Solutions for Businesses in Hard Economic Times

"Growth, we all have learned, is no longer automatic. The past has less to teach us than we need to know. Consumers are jaded, markets fragmented and disposable dollars scarce. Risk is everywhere, and pressure produces rigidity, making it difficult to try new things. More than ever, time is our enemy.

This, as every visionary knows, is a rare moment of opportunity: one that rewards creativity and compensates companies that have learned to cultivate the brilliance of individuals and instill an effective process for innovation in their corporate cultures.

Despite commonly held beliefs, real invention is rarely the terminus of a carefully developed brief. It begins before the assignment is written, and is inevitably the difference between efforts that lead to meaningful new ideas and those that produce derivative results. It is an ability to identify inchoate opportunities and see openings where others can’t. Invention never should be saved for problem solving. It should be engaged first to recognize the most rewarding problems to solve. It is not for the faint of heart or narrow-minded.

Happily, we have a plan. It’s called design.

Design can create desire, improve intelligence, impact productivity, speak volumes, start a revolution, and eliminate frustration.

Design is a profession based on conception: on helping to define an opportunity, then develop a solution that will fulfill it. Subsequently, design includes the identification and management of the team that will bring it to life, whether it is a product, communication, event or place.

We offer you the following process as a way to make design an integral part of your business, and to allow designers to make your success an integral part of design. It will make you an even more sagacious client. It is a method for partnering, a guide to the most effective use of teams, and the most potent, efficient, reliable way to get from A to B when you are not quite sure what B is."

Information gathered from AIGA.

AIGA is committed to advancing the understanding of the value of design and the process of designing through advocacy, education, publications, conferences and spirited conversations. It is the largest and oldest association of professional designers in the United States.
If you would like to know more about effective examples of designing to create value, go to www.aiga.org/designing.