Shifting from a traditional “design competition” format where designers pitch ideas to client organisations (ie. competition hosts), Design Crowd has introduced a new (optional) model where specific designers can be invited to submit concepts and be paid a small fee. From a professional designer stand-point, this is a step in the right direction.

It’s my view that if a business needs design work done, they must pay a designer to do so. All we have to sell is our time – so why spend it on work that has no guarantee of financial reimbursement?

Less experienced and younger designers can fall into the trap of pitching free (or close-to) concepts in the hope the client will notice them, and possibly contract them for more work. This does a disservice to the designer and the design profession because it embeds an expectation within client organisations that design is of little or no financial value – when in reality, good design can contribute substantially to business growth, strategic success, profitability and sustainability.

Yet, Crowd Sourcing 2.0 is not enough. Companies like Design Crowd need to completely discard the original “1.0″ version of crowd-sourcing because it undermines the very reason companies seek professional design in the first place. Why should a professional designer try to help a company expand their business, update their brand or otherwise provide design assistance if they themselves cannot grow their own business or put food on their own table?

Entrepreneurs wishing to harness the power of professional design need to understand it’s real value and learn how to apply design strategically to their business. A company that invests intelligently in professional design has the potential of tapping into virtually limitless opportunities within their markets. The proof? An RMIT study in 2008 showed that over 75% of Australia’s Fast100 start-up companies used professional design to fuel their growth and achieve their strategic aims.

(By way of clarification, Design Crowd appears to focus on the graphic design / branding / logo area of design, whereas I am personally more interested in product design. Admittedly, these areas of design are very distinct and at this time, I’m not aware of any significant efforts in the online community (other than perhaps Elance) to utilise crowd-sourcing 1.0 within product design. That said, the impacts of crowd-sourcing have the potential of affecting the livelihoods of all designers).

It’s understandable that companies want to minimise their risk and financial investment through the use of crowd-sourcing and other free-pitching models. For them, there is no guarantee that their chosen designer will have the expertise or experience, and the crowd-sourcing approach may also feel like a “quick and easy fix” to a design problem(s) that the company doesn’t have the time or resources to solve or manage.

However, taking a hands-off approach to design is perilous to say the least. Companies need to remain focused, in control and responsible for the outcomes of their design investment, just as their chosen designer must push themselves to the absolute limit to provide solutions that address their client’s needs.

I’m all for a world where more designers are involved in helping companies succeed in their chosen markets. The more that Design can be used to solve problems, improve functionality, reduce costs, optimise environmental impacts and increase profitability (any much more), the less we (as a society) will have to deal with unwanted, wasteful, poor quality products which frustrate users, choke landfills and deplete our natural resources.

If Crowd-sourcing 2.0 provides the first step in achieving these goals – great! Let’s just make sure the designer’s skill, talent and financial value is acknowledged in the process.

Please share your thoughts below.

One question that kept coming back at me was “How do I evaluate new concepts, and what criteria should I use to select the best direction for development?”

To create some context, let’s paint a hypothetical picture of your journey so far:

1. You’ve written a great design brief
2. You have hired a designer (perhaps in-house or outsourced)
3. The designer has prepared a range of initial concepts, and…
4. Now its time to review their work and decide which direction(s) to take the design.

You’re now facing what can be the most daunting and stressful period of your project (and you thought recruiting the right designer was difficult?!?)

It’s during these design reviews that the major direction for the project is determined, and in some cases can lock in a series of requirements, costs and expectations that can become difficult to change as you progress through the design process. It’s vital that you thoroughly prepare for your design reviews so that everyone on your team (including your designer) can evaluate the concepts objectively and free from subjective biases or unsubstantiated personal views.

A good design review will have the following ingredients:

1. A printed copy of your design brief (for use as a quick reference during the review)
2. A summarised list of the design criteria you’ll use to evaluate your concepts
3. Prioritised design criteria – ie. most important to least important, 1-10 scale or similar
4. Participants with an open mind to new possibilities
5. A wide range of ideas to assess, from conservative to totally wild.
6. At least 3 concepts, presented in verbal, written and illustrated formats.

Depending on your company’s structure, culture and preferences, design reviews can be highly formal, documented affairs or more relaxed conversations among colleagues. Whichever suits your business environment, it pays to document the outcomes of the review and distribute to all participants afterwards. This way, individual recollections and memories won’t be relied upon, and changes to design requirements (which can often occur during these meetings) can be recorded for future reference.

Design reviews need to be a place where the designer can feel comfortable presenting their creative thinking for public scrutiny. The review needs to be a positive and constructive process where, even if the initial concepts are not answering every aspect of the design brief, some directions, evolutions or refinements of the designer’s ideas can be identified and pursued.

It is this iterative process of innovation that helps align the designer’s thinking with your requirements whilst at the same time providing you with fresh ideas and perspectives which you may never have thought possible.

To me, innovation is all about “implementing change for the better” otherwise, why bother?

It’s time we stopped theorising about innovation, and actually started doing. Leave it to the academics to rationalise, define and debate – we’re here to make things better, and innovation is the key.

So, how do you innovate?

(Beware – design rant approaching…)

Design is a major driver of innovation. It can help you identify, explore, prototype and test new ideas; it can analyse your current list of products and find ways to reduce cost, simplify, or perhaps conversely, increase their appeal and sophistication.

Before I launch into a verbose dialogue about the merits and benefits of Design (which could take a while – maybe I’ll do that later!), it’s probably better for me to simply give you some practical ideas about how to use Design in order to “implement change for the better”.

This is Part 1 of a 3 part series – and each part will be published weekly, so be sure to swing by again each week, or subscribe via RSS (top right) or through the Mailing List (see “Sign me up!” sidebar).

Focus, generate & visualise

I’ve talked before about “what we focus on happens” – those moments where we are so hell-bent on achieving an outcome that we don’t rest until it’s done… Well, it may come as a surprise to learn that creativity, design and innovation are exactly the same. These are activities that require focus in order to achieve outcomes.

Once we dedicate a period of time to focusing on a problem, we free ourselves of all the other troubles, issues, tasks and priorities in our day and simply knuckle-down to generating new ideas.

To generate ideas, there are a host of techniques you can use… big pieces of butcher’s paper, post-its, team brainstorms, mind-maps, cause-and-effect (fishbone) diagrams – the list goes on. The point is… USE AT LEAST ONE OF THESE! Talk is fine, but you must record your ideas somewhere, somehow. Get your ideas down on paper, so you can see where your ideas have taken you, and more importantly, where you might be able to go from here.

Visualising your ideas is incredibly important – particularly in product development. It doesn’t really matter if the idea is a scribble on a napkin, a more elaborate illustration from your designer or graphic artist, a basic 3D CAD model or even a quick mock-up or prototype. Visualisation (in two or three dimensions) is the first step to exploring and understanding the physics, mechanics and feasibility of the idea… forcing you to put size, location, shape and function into your idea… To visualise is to explore, filter and evaluate.

It’s important to recognise that “structure” is the key for navigating new idea generation and visualisation. Ideas have no value without context, relevance and opportunity for development. Structured idea-generating sessions can deliver quality ideas quickly and cost-effectively. I have helped many clients generate new product directions through formal “Focus / Generate / Visualise” sessions. If you would like to learn more about these sessions, please contact me.

Part 2 (next week) will discuss a simple set of criteria you can use to a) figure out if your new product idea has legs (well, not literally… but you know what I mean…), and b) use these criteria as a guide for decision-making during the product design and development process.