million budget into the user end experience, so that employees can touch, see, hear and smell the brand’s customer service excellence. The result? The Qantas Centre of Service Excellence has generated an estimated $1.5 million worth of PR, with featured publications in Australia and overseas. It has set the benchmark for airlines globally in how to excel in customer service, propelling the Qantas brand back to the top. For Commonwealth Bank, it’s about addressing the state of anxiety that many consumers find themselves in when dealing with financial institutions, and alleviating this through considered and intelligent use of space and new ‘open teller’ systems. The result? Since its inception in April 2008 this Sydney Olympic Park branch has doubled the amount of foot traffic expected in a branch of this size and demographic and has been deemed to be the ‘bank of the future’ by the financial service industry.

These are exciting times for E2. Currently, amongst other projects, they are completing the The Australia-Indonesia Facility for Disaster Reduction in Jakarta, for the Australian Government – the first time the Government has allowed a logo without inclusion of their emblem and are down to the last two, as a part of the Multiplex team, for the development at Barangaroo. They will be opening an office in Singapore early 2010, Beijing and Abu Dhabi later in the year and a London office by 2011. This is not to mention, their new venture ‘Place Associates’ specializing in city-branding and place-making, that commenced trading earlier this year.

Perhaps one of the reasons E2 seem to be doing so well in such a short time frame is by knowing what they’re good at – and sticking to it. If they don’t truly believe that what they present to a client is unique and different from other agencies, if they don’t think they are the right fit for a job or that they won’t win a project, they simply won’t go for it – to the point that they’ve found themselves turning down offers of work. Such straight talking has earned them an increasing reputation for excellence in their field, and it is a field in which they seem to have taken ownership. Their work is category defining; no one else seems to be doing what E2 are doing. B&T obviously think the same, awarding them ‘Experiential Agency of the Year’ in 2009. After years of working for someone else and knowing there was much more that could be done, Robertson and Ritchie have stuck their necks out, specialized, and have seen the potential for what it is.

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Day One

Well, its that crazy time of year again. Just when you think you have recovered from pounding the pavements of London from one event to the other courtesy of the London Design Festival, they add on four days of 100% Design in the cavernous halls of the Earls Court Exhibition Centre. My feet are sore, my kidneys are suffering from all the free Veuve Clicquot, but I’m happy.

This year’s event is definitely an improvement on previous years, and so it should be; 100%Design is this year celebrating 15 years of trading. For those of you not too familiar with 100%, it is the largest single hub of the London Design Festival, with over 350 exhibitors launching new products from all over the globe. In short, to most designers this translates as a BIG BLOODY DEAL. If you want to get your stuff out there and be seen, this is the place to do it.

From the most notable designers of our day to the best in design manufacturing, you can expect your work to be seen by the likes of Tom Dixon and Mr. Cappellini himself. Both spotted I hasten to add, at last night’s Icon Magazine party in Clerkenwell, and if I hadn’t drunk so many Gin and Tonics I might have felt obliged to engage them in some witty conversation about THE topic on most people’s lips at the moment. You see, there seems to be a bit of rebellion about ‘named designers’, designers known largely for their name over the standard of their work. Fair point, I reckon, and that is why this year’s show designed by JAM is so spot-on. They have made it interactive and less static, with live demo’s of making and workshops showing process and creativity at work. There is always a danger that design can take itself too seriously, and somehow JAM have managed to make this an all-together more accessible and friendly event and less ‘high-brow’. I’m all for that: so long as they don’t run out of the Veuve!

100percentdesign.co.uk

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