Paying for Design
Given Apple’s recent success, driven in large part by their awesome industrial design, I can’t stop wondering why Dell – or some other large manufacturer – doesn’t invest even a small amount in design.
Then I realize that good design doesn’t come from “throwing money” at it. Most companies can’t just hire a design team and suddenly have awesome products. Why? Because their culture won’t allow it.
There are plenty of companies out there that spend good money on design, yet their products (websites, style, you-name-it) suck. Why? I’ve written on Loud Dog’s blog about “big D” versus “little d” design, but it goes beyond that.
Many companies simply have a culture that prevents them from aligning with good design. Executives in the company can recognize good design if they see it – they’ll think Apple’s stuff is amazing, and love some minimalist site they see – but they don’t think of it in terms of their company.
When it comes time to design something, they sit down and say, “We want something like beautiful site X.” But we want to add a few things that we feel we need to in order to sell our product. Is company X selling a product? Yes. Whether they are in the same space or not, is their product significantly better? Frequently, no. Well, then, how are they able to get away with a minimalist (yet powerful) message, while you feel compelling to throw everything up there?
Worse are people that really do like ugly designs. Still, they won’t think that Apple’s designs are ugly. Why not? I don’t know.