Daily Design Reflection

Creativity + Risk =
The answer to which is calculated from the designers perspective, (note: implemented by their unique skill level) coupled with the natural free will of a consumer/audience reaction. Indeed, design is the process that links these two words on many levels. Recently, I read Design, Risk, and New Product Development in Five Small Companies by Robert N. Jerrard, Nick Barnes and Adele Reid. An interesting study/research into the processes and level of risks noted for five organizations undergoing the development of a new product. Themes that gathered from the data outlined something that interested me a great deal. From the smaller organizations that participated, some of the results showed that companies placed a higher value on the personal/entrepreneurial benefit of producing a product that “left their mark” over the “financial gain” of the organization.

Which made me think about size and complexity of a larger design operation vs. a smaller firm. Naturally as a firm gets bigger, does it lose the focus on the true role of a designer? Does design become yet another system to just plug data into when housed inside a larger organization vs. a smaller one? Design as a process is personal and intimate—and I trust my gut-reaction and intuition. However, no designer is the same, we each uniquely bring to the equation/answer our own understanding of culture, psychology and human nature. The outcome of which is inheritantly part of assessment and risk at every turn of the process. Is that that understanding lost when the process doesn’t allow designer’s innovation to flourish at their own risks?

While the paper on design and risk caught my interest, I am not sure that my conclusions from the study didn’t wander a bit off course. I have been spending a lot of time lately thinking about processes, right-brained minds and the off-shoring of left-brain skills. So my departure may have taken some key points, thoughts and reflected them back onto the importance of design, the designer and our processes.

Hmmm…. any thoughts?
kym