Post-event

The event inspired an editorial in Design Week (12 May 2005 [paid sub required]), in which editor Lynda Relph-Knight argued the event should have focused on “genuinely new ways to run a creative business” and claimed that “there is nothing new about these thoughts”. “However well-trodden the arguments at last week’s debate”, Relph-Knight continues, “few [designers from non-product disciplines] have managed a major shift in their relationships with clients.”

Isn’t going beyond fees a ‘genuinely new ways to run a creative business’? Where is this issue being discussed more radically? The ‘well-trodden’ theme we chose was in fact one suggested to me as a potential commission by Design Week, and I have never seen a feature on this theme in the magazine. For an event presenting ‘nothing new’ to sell out and bring in 70 people is remarkable. And if a ‘major shift’ in client relationships hasn’t been achieved then more work is needed, by Own It, Design Week and others.

Background

I proposed, programmed and chaired this event, working with Marice Cumber of Own It. The event pitch and panelists’ biographies can be found on the Own It event page.

Own It is a partnership between Creative London, the London College of Communication, the University of the Arts London, and offers free intellectual property advice for London’s creative people. www.own-it.org

Panelists

Neil Baron, Senior designer/creative, Seymourpowell
Heath Kane, Principal, Heath Kane Design
Matthew Grey, Senior Creative, Therefore Ltd
Margaret Briffa, Founding Partner, Briffa & Co.
Chair: Nico Macdonald, writer and design industry consultant

Introductions

I may write up notes from the panelists introducions. Please email me if you would like to be notified when such notes are posted.

Audience discussion

These comments have not been checked with the contributors, and are not to be directly cited without consultation.

Neil Gibb If a designer works on a fee basis the client doesn’t ask for the fee back if the product isn’t a success! There has to be risk-reward. The key to this discussion is brand.

Matt Note that Alba-Bush had drained the value out of their brands.

Neil Gibb Do we need to get back to the time when the designer-maker created the brand.

Heath Issue of clients buying back into design

Neil Brands do decline if they don’t continue to make good products [from the audience: For instance Rover!]

Costas Michalia If we went to our clients with an IP-based proposal 50-70% of them would say ‘See you later!’

Heath Need to foster risk and reward [ie: demonstrate the upside of the offer]

Matt Are you dropping your fees accordingly [ie: to demonstrating the upside?

Costas Michalia We need high profile companies on our client list, and they are inflexible about these issues

Neil IP-based offers can work where there is an existing relationship

Chair But the saving on design for a company such as Nike make only be a small part of the cost (risk) of making a new product a designer takes to them

Tim Webb-Jenkins Marketing departments are more and more aggressive in dealings with designers. They can see the power of design [ie: holding on to IP?] even if designers can’t.

Chair Perhaps you should go back to clients with a hard-nosed IP-based proposal

Tim Webb-Jenkins Potential clients don’t take you seriously if you pitch low. Hard to get commitment from clients, financial or otherwise, and clients are quick to run away. If you do establish a relationship it is then hard to get equity [ie: re-negotiate the relationship].

Heath It is important to get passionate clients, and to show true innovation

Matt Show the value, eg: offsetting payment for three years. There is a difference in the way that brand-only companies and brand-added companies (such as Alba) will behave [ie: brand-only companies will tend to not let any other part have part of their IP].

Shane I am in a partnership engineering startup, and it have tended to be naïve about what designers have to offer [check]

Film-maker How can you justify the concept of owning an idea?

Moving image-based producer Our biggest IP issue is the Creative Commons pressure to give back IP.

Chair [Explains what Creative Commons is.] Is there a difference between sharing IP in the arts, where creativity is more universal, and in design, where it takes the form of solutions for clients aimed at particular audiences? Also, artistic works tend to be discrete and protectable, where design solutions are harder to identify.

Paul Rochester When you patent an idea you find that all too soon it has been copied, eg: the wireless mouse

Chair Paul Priestman, of Priestman Goode, talks about designing things that are hard to copy in low cost economies because of the cost of the tooling and complexity of the manufacturing processes. Apple products, with the double-injection-moulding cases seem to be designed to be hard to copy.

Neil Gibb Dynamics of first movers in a new area of design [references an interview project he is working on]

Neil We will see a resurgence in real experience and deliverables. We will get better at fulfilling on the promise.

Chair Don’t just look at discrete products but at the services that support them, eg: technical support, updates. These are harder to reproduce.

Matt Things only get ripped off when they are successful, so it is a good sign. [Tells story of the Pokia bakelite wireless handset.]

Heath [Tells story of Mark Newson realising he was a success when he saw one of his watch designs ripped off.]

Neil You can’t own an idea that is in the public domain. Patents are legal monopolies [that require an idea be revealed].

Chair Patents and IP are generally understood to be a necessary evil. According to the legislator Thomas Macaulay “We must submit to the evil, but the evil ought not to last a day longer than is necessary for the purpose of securing the good”.

?? When is something plagiarism and when is it re-appropriation?

Heath any communication design is the same idea with new spin. Everything draws on some inspiration.

Chair Design is about finding the best solution to a clients problem for intended audiences. If the design solutions found is the best the fact that it draws on other design elements is simple re-appropriation rather than plagiarism.