A Graphic Design Fable

I’ve been trying to find a suitable vehicle to retell the eighteen camels fable ever since Professor Martin Kornberger introduced me to it as a way of articulating the positive impact brand strategy and design has on our clients’ growth.

Although used as an analogy for the positive virtues of negotiation, to me it primarily explains what we do as ‘problem-solvers’ in the design industry.

Designed and produced as a limited edition screen print, the A1 poster is a response to a brief by Archive Foundry.

The creative world is an emotional one, where it’s all too easy to take up adversarial positions. But the very thing that transports practitioners to those places – creative skills – can also deliver them from it. This applies to how we solve the problems our clients bring us, and how we deal with internal pain points throughout the creative process. That the fable is a false construct doesn’t matter, it encourages us to widen the net whilst looking at a problem, to see the bigger picture, to utilise critical thinking and analysis to hopefully create magic.

As Professor Martin Kornberger himself says, "The 18th camel is a wonderful metaphor for elegant and effective problem solving: it teaches us to be a catalyst, an enabler, an influencer."

Full poster text: Many years ago, a man died and left his fortune — a herd of camels — to his three sons; one-half to the oldest, one-third to the second son, and one-ninth to the youngest. However, there was a problem — he had only 17 camels. A dispute quickly arose among the brothers. The eldest son, an Access and Inclusivity Consultant, argued that the father’s will was in error because one-half, one-third, and one-ninth do not add up to a whole. He felt he should receive all the camels because this was the tradition in the community. The middle son, a Biophilic Design expert, said his wife had the potential to be very ill and pleaded for an extra camel so that he could sustain his family. Although the story was not true, it seemed like a good idea at the time to get that extra camel at all costs and deal with the family fallout later. The youngest and most untrustworthy son, a Marketeer, argued that what was allocated to him was actually one-sixth because a number reversal had occurred. The adversarial negotiation escalated. The feud became so heated that the families did not speak to each other. The brothers no longer allowed their children to play together and terminated all joint ventures between themselves. One of the siblings (the Marketeer) even thought of killing some of the camels or one of his brothers. The brothers desperately needed to resolve this conflict. They finally agreed to go to a wise old woman in the community, a Graphic Designer, and tell her of their problem. They gave her the right to arbitrate their dispute and to dictate a solution. She said, you are fortunate in that I am old and unable to ride my camel anymore. Why don’t you take my camel? Then you will have 18 camels and you can divide them among the three of you.” The brothers gave half (or 9) of the 18 camels to the eldest son, a third (or 6) of them to the second son and a ninth (or 2) of them to the youngest son. One camel remained. The brothers were able to agree that they should return it to the old woman.