Executive Roundtable Monday, September 29, 2008 The business of design is rapidly evolving, and with looming issues like shrinking client budgets, new technologies, and the green revolution staring studios in the face, there are a lot of variables to factor in when looking toward the future of the industry. Design execs from across the creative realm are buzzing about how the creative world is changing, how to protect the value of ideas in a down economy, where the industry is headed, and how their recruiting practices are evolving. Five execs (Reggie Amos, chief creative officer, Square Mile Studio; Tom Bowman, president, Bowman Design Group; Jan Lorenc, principal, Lorenc+Yoo Design; Jack Rouse, founder, Jack Rouse Associates; Erik Ulfers, chief creative officer, Clickspring Design) weigh in: Event Design: What are the biggest changes this industry has seen over the past few years? Tom Bowman: The gradual tightening of the budget continues. There are fewer big, glamorous builds going on, so industry designers are challenged to do more with less. To still create interesting and engaging brand presentations, when we’re reusing more properties and clients are less likely to invest in video programs, rich materials, and those types of things. The trick with clients who are having their budgets cut is to get them to think beyond logistics and think about finding ways to position their brands and tell good stories, even though they don’t have as much money to spend on the obvious tools. Reggie Amos: We live in a world where things have to happen almost immediately. Our client base puts a lot of pressure on all of our firms, and they expect more in a lesser amount of time. We really have to be able to think very quickly on our feet, because we don’t always have the time to ponder and think things through like we used to. Where we used to have a process in which we would go through a very distinct discovery phase, understand what the client wants, and define that for them—all of that has to happen at the same time now. It’s also getting harder and harder to actually get in front of clients and do live presentations. A lot of the presentations are now electronic presentations the client will look at on their own, and there’s not as much of a direct connection there. Erik Ulfers: Clients are much more conscious about their budget dollars. What it’s forced us to do is rationalize those dollars. It shifts us away as designers from an intuitive response to a very thoroughly researched and developed product. There’s nothing wrong with the intuitive, but our clients are asking why? Why does it look like this, what does it mean, and what does it communicate? ED: How do you protect the value of great design in a down economy? Jack Rouse: You adapt to the aspirations and the budget of the clients in good times and in bad times; in good times it may be a little easier. Clients that are design-conscious are not going to cut back on the quality of the design, they may cut back on the quantities of things that they do. Some people would rather do it right and wait until they have the funds to do it, rather than just doing something to get it done. And you know what? So would we. Jan Lorenc: It is especially critical to do the right thing if you are doing less marketing in more select markets. It’s more important to do the right thing the first time and not doing it partially 100 times. It is never as effective. Amos: We don’t lay out plans from beginning to end and have clients spend resources as we’re trying to understand what they’re doing.  Once we get through that discovery phase, the clock is running and we’re working on something specifically focused on solving their problem. A lot of the clients we work with appreciate that, because if you don’t do that they may hold info back because they are trying to minimize the amount of time they’re spending. ED: How are your design teams creative capabilities evolving? Bowman: We’ve become a lot more skilled with interactive media than we used to be. We used to buy that service entirely. We would do the creative direction storyboards, screen layouts, but we now have designers who can do a lot of Flash animation programming and sophisticated computer interactive programming. We still buy some of the really tricky stuff, but not as much as we used to. Rouse: We’re adapting to technology and to the time that clients have to deal with these things. Sometimes it’s much more efficient to do this stuff collaboratively, whether it’s video conferencing or collaborative computing, but that doesn’t really affect the underlying profession of design, it’s really a question of how it’s delivered.   Lorenc: We are now in charge of the overall interior design including furniture, interactive media partners, and marketing visuals. Being in charge of all visual elements in the space, not just the exhibit, the sound, the performance, the film /interactive media is managed by our firm. We are partnered with firms in China, Korea, Dubai, and Poland and do work in those areas with more to come. Our alliances are the way to go for a firm our size to be able to function in far away places. ED: Are your recruiting practices changing? Bowman: We tend to employ a smaller, more expert staff than we did in the past. Everybody who’s a fairly senior-level designer can also do drafting work efficiently. We focus on a smaller staff of more senior, agile, multi-dimensional people. We have to find people who fit well now—who fit our small teamwork-oriented model, who have really good design sensitivity and are willing to pick up new skills quickly. We get a lot of referrals from people who work here—it’s very hard to find designers out of the blue. The fit is harder to find than it used to be. Amos: We get portfolios from students out of school, and I try to look at as many designers who are graduating as I can. We have interns come in and work with us, and it gives us a sense of what they’re capable of and how much enthusiasm they have. I’m looking for the next crop of really great designers. They’re fun to work with, too. Where they lack experience on the business side, they’re wide open in their thinking. I’d always rather have a designer that I have to reign in than have to tell them to be more creative. Lorenc: We no longer use headhunters: the designers never fit the bill in the long run, they tend to not be a good fit and do not last for the long haul. I speak at various universities and stay in touch with the professors about new and older grads whom they stay in touch with. I talk to our vendors who work with other designers that may be looking for a change. I have had great luck with our professional society SEGD and used their job bank with great success on the last two hires. I give talks at conferences at which designers hear our philosophy and come up to me afterwards so we get more resumes from around the globe, much more than we could ever use, so we have built our best team ever by staying very small. ED: What issues will be on the front burner a year or two down the line? Ulfers: I think measurement is critical, and I don’t think anyone has cracked that code yet. Our clients want to know that their dollars are having an impact and an effect on their bottom line. I think everybody’s tried to figure out how to do that, but it tends to be a softer validation than a hard number. So nobody’s really figured out how to measure impact. Rouse: If there’s any upside to hard times, it’s that you’re forced to wring out inefficiencies that you took for granted. And if you’ve got any sense at all, you don’t put them back in place once the halcyon days return. There is a discipline that comes into play when financial realities are forced upon you, as opposed to you having to make the tedious decision between quality and price within your own organization. Sometimes it takes the outside world to force you to the right decision. Bowman: If oil prices continue to rise, what becomes of trade show exhibiting? If the cost of shipping and air travel continues to rise, where does that put the industry? Do exhibits become smaller and simpler, do we do more building or renting in the city where the show is? Do we do more regional shows and fewer big national shows? I have a feeling that’s the kind of thing we’ll be talking about.
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