CHAT BACK: Design matters

No matter what you do for a living, design matters.

In the years to come smart businesses will continue to use design to create not just new products, but new ways of experiencing, working, leading, and seeing.

My personal view of how businesses innovate and compete is that design has always mattered. As far back as the pyramids, or the designs for the symbols of our early religions; The Christian Cross, Islam’s Crescent Moon and Judaism’s Star of David.

It mattered at the invention of the wheel, and more recently in Raymond Loewy’s creation of the original "Virginia green" glass Coke bottle.

Good design may be timeless but it seems it was only a decade ago that the really major corporations like P&G, Apple, et al were beginning to understand that they fashioned products not for retailers, but for the people who would actually use them.

Design has become a key brand or product differentiator, the thing that helps a company show they "get it". Some have "got it", but some have not. Steve Jobs "got it" but Bill Gates did not, and the rest is now history.

The ones who "got it" understood that relationships between companies and their customers were changing, that the nature of work was changing, that business itself was changing. Design was starting to matter more and more.

Design was fast becoming a key point of competitive advantage. And it was fast spreading from the connoisseurs to the suburbs.

Anyone lucky enough to walk the streets of Barcelona knows first-hand how the power of design can change a whole culture.

The public work of Antonio Gaudi forever changed the axis on how the people of Barcelona see things, not to mention the countless millions of travelers who have also been touched by his expressions of design possibilities.

And those whose perspective has been changed forever are not just people in building; I’m talking about business, fashion, food, art, politics, sculpture and life in general. Design unlike Greed is one thing that has always propelled civilization forward.

Of late design has mattered, too, on an individual level. The look and feel of the sexy tech tools we now drool over from iPhones to laptops to the internet itself.

Most companies understand that a product must be more than the sum total of its functioning parts because today’s customer first experiences a product through its design.

Whether it’s a Starck Hotel, a Qantas seat by Marc Newson, Jonathan Ive’s iPad, Missoni bath towel, or Tom Ford’s Fragrance Collection, a product now must speak to a customer’s emotions, and emotions can be touched by design.

And so design, when it is done well, can also become enshrined deeply rooted in an organisation’s culture and their belief system, none have shown this better than Apple.

Apple’s design philosophy reflects not only the real idea behind an iPod or a Mac, but also projects the soul of the brand that created it.

Design becomes a powerful positioning force for the company’s brand, and a prime builder of customer devotion and loyalty.

Today’s star designers frequently cross disciplines, from food to architecture, to graphic arts to industrial design, and from film to animation. Today it’s design not Coke that adds life.

Design’s seven essential ingredients:

Emotion: The one word that all the stars reaffirm. The perceptual experience that a consumer has when using a product. It can include a sense of adventure, independence, security, or even sensuality.

Aesthetics: A focus on sensory perception, including the visual form, tactile interactions, and sound, smell, and even taste signals.

Product Identity: A statement about individuality and personality, expressing uniqueness, timeliness of style, and appropriateness in the context.

Impact: The social or environmental effects, which are connected with the customer’s personal value system and can often help build brand loyalty.

Ergonomics: A product’s basic usability reflects its ease of use from both a physical and a cognitive perspective. It must also be safe and comfortable.

Core Technology: The ability to function properly and perform to expectations. It must be reliable enough to work consistently.

Quality: The durability, precision, and accuracy of manufacturing processes, material composition, and methods of attachment must all meet the customer’s expectations, compelling and desirable fashion.