Brand + Business = Design

About ten years ago, I graduated with an architecture degree from Prairie View A&M University. I actually stumbled into the field unintentionally. After a miserable freshman year studying engineering,  I came to the conclusion that I had to make a change.

During that first semester I had randomly decided to take an intro to architecture course and I really enjoyed it. So during that summer, while thinking about the direction I want to take in the fall, I remembered how I enjoyed that class and decided to make the switch to architecture. One of the best decisions I have ever made in my life.

A little over a decade later there isn’t a day that goes by that design doesn’t influence or even determine how I think.  It’s the foundation for how I approach our business of developing brands and engaging in creative marketing for our clients.

With all the hoopla around technology and the emerging digital landscape, conversations around design have gotten a litttle quieter. In my opinion, as inexorable as digital media is in today’s market, design thinking and how to effectively embrace it, trumps everything.

Below are some quotes that speak to the the value and power in knowing and understanding design.

Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future.

                                                                                               — Robert L. Peters

People think that design is styling. Design is not style. It’s not about giving shape to the shell and not giving a damn about the guts. Good design is a renaissance attitude that combines technology, cognitive science, human need, and beauty to produce something that the world didn’t know it was missing.

                                                                                               — Paola Antonelli

Design is the search for a magical balance between business and art; art and craft; intuition and reason; concept and detail; playfulness and formality; client and designer; designer and printer; and printer and public.

                                                                                               — Valerie Pettis

Design is a means toward accomplishing the end goals of serving markets and generating profits. Furthermore, design is an element in social responsibility. Good design allows “form to complement performance.” The way things look is not irrelevant to the way things work: how they work is how they should look.

                                                                                              — Thomas F. Schutte

Most [clients] expect experience design to be a discrete activity, solving all their problems with a single functional specification or a single research study. It must be an ongoing effort, a process of continually learning about users, responding to their behaviors, and evolving the product or service.

                                                                                              — Dan Brown

Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context - a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.

                                                                                              — Eliel Saarinen