competitive advantage

1. We are curious. The best designers are those that bring knowledge to a project but gather perspective from the end-user. Designers are trained to know that they don’t know all the answers and the best solutions to problems lie in examining context and defining the target. To design for a better future, a designer must uncover how the people lead their lives today. Ask questions, uncover truths and dig to find out who they should be designing for.
2. We create brands. Don’t hire a designer who uses the words logos and brands interchangeably. Instead look for designers who think logos are only as important as lipstick on a beautiful woman. Creating a brand means adding true market value that transcends features or benefits.  I paraphrase and borrow liberally from the Brand Gap but the idea is that imagine Coke without it’s brand. It’s worth half it’s current market value:
3. We create distinction in crowded marketplaces. Clever design and niche products have made Apple successful again. Good design has always been the cornerstone of what Apple has been known for. Everyone knows that the soon to be available iPhone has nothing amazingly new about it. But we also know that Apple will make access to the features and the shear visuals so appealing that the iPhone will make other phones look like Stone Age tablets. Apple understands and leverages the fact that design is the ultimate competitive edge.
4. Designers are excellent translators. Got business goals? Got technological constraints? Designers can uncover user goals and then find the sweet spot where business goals and user goals converge. Even better, they can ensure that technology can be leveraged to meet those goals. Designers help business dream big and beyond what exists today and also ground those dreams by presenting a set of very real, tangible user goals. Sure you want to build a flying pig but no one wants one! Good design means building products and services that are useful. Less wasted time, less bad products.
5. Design = Innovation = Design. When Business Week wanted to launch a section on design their research told them that their readers assumed that the section would be all about architecture and interior design. So they renamed that section to be called Innovation. A sign of the times we live in. Design walks around wearing a veil called Innovation. Whatever you call it, you are dead in the waters without it. Design not keeps businesses alive, it helps them float to the top and be seen as victorious over their competition.
6. Design saves lives. My Treo’s tiny buttons have caused me to have many a close-call car accidents (I know, I know, no multi-tasking while driving). That said good design has probably saved my life many a time. From my steering wheel car stereo controls to the 3 point safety belt that keeps me from kissing my windshield. ABS brakes that don’t require me to do anything different than just use a brake like I always would. Designers dare to think different and when they do; they reward us with products that work. While your badly designed website may not kill people, it may contribute to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) or just good ol’ web rage.
7. Designs are user advocates. If you ever have the pleasure to be in a feature discussion meeting, they start to sound like a religious debate . I would never…I always…My mother has said…My girlfriend swears she would never…People use whatever anecdotes they possibly can to prove their point of view and ‘win’ the debate. A ‘good’ designer would bring good research to the table. Research based on fact, research based on user goals to validate direction. Use your designer as your stand-in for the user you should be designing for, and trust that they are the voice of the people. That’s who they want to please. That’s who makes you money and keeps you in business.
8. Designers make things pretty. Human nature: “If it looks good, it must be good”. Test this: try using a black and white monitor again.
   We are highly visual creatures who make snap judgments on the basis of how things appear in that moment. This is how we survive, hunt and gather and marry people who will make use beautiful babies to carry forth our civilization. Designers understand this and use this knowledge to make us products that fit in with our idea of beauty. Beauty is not skin deep, it is the knife’s edge.
9. A design process is a good process. You don’t develop a brand, you design a brand. You don’t develop a software application, you design a software application. Having a user experience focused design approach means that the entire production cycle should have design validation at key points throughout the entire process. This keeps the focus where it should be. On the paying customer.
10. Designers love constraints. Tell a designer that they have complete freedom to do what they want, there is no target market and there are no financial or technical constraints. They go crazy. They literally go nuts. They become artists creating for themselves. Designers are defined by constraints and embrace them with open arms. After all, to design for a fixed target, to design for a set of rules and goals is what defines design. It’s what we do.

So I propose to you, get designers to rule the world and we will be happier, waste less by building products and services that we actually want to buy and use well. Fire your local self-serving politician, hire a designer and we will live in closer harmony with the planet which we happen to inhabit.

P. S. I apologise to my high-school English teacher. I realise that the title of my article is grammatically incorrect, but what can I say. It’s ambiguity was seductive!

I agree with my friends. And I have gone far too long having DesignStamp.com be nothing more than a “coming soon” teaser, an email harvester and worse a very broken countdown clock!

So here we go. DesignStamp is up and running.

Someday I would love to conduct research into why designers procrastinate over making work for themselves. I know of one or two designers who have spent years creating their own portfolio sites. I know others who just don’t even bother.

Is it the courage required to state our own point of view? To not have a client to blame as to why we ended up with a certain color? Are we lazy? Or are we fickle like the fashionistas that most of us are, and by the time we finish one design, we want to re-do it all over again (gray is so yesterday). Or is it just that our attention, time and effort seem better spent doing “billable” work?

Well, in DesignStamp’s case it is a bit of all of the above. (Especially the last reason!)

This year continues to be very busy.

DesignStamp is now a collective as I wanted it to be. I have the privilege of working with a creative, diverse group of people. And we get solve problems. Everyday.

We are lucky to have clients who give us the leeway to be able to not just build another website or create another tradeshow sign, but also provide consultation on brand and design from a holistic point of view. How does this piece fit into where you want to go next?

I talk about Unique Selling Proposition(USP) in my branding class at VFS. DesignStamp’s USP is solving problems. Design problems to be specific. But then again, design problems are the basis for most of world’s problems…aren’t they? Look at the debate over Iraq’s flag redesign. Or why people spend probably spend more time complaining about their computers and software, than their boss! Bad design is all around us and drives us all nuts.

So here we go. Welcome to DesignStamp. We solve the world’s problems.

(and I never use smileys)

Gagan