Brand-Driven Change

Any agency worth its salt will make it clear that your brand is more than your logo: it’s your values, what you stand for, the experience that your customers have at every touch point.

We believe your brand is your engine of change: the driving force behind the culture you build, the decisions you make and the behaviours you inspire.

As the common touch point for customers, staff, directors, suppliers and shareholders alike, your brand is the crucible of sustainable change within your organisation.

When built properly—when designed—it stimulates desire, loyalty, motivation and trust, internally and externally. It drives change that all stakeholders can participate in, contribute to and own. Yes, you might need research and insight, strategy and creative, social and digital. But what you definitely do need is Brand-Driven Change.

But don’t worry, it’s what we do. If you would like to run a Brand-Driven Change workshop contact our Creative Director, Simon, for details.

What Is Design | The Power of Linkedin

"Design is not just what is looks and feels like. Design is how it works." Steve Jobs once said this, in relation to Apple product, and he was right. He still is right. As a designer, you can quickly get caught up in how something looks, whether you're happy with the design you've settled on for a client, but it is a whole other job to actually design something that changes people's lives.

Linkedin is a place to see how and where you stand as a professional, build and keep in touch with your network, and get the knowledge you need to progress. Sounds like a huge task doesn't it? That's because with something as potentially powerful as Linkedin it has to work in a way that will suit and benefit every single user.

To make Linkedin work there are a number of things that have to be the main focus -

1. A strong brand that can sit with other successful social platforms.
2. Smart user interface that is simple and easy to use.
3. A strong understanding of the human mind to give the user exactly what they will want and need.

Creating something like Linkedin, when nothing like it has been done before (bar Facebook) will have been a mammoth task. So design isn't just how something looks, but how it works too. How it works technically and how it works to benefit each and every user. What is design to you? Share your thoughts over in our Linkedin group and keep the discussion going!

What Is Design | Design Thinking

Design Thinking is a way of strategising for designers to help them solve complex problems for their clients, that put the consumer first.

Many ways of building a strategy are from looking from the outside, but design thinking is putting yourself on the inside. For example, thinking like a consumer, or potential customer, will give you a different idea of where to start than if you stay in the mind of 'just a designer'.

Design isn't just creativity and skill, it's finding a way to the desired outcome, while being functional, beautiful and simplistic. It involves both logical analysis and imagination.

Design can be, and is, applied to everything you ever see. Products, services, buildings, fashion, advertising, physical locations… anything that involves human interaction or use. It is also used for processes, which play a big part in the way we work, live and interact with others. Design is everything, and everywhere.

What do you design? Would you call yourself a designer? Leave your thoughts on www.whatisdesign.co.uk

What Is Design | The Concept of Collaboration

When you think of well known designers, you are aware of their individual projects and their most successful work. You also think of the studios they have worked in. One thing that can easily be overlooked, in design and in design studios, is the benefit and the positive effect of collaboration.

What Is Collaboration?

Collaboration is 'the action of working with someone to produce something'. Whether it be a designer and writer working together, or designers sharing their knowledge and skill with each other, collaborating is the relationship that is built between different minds. 

In design, collaboration can form ideas from multiple perspectives, beliefs, tastes and skill sets. You may have one person who has a more vast knowledge of typography, and another who has a skill for brand building. Whatever an individual is capable of doing, or how experience they are, collaboration can be beneficial with any and all projects.

What Can Collaboration Do For Design?

What do you think collaboration can do for design? This is where you weigh in. Let us know what you think collaboration is, means and can do for design and designers alike.

Just go to www.whatisdesign.co.uk and leave your thoughts and comments there!

What Is Design | A New Home for Design Museum

The Design Museum, is one of the world's leading museum devoted to contemporary design in every form from architecture and fashion to graphics, product and industrial design.

In 2008, following a long search for larger premises, the Design Museum selected the former Commonwealth Institute building in Kensington High Street, West London, as its new home.

This unique landmark from the 1960s, a Grade II* listed building that stood vacant for over a decade, is being transformed by a design team led by John Pawson who will make the building fit for a 21st century museum, whilst at the same time retaining its unique spatial quality.

The Arts Council awarded a £3 million grant to the Design Museum, which will go towards the transformation of the Design Museum Kensington. The move will give the museum three times more space than in its current location at Shad Thames.

There will also be improved learning facilities and a dedicated gallery to display its permanent collection, which will be accessible free of charge. It will bring the museum into Kensington’s cultural quarter, where it will join the Royal College of Art, V&A, Science Museum, Natural History Museum and Serpentine Gallery.


What are your thoughts on the new Design Museum? Why not share them over on our What Is Design website?

It's official - We're Growth Accelerators and Growth Voucher Advisers!

At DFA, design is more than visual appearance and marketing communication. Design, used properly, is your engine for commercial growth. Our Brand Driven Change framework outlines how we use design to engage customers and drive sales externally, whilst motivating colleagues and building culture internally.

In recognition of the commercial focus of our design approach, we have recently been given preferred supplier status as part of the government-backed Growth Accelerator Programme (GAP) and Growth Voucher Advisers.

GAP and Growth Voucher offers match funding for development projects that can be shown to drive commercial growth. Get in touch if you'd like to know about applying for funding, with DFA as your design partner.

Introducing... DePol

Leyland-based DePol Associates are our second Growth Accelerator and Growth Voucher client. This rapidly growing team of planning consultants has commissioned DFA to help develop a brand presence capable of driving their ambitious growth plans.

Starting with exploratory workshops with staff, we are now in the process of conducting primary qualitative research with the firm's customer base as a foundation for providing brand strategy and development recommendations by the end of July.

What Is Design, and What Is It Worth?

Design is everywhere you look, and to some, design is everything. But, what is design worth?

Robert L Peters is a designer and principal of Circle, a design consultancy he co-founded in 1976 in Canada. He gave worth to design with just one quote "Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future." If this is true, and design really does determine the future, then the work designers do goes beyond their knowledge of Adobe, kerning and colour palettes. A designer's job, if this is the case, is to create work that has a positive effect on the future, and that's a lot of responsibility to carry as an individual. The design itself, also has a responsibility to translate its meaning as clearly as possible, which surely increases the importance and worth of design?

If design is everything, then wouldn't everyone be a designer? Emily Pilloton thought so when she said, "I believe that design is problem solving with grace and foresight. I believe that there is always a better way. I believe that design is a human instinct, that people are inherently optimistic, that every man is a designer, and that every problem can either be defined as a design problem or solved with a design solution." Are you a designer? Do you believe everyone is in their own way? If everyone was a designer, would it lower the value of designers? Can everything be defined as a design problem, or solved with a design solution?

What are your thoughts? Why not share them in our Linkedin Group, on Twitter, on our What Is Design website. or by tagging us in a picture or video on Instagram?

We'd love to know what you think!

What Is Design?

Design Force Is Changing

Like most industry professionals, we’re normally too busy doing design to actually stop and think about what exactly design is. But all that’s about to change. As are we. Why? Because after 16 years in the business, working on everything from brand identity, comms and advertising, to research and insight, strategic development and internal change, we don’t think our current name says everything we want it to. So Design Force is evolving and to help us, we’re asking the question – What is Design?

To try and find the answer, we’re embarking on a quest to discover what you think design is. Which is why, over the next few months, we’ll be asking as many people as possible to finish the following sentence:

What Is Design?

We’d love to hear what you think. Post a comment, take a snap, or scribble a doodle. In fact do whatever it takes to share your definition of design.

Share Your Thoughts

There are many ways you can get involved. Send us a quick tweet to let us know what it means to you. Get involved in our discussions over in our Linkedin group, we want to hear what it means to everyone, no matter what you do for a living!

If you're feeling creative, why not use the hashtag #whatisdesign and create a picture or video on Instagram. We'd love to see and share your work!

We can't wait to see what you all think of design!

Case Study | Liverpool College: Learning with Character

As it negotiated the transition to Academy status, this prestigious independent college promised the best of both worlds: modern education powered by traditional values. However, working with a 170-year heritage, a dynamic, progressive Principal realised that if this was to become a reality, something had to change.

Our work with the Principal and Governors helped DEFINE the change that was required. Interestingly for a college, the challenge wasn’t about grades. It was more about the type of learner its schools were producing and the extent to which they were prepared for the challenge of modern life.

Our RESEARCH showed that the school’s tradition—encapsulated in its motto, ‘Not only the intellect, but also the character’—was simultaneously its most valuable asset and its biggest liability. Rather than inspiring the resilience and strength required for success in the modern world, staff and pupils interpreted ‘character’ in terms of ‘individuality’—personal expression through extra curricular activities.

The task was now clear: reclaim the motto. We needed to rebuild the concept of ‘character’ to make it resonant with its true meaning: resilience, confidence and moral strength. And we needed to infiltrate the culture of the school and the behaviours of its staff and pupils with this refreshed understanding.

Based on this killer insight we developed range of internal communications and individual brand platforms for each of the college’s 5 schools to ENABLE a process of culture change across the college and support the practical changes that had been made to lesson plans and teaching practices.

By monitoring student and staff performance against key metrics associated with the concept of Character, we are undertaking ongoing MEASUREMENT of the impact that Brand Drive Change is having on Liverpool College.

Case Study | KB Packaging: Sharing the Load

Midlands-based packaging company KB Packaging was approaching its 30th Anniversary. The board realised that in order to achieve their commercial and personal ambitions, something had to change.

Working closely with management team, we DEFINED the required change. Specific turnover and margin targets provided the foundation, but personal ambitions for a better work/life balance and a more collaborative internal culture were equally important.

In-depth primary RESEARCH delivered the essence of the KB brand. We realised that whilst KB was a packaging business, it was really in the business of solving problems. That’s what the people at KB did, day-in-day-out—for each other and for customers. It’s what they loved doing. It’s what they’re good at. It’s what customers want.

This killer insight served as a catalyst to ENABLE change across the business. ‘Sharing the Load’ became the core brand purpose: the conviction that inspired internal teams, guided employee behaviours and corporate strategy and communicated tangible value to customers.

As the co-creators of the new brand position, all staff gathered for a launch event to ACTIVATE change. By visualising the business as an interconnected system, we triggered a fresh approach to HR based on an understanding of how each colleague was vital to the wider success of the business—how KB shares the load with colleagues.

By creating a brand-driven suite of marketing material and sales training, we clearly demonstrated how KB’s products and services add commercial value to client businesses—how KB shares the load with customers.
 
Clear baselines were established at the outset as the foundations for hard-and-fast MEASUREMENT of our Brand Driven Change. Focusing on commercial metrics based on turnover, profitable sales and growth of key sectors, and internal metrics based on staff satisfaction, we will be reviewing performance against baselines at 6 and 12 months.

Design Is | An Insight To Saul Bass

Design can mean something different from one person to the next. Whether you are a designer, or you work with designers, you can understand it in completely different ways.

Saul Bass, an American graphic designer, said "design is thinking made visual". Best known for his design of film posters and title sequences, you can see why he thought this. With film, a poster or title sequence must explain not only the story in one image, but the themes and genre that run through it.

Design isn't just how it looks, it's an explanation of what the design is for and is about. 'Symbolize & Summarize' is how Saul Bass put it. This is what he did throughout his film work, most evidently in his work for Hitchcock.

Even when design has a purpose, which most of the time it does, there's always an element of artistry and care that goes into a designer's work. Saul Bass said "I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares." and I think deep down that's what we all want. Whether it's for a client, or for ourselves, there's a feeling that what you're creating is a form of art and like everything in life, you can't please everybody so it's better to go with what you think, or even know, is right.

What do you think of design? Do you agree with Saul Bass?

Let us know on our Linkedin discussion group or tweet us!

You can also send us your thoughts in word or design form on our What Is Design? site!

We help Kleeneze break free!

One of the country’s longest established and most successful shop-from-home companies has introduced a new suite of business development tools with our help.

Kleeneze, based in Accrington, is famous for its home, health & beauty, cookery and seasonal ranges.  The company has built its business around distributors circulating catalogues and collecting orders from consumers in their community.

With Kleeneze ambitious to grow across 2011, it commissioned Design Force to create a suite of business development tools that would enable existing Kleeneze distributors to recruit additional support to expand their sales area.

Simon says “Break Free” highlighted both the commercial strength of the Kleeneze business model and the quality and diversity of the company’s product ranges.  “In many ways, we have positioned Kleeneze’s products at the centre of the story.  Millions of consumers every year recognise that much of the Kleeneze range is unique – and this is an important element of attracting new people to help sell the range.”

Kleeneze’s Head of Marketing Chris Hinds said we had captured the essence of what the company’s proposition and personality was all about.  “Ultimately, our business is built around our distributors and their dedication to providing a great service to customers, teamed with their enthusiasm for sharing the business opportunity with others. Design Force understood the importance of this, and have helped us articulate this message simply, powerfully and effectively.”