Dear Deepankar,

I am responding to the last paragraph in your post.
You said:

"I conclude that this ability needs to be part of the
> designers's vocabulary, also the designer must be
> able to look at the very big picture and understand
> something of what the manager and the accountant are
> talking about. Only then is s/he practising
> 'Design', everything else is styling and low level
> stuff best left to the amateurs."

I agree that the designer has to be able to get across
to the questions of a 'brand manager' or the accounts
manager in 'justifying' his 'design innovation'. But
more often than not it becomes an exercise of the
design solution being used by the brand manager to buy
in his superiors by saying 'if you use single colour
graphics then you can use X type of reproduction and
you will be saving on Y amount in outdoor advertising
budget'. Similarily the account manager will be
looking at ways and means to project his 'cost
cutting' acumen by squeezing the design 'budget' (save
on costs of acquiring/hiring dtp machines/personnel).
So there is a danger of 'playing to the gallery'. And
it is seen without exception that if the
person/department at the helm of affairs is convinced
to use design intelligently for 'effect', these piddly
(i would call it piddly) cost savings are of no
'value'. In the Mobil case if the 'brand manager' was
able to see the 'value' in first place what the
make-over to its fleet can do to its market then 'cost
of change' will not make any sense. 'Cost' is the most
powerful weapon which everybody in the corporate uses
without discretion to 'quash' innovation at the
budding stage.

However like other professions the designer has to do
the convincing to the management (the
stakeholder)about the trade offs and help to take the
project to its practical 'implementable' end.

Often people say that designers should talk in
'numbers' as well because that is the language of 'run
of the mill managers'. I do agree that designers
should have a broad knowledge of business, market,
finance and technology but they need not become one
such manager while trying to justify their own work.
In my opinion we get most respected when we have some
value to offer (from the design domain) which others
cannot which is definitely 'form and function' and
much more as mentioned by you. I am sure such an
exercise will not be called 'all style no substance'
or 'amateurish'.

Siddharth Dash
AEP PD 1992
Mumbai



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