I chose the header above because I was too stressed for click bait. Which I find super corny.
Other headers like 'Design Problems Businesses face.' 'The place of Design in Business?' were considered. But I went for simplicity and minimalism, my favorite flavor of design.
I obviously need to work on crafting the perfect header. Sigh.
The purpose of this challenge is to create content that would eventually drive sales (Not so sure this will), But I'll write it anyways because it feels heartfelt and I want this to mean something.
So I kept seeing this topic in my head, I'd written out the initially proposed header(s) in more than one place but this has somehow stuck.
I want to possibly write on something else, but I can't. Is this a design burden I'm unconsciously carrying? Is this fate?
For those who don't know, I started my own Brand & Design Agency with my talented friend and designer Damilola called 'Thedorknight inc'.
I have great taste in general aesthetics and a keen eye for good design, coupled with some amazing people skills to build clientele and sell us, with Dami focused on creating amazing style scapes, logos and graphics…it was a match made in heaven.
We felt like Steve Jobs and Wozniak, like Jordan and Pippen, like Ozil and Ronaldo, the perfect partnership with the world at our feet and we were gonna explore and seize it.
Don't get me wrong, we are doing pretty great for a young partnership and this isn't a sad story or anything. But a couple weeks in, so many experiences, diverse clientele, different jobs, and the over-thinker that I am hasn't failed to pop up, analyse and reanalyze everything.
I mean I see the industry so clearly. I see how this weird beautiful thing called Design plays such a pivotal role in Business and the corporate world.
In advertisement, in marketing, in sales and profit making. The possibilities are endless, the market seemingly infinite, but sometimes it appears no one else sees her (Design) in this light. Especially Nigerian business owners. (At least a good number of the ones I've worked with so far). You talk about having a discovery session and it is suddenly like you're speaking a foreign language.
I follow or have networked my way into many small business and design circles, (too many maybe) and I can't help but feel like people still aren't aware of the power of Design and the role it plays, even with the huge… believe me, huge community of Designers and Brand strategists. Or they heard it before somewhere or so many times, it has become like a bedtime story…easily forgotten the morning after.
I mean I understand the place of selling myself and what I do, but from my perspective, what we do is so paramount to the target market that they should be running after us, I mean I shouldn't have to say too much. Aren't you trying to grow this business seed into a tall huge tree with branches and fruit.
DESIGN & MARKETING ARE JUST AS OR OFTEN TIMES MORE IMPORTANT THAN ENGINEERING.
‘Engineering’ is code for building the product or service, whatever it is.
Designing and seeking out the perfect brand strategy is just as or more important than the hours spent baking and frying if that's what you do in simpler terms.
Design in all its shades; Product design, Brand design, Art campaigns and advertisement.
The Greatest companies prove this. Procter & Gamble, General Electric and my favs Apple are all companies that take Design and Innovation very, very seriously.
The Design teams and Creative Directors have their chairs pulled out for them during strategy meetings there. It is no coincidence they sit on top of the industry pyramid.. So I'm left pondering…
Why is something such as important and vital to business as Design experiencing such a lag in Demand?
People hit you up for their official brand logo and come with a N5000 budget.
Is this a joke to you? Am I a joke to you? Do you even take your business seriously?
As a veteran consumer of everything from food, to media, to tangible products, I can tell you almost for certain that the Nike logo in itself sells half their products.
It is Perfection. It whispered itself to the designer. It should be recorded as a singular moment of brilliance in history.
So Why is Design so overlooked or downplayed by Nigerian businesses? Especially the small growing ones who need to stand out the most and build an identity?
Why is there such an unstable demand for Design? When it's undeniable place in businesses is seemingly glaring? Are we that insensitive to the answers staring us in our faces, crying at the city gates and bidding us come?
This is an existential post. I can't help it. I want to write and have all the answers, but right now in this moment, I don't think I do. Maybe it's the sad mellow jazz record playing in the background, maybe I'm paranoid.
But most days I wake up with a burst of energy ready to take on my world because like scripture the harvest seems ripe and the labourers few. And other days I feel like I do right now in this moment. Contemplating the market and the cause of this carefree lack of insight from the business world to the inert potential of Design to help a business and company thrive.
So were do we go from here? Do we have a future? Are we an irrelevant tribe? Are intelligent, bright entrepreneurs who understand the place of Design an extinct specie? Questions, Questions…
Top of my head I can tell you the issue.
It starts with an upper-case 'I' and ends with an 'E'...yup, guessed it, IGNORANCE.
And the solution is Education. Hopefully, I muster enough courage to constantly do that on this platform.
Train designers and teach the people they work with to understand, incorporate and foster the super, not so secret power of design, branding and innovation.
The first and major problem Businesses encounter and experience with Design is IGNORANCE. The Power of it, the 'Why' of it, and the 'How To' of it.
I'm making some sort of pact or commitment to consequently talk about these aspects and hopefully bring some enlightenment on here.
There is such a huge future and market power set for companies and businesses who would decide to learn, embrace and harness the power of design.
Hopefully I'm left with this burden and go more in-depth.
Keep an eye out for the next post?
Signing and sighing out, Mezie.