Display & Design Ideas - August 2009 - (Page 14)

14 | Quick Tips ways to deliver a better design proposal hen submitting a fee proposal for a project, designers need to keep the scope focused on what’s relevant to the client and cut all extraneous items. Generating new ideas, achieving relevance, maintaining competitiveness and delivering innovation, collaboration and communication are some of the key qualities clients are demanding from designers—especially during these economically difficult times. W Design sketches allow architects to collaborate with clients early in the design process, such as this sketch of the Hiroshima Ballpark Town in Hiroshima, Japan. Helping clients with focus and clarity on the right issues is how relevance is delivered. themselves to shape the future through design, developing the tools to imagine and deliver innovation gets high priority. Be competitive. Designers need to be competitive, in good times and not so good times. Giving clients effort that does not effectively or efficiently focus on what is essential for them is off-track and may lose a good opportunity. Thinking through a client’s situation is essential to properly frame a work plan and be laser-sharp in focusing creative effort. Clients need to be assured that designers wisely engage the project—meaning they know where to spend the fee, while clearly understanding what to deliver and when. Designers need to sharpen their competitive pencils when it comes to establishing fees and, at the same time, assure that each and every project will make a profit. “Working smarter and faster” is the current mantra, pertinent to the times. Collaborate and communicate. What does all this mean for designers? To begin with, working together helps develop ideas. A brainstorming session can deliver a lot of creativity in a short time. Setting expectations at the beginning with the client eliminates distractions and provides clarity. Collaboration among the right talents produces efficiency and quicker, more certain results. Communicating ideas to clients economically, but with profound impact, is critical. Design the communication as well as the content. Brevity is good, but let ideas read clearly and powerfully. It has been said that at least 25 percent of what designers will be doing five years from now will be new and perhaps unknown to us today. And this new effort will be fundamental to how we practice and how we provide value to our clients. The keys to transitioning from now to the future during a time of constraint and frugality are creativity, wise competitiveness, innovation, collaboration and communication. Focusing on these will achieve the so-needed relevance that clients are seeking. —Gary Larson is a senior principal at MulvannyG2 Architecture. With more than 47 years of experience, he leads the firm’s Commercial Group, dedicated to designing mixed-use, high-rise and corporate projects worldwide. www.ddimagazine.com Be creative and generate ideas. As clients tighten their budgets, they are seeking proposals that abound in creativity and idea generation. They don’t want to pay for scope that excessively documents a firm’s results. They want sketches—not renderings or labor-intensive resolutions of planning or design. Clients simply need good ideas and sound, intelligent thinking, documented efficiently to allow them to move forward to the next step. Clients are trying to position themselves to survive, to succeed and to be ready to make the right move when things improve. They need creativity. They need design. And they need it quickly. Achieve relevance for clients. Is this something new? Is it attributable to the current economic picture? The answer is both yes and no. Design firms sell design. That means creative thinking, great ideas, innovation on all fronts and, most importantly, achieving relevance for clients. Even if every business is cautious right now, good thinking and creative ideas are foremost in importance—good times or not. Conserving cash is essential right now, but, at the same time, preparing projects to move forward gets them first off the line when the economy starts moving. Deliver innovation. Business pundits say the successful company is the one that innovates. A mere glance at Apple proves that point. One noted architect calls this part of his practice “discovery.” Innovation evokes the world of ideas, but also includes process and implementation. Innovation can change what a client is able to do, perhaps even his direction. It can illuminate a pathway, putting a client’s business in position to win. Continually creating innovation—and knowing how and where to direct it—is critical to winning clients. As architects continue to position |ÊÊAug ustÊ2009 http://www.ddimagazine.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Display & Design Ideas - August 2009

Display & Design Ideas - August 2009
Contents
From the Editor
Newsworthy
Consumer Insights
Quick Tips
Greentailing
Editor’s Choice
Design Snapshot
Barbie Shanghai
Channel Focus: Alternative Retail
Store Windows Showcase
Right Light
Product Spotlight
Preview: DDI Forum 2009
Calendar
Advertisers
Classifieds
Think Tank

Display & Design Ideas - August 2009