Design Agencies
When I graduated from design school, design agencies were the place to work. Firms like IDEO, Frog, Design Continuum, Lunar, Teague, Palo Alto Design and many others led the industry with breakthrough innovations across consumer and industrial products. Looking at the list of IDEA awards in 2007, IDEO topped the list with seven awards and epitomized the creative vanguard. Agencies were the “it” place where designers pushed boundaries and on the cover of magazines.
That same year saw the launch of the iPhone, heralding a new era focused on digital experience design. As mobile transformed our workplaces, homes, and schools, user experience (UX) became the new frontier. Demand for UX designers exploded, spurring the growth of digital agencies like Razorfish, RGA, and Huge. It also led big tech like Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft to build in-house design teams, recognizing design's power to captivate and engage customers to drive growth.
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In-house design teams were focused on scaling and iterating digital experiences through new talent, tools, systems, and processes. For new graduates, these roles promised learning, career growth, and compensation exceeding most of the industry. In-house design became the "it" place for designers. This shift also changed the agencies landscape, with many consolidating into management and strategic consulting firms like McKinsey, BCG, EY and PwC to offer digital transformation with design services.
Today design agencies are still vital - especially in emerging spaces beyond a client's core business. However, perhaps remote work and the structural changes of in-house design has enabled a new agency model - the on-demand networks of specialists who synthesize diverse stakeholder needs into holistic solutions. Will a collective of globally distributed creatives be the future - flexibility without bureaucracy or the annual budget constraints and return to office focus.
Is the design agency 2.0 the new inhouse design model? What are the tradeoffs in knowledge capture, culture and career development with the flexibility and creative opportunities?
Innovation Strategist | Startup Catalyst | Performance Coach
1 年Agree with Alexander Jeongco's fractional design talent model where we can also go broad with more Open Innovation platforms tapping into generative co-creation. And go deep with domain-specific design startup studios with leaner teams of specialists with a specific POV.
New paradigms leaving old ideas behind? Perhaps based on sharing the value with creatives? Not just the Leaders that sell out to Accenture, CapGem, McKinsey and PA etc?
Co-founder / Visual at Totem
1 年Does it have to be scalable or could it be surgically precise to support internal teams? Many smaller squads that are agile or big agencies running a vision? Somewhere in between? It's a good question!
Hands on Mechanical Engineering Leader bringing Hardware to Life.
1 年As John mentioned, it is a question agencies have grappled with since their inception. How to ride out the dips...how to compete with corporate perks/pay for talent...how to command the value we bring...how to let founders retire.... What has changed that we could take advantage of? No office, less overhead? Work from anywhere, so lower salaries? Corporate America knows now it needs design, but it isn't the "new/bright" shiny thing anymore. MidJourney making design faster? Cheap teams in India? Monetization of "views"/"followers"? OnlyFans for designers, premium content? What new business model can we prototype? Is there still room/need/desire for the star designers...? the Pharrell Williams and Kanye's leading firms? Somehow train AI on the process/nuance, not the final results? Maybe there will be AI backlash, "designed by a human, AI free" like "made in america"... I admire anyone putting up their shingle and making a go of it!
I have also been keeping an eye on the Neol concept which, I think, is a different than the Kyu concept. Neol seems to be about individual talents being pulled from a pool of curated talent whereas Kyu seems to be a collective of firms that can work together on projects bringing their various expertise. IInteresting that these are all connected in a way that feels a little like a conglomerate. I do know that pulling teams of talented folks together to work on a project is pretty challenging when it comes to physical product design and likely all other kinds of design. It's all about relationships and trust. A talent by themselves has to establish that they will be able to deliver and it is hard to do as single person. If the organization seeking design trusts the network then it can be interesting, but ultimately, I believe it will be cells of design talents that have proven there work together that will rise to the top and they may act a lot like a traditional design firm albeit from different locations. I may be biased as a principal of a design firm, but there is another element that is sought for by a "client" and that is accountability. If loose networks can provide accountability for each other's efforts maybe it works.