Design business strategy

Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash Persuading others (to do what you want). In a world of co-creating and collaborating, the ability to persuade others to your view point is a really valuable skill. Would you be surprised if I told you that forcefully arguing your point of view is the least effective way of [...]

Photo by Adam Birkett on Unsplash Too black for Snapchat. It’s easy to think that bias is embedded in ‘others’ – people like Donald Trump, Pauline Hanson and Today Tonight producers. Truth is we all have unconscious bias and we all unknowingly embed our bias into design. Think you don’t? That could be worse – [...]

Photo by Radovan on Unsplash Bored, disengaged designers. Sometimes managing a studio is a little like being the entertainment director of the P+O Cruise ship 'Designer'. It often falls on the studio manager to keep designers engaged, motivated and focussed. And that's no mean feat, especially (as a business owner) having a stable of loyal, [...]

Why does your design business exist? Is it to make money? To work with good clients who appreciate design? To deliver your desired lifestyle? To be seen as a leader in the industry? In working with many design business owners I hear all sorts of answers. The business owners who can answer this question quickly [...]

Photography by Image Workshop You can't charge for a plan, but you can charge for a strategy. Here I am, just twelve weeks into my ‘new career’ of design researcher (rather than design practitioner), and one topic of confusion seems to be following me: the difference between a strategy and a plan. It was a [...]

The design business leadership gap The Australian design scene has matured rapidly in the last five years. We are seeing design agencies become a central part of start ups, buy-outs by large corporates and amalgamations but we have a design business leadership gap. In our work we've come to realise professional development has not kept [...]

Staying relevant: designers need business skills Clients expect that you’ll deliver all the elements of the designer’s craft; brand consistency, slick on-brief design, coding, style guides, prototyping, testing  etc. If that’s all you offer you have about 12,000 competitors in Australia. Gaining business skills could reduce this to about 500 competitors. These skills can move [...]

I know what clients really want... Many clients brief designers having already decided what the problem is and the type of work that needs to be done to solve it. They come to the designer because they think they need a website or an app or a small campaign. Here-in lies the problem. Most clients [...]

Better clients, better work - the ‘LEAN’ way I have now clocked up more than 30 years in the design industry, the last 13 years having worked with thousands of designers in seminars, workshops and mentoring through the Design Business Council. One of the things I constantly observe is that designers are too generous. They [...]

The stuff you learn while you are learning stuff. This year I started a Strategy Masterclass to hone my skills. It’s great – I’m really enjoying it, but it’s not just the direct learning that I’m enjoying. I’m really enjoying the stuff that I’m learning while I’m learning stuff. Let me explain. Years ago I [...]

How designers are disrupting - themselves After three years of working with more than 100 design studios I've developed an understanding of how designers grow their business through disruption. If you want to learn more about disrupting your business you can use the Design Business Model section of The Business of Design. The Designing Demand [...]

What to look for in a partner. Running any business solo is tough. Running a design business solo has to be one of the toughest. It requires two distinct parts of the brain: a business brain and a creative brain shoved into the one head. While that’s far from impossible, it’s difficult to have both [...]