Innovation

Know Your Client: Client Interaction for Designers

Empathy and being responsive to your client’s aspirations and goals is an important skill in design. This is not as easy done as said: humans are complex beings, psychology has many layers, and what you see is not always what you get.

Especially in situations when a designer interacts with a new client or presents to an entire panel of deciders, knowing how to best proceed can be a tricky business. Imagine a situation where you have to present to two deciders: a dominant CEO and an influential top manager, both with different personalities. How should you approach them to convince them of your design? To help in this interaction, we have compiled this guide and an interactive tool.

This guide is backed by in-depth research and over 25 years experience in client interaction, for how designers—whether product designers, architects, or interior designers—can tailor their interactions, presentations, conflict‑resolution, and environments to client personality types. It also maps which personality types are most receptive to different design ideas and which types designers themselves often embody. We found this approach also to be of value for other client-oriented professionals we occasionally work with, including engineers, software coders, and management consultants.

Once you have identified your Stakeholder’s DISC Type (via quick DISC quiz or observation), you can match your style of presentation, environment, and conflict‑management to your client’s core motivators, fears, and values. This can maximize buy‑in, reduce friction, and lead to more effective, sustainable design outcomes.

The DISC Model: Foundation and Basis

Origin & Theory
- Developed from William Moulton Marston’s 1928 work Emotions of Normal People, which mapped behavior along two axes—active vs. passive response, and perception of environment as favorable vs. unfavorable—yielding four quadrants: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Compliance (Conscientiousness).
- Subsequent instruments (Clarke’s 1956 Activity Vector Analysis; Geier’s Personal Profile System) refined DISC into a reliable self‑assessment used in workplaces worldwide.
Psychometric Properties
- High test‑retest reliability (e.g. r = .89 over one week) but limited validity for job‑performance prediction; best used for self‑awareness, communication, and team dynamics rather than hiring decisions.
Link to Big Five
- DISC D and I correlate moderately with Big Five Extraversion; S with Agreeableness; C with Conscientiousness. However, DISC adds actionable “if‑then” guidance for interaction styles that Big Five does not.

Engaging the Dominant (D) Type

Core PROFILE: Action‑oriented, decisive, competitive.

Dimension	Details
Motivators	Results, challenge, autonomy, authority
Fears	Losing control, vulnerability, failure, being taken advantage
Values	Achievement, power, swift decision‑making
Preferred env’t	Fast‑paced, minimal rules, high autonomy
Conflict style	Direct, assertive, seeks fairness (“win”)
Needs	Clear objectives, authority, flexibility

How to Approach & Present to D

Lead with the bottom‑line: “Here’s the impact, ROI, and timeline”.
Emphasize control and choice: offer options, stress their autonomy in decision‑making.
Use bold visuals and crisp prototypes that showcase high‑impact features.

Conflict Management with D

Be direct and solution‑focused: frame disagreements as challenges to overcome, not personal attacks.
Offer data‑backed rationale but be prepared to negotiate “who decides what.”

Design‑Style Preferences

High‑contrast, minimal‑clutter layouts; strong geometric forms; rapid prototyping demos.
Innovative, risk‑taking concepts—appeals to their love of challenge.

Engaging the Influential (i) Type

Core PROFILE: Outgoing, enthusiastic, people‑centered.

Dimension	Details
Motivators	Novelty, excitement, social recognition
Fears	Loss of approval, being ignored, fixed routines
Values	Self‑expression, relationships, positive attention
Preferred env’t	Collaborative workshops, open brainstorming, dynamic
Conflict style	Emotional expressiveness, may gossip or sidestep issues
Needs	Encouragement, interactive sessions, recognition

How to Approach & Present to i

Frame ideas as stories: use user journeys, mood boards, immersive visuals.
Build group energy: interactive workshops, co‑creation sessions, brainstorming sprints.
Highlight peer admiration and public recognition (“Your team will love this!”).

Conflict Management with i

Keep tone upbeat; acknowledge feelings before pivoting to facts.
Use inclusive language (“We” vs. “You”) to maintain rapport.

Design‑Style Preferences

Colorful palettes, organic shapes, playful details.
Emphasis on experiential, sensory aspects (e.g. lighting, textures).

Engaging the Steady (S) Type

Core PROFILE: Calm, supportive, cooperative.

Dimension	Details
Motivators	Empathy, stability, helping others
Fears	Letting people down, rapid change, confrontation
Values	Harmony, trust, loyalty
Preferred env’t	Predictable, well‑structured, supportive
Conflict style	Listens empathically, may avoid or defer
Needs	Clear plans, reassurance, relational connection

How to Approach & Present to S

Provide step‑by‑step roadmaps and stable timelines.
Emphasize user comfort, long‑term reliability, and team collaboration.
Validate their contributions; create a safe space for questions.

Conflict Management with S

Listen actively, reassure them you value their perspective.
Introduce changes gradually; offer one‑on‑one check‑ins.

Design‑Style Preferences

Soft, harmonious color schemes; comfortable, human‑centered layouts.
Designs that signal reliability—classic forms, proven materials.

Engaging the Conscientious (C) Type

Core PROFILE: Analytical, precise, rule‑oriented.

Dimension	Details
Motivators	Information, logic, high quality standards
Fears	Criticism, ambiguity, errors
Values	Accuracy, independence, thoroughness
Preferred env’t	Quiet, organized, minimal conflict
Conflict style	Objective, detached, seeks rules
Needs	Detailed specs, data, clear parameters

How to Approach & Present to C

Supply comprehensive documentation, research findings, benchmarks.
Use precise language; avoid ambiguities or last‑minute changes.
Show prototypes with annotated specs and test results.

Conflict Management with C

Rely on objective criteria and documented standards.
Allow time for analysis—avoid pressuring immediate decisions.

Design‑Style Preferences

Minimalist, functional aesthetics; modular, systematic forms.
Emphasis on technical performance, metrics, and compliance.

Which DISC Types Are Designers—and Which Ideas They Embrace

Typical DISC Profiles by Design Discipline

Discipline	Common DISC Blend	Rationale & Source
Product Designers	D–i (Promotion‑focused)	Thrive on rapid iteration, novelty, market impact; promotion focus yields better complex design solutions.
Architects	C–S (Autonomous, quality‑driven)	Driven by moral/ethical imperatives, self‑identity, sustainability; steady pursuit of high design quality.
Interior Designers	i–S (People‑ and harmony‑oriented)	Value client relationships, aesthetic balance, comfort; motivated by aesthetics and altruism.

Idea‑Type Receptivity

Idea Type	D	i	S	C
Unconventional/ Artistic	High	Very high	Moderate	Low
High‑tech/ Precision	Moderate	Low	Low	Very high
User‑experience/ Emotional design	Low	High	Very high	Moderate
Sustainable/ Long‑lasting	Moderate	Moderate	High	High

For instance, an avant‑garde, sculptural interior will excite i‑types with its novelty, intrigue D‑types by its challenge to norms, but may unsettle C‑types fearful of ambiguity.

In summary, Dominant (D) types respond best to bold, outcome‑driven presentations that emphasize control, challenge, and speed;
Influential (i) types prefer collaborative, story‑driven, visually engaging sessions that spotlight novelty and social recognition;
Steady (S) types need predictable, people‑centered approaches that underscore harmony, support, and incremental change;
Conscientious (C) types require data‑rich, highly structured briefings with clear rules, precision, and logical rationale.

Product designers often align with D/i blends (promotion‑focused, novelty‑seeking), architects with C/S blends (quality‑ and impact‑driven) and interior designers with i/S (people‑ and harmony‑oriented).

By aligning your strategic approach to the deep‑seated motivators, fears, and values of each DISC type — and by recognizing which DISC blends your own design discipline tends toward — you will build trust more quickly, secure stronger buy‑in, and reduce rework. This scientifically grounded method transforms “one‑size‑fits‑all” design presentations into precision‑targeted interactions that resonate with every personality in your project.

Practical Checklist for Designers

Identify Your Stakeholder’s DISC Type (via quick DISC quiz or observation).
Tailor Your Presentation: adjust pace, detail level, and social framing per type.
Set the Environment: choose collaborative workshops (i), data‑driven demos (C), stable timelines (S), autonomous briefs (D).
Manage Conflict: align resolution style to their fears and needs.
Select Design Styles: match visual/experiential elements to their values.
Follow‑Up: for D, confirm next steps; for i, share highlights; for S, provide reassurance; for C, deliver documentation.

How to engage with a client group

To effectively engage with a group of clients possessing diverse DiSC personality profiles and hierarchical roles, it is important to tailor your approach by considering both personality dynamics and decision-making authority.

When interacting with multiple stakeholders, especially those with differing DiSC profiles and hierarchical positions it is important to prioritize strategies that address the most influential personalities while still acknowledging the needs of others. For instance, in a scenario involving a Dominant (D) CEO and an Influential (i) top manager, a direct, solution-focused approach should be employed, complemented by subtle acknowledgment of emotions to resonate with the i-type.

To help in this complex interaction, we have compiled an interactive tool that allows you to input up to eight clients, assign their DiSC personality types and hierarchical roles, and receive tailored recommendations for presentation strategies, conflict management, design style preferences, and key psychological considerations.

This tool enables you to:

Input 2–8 clients, specifying their DiSC type and role.
Automatically assign decision-making weights based on roles.
Calculate and display recommended strategies for:
- Presentation approach
- Conflict management
- Design style preferences
- Motivators, fears, values, preferred environment, conflict style, and needs.

The recommendations prioritize strategies aligned with the most influential stakeholders, ensuring a balanced and effective approach.

May 5, 2025

How design thinking doesn’t work (and how it does)

In the early 2000s, as the dot-com bubble burst, IDEO rebranded parts of the preliminary research designers ususually did as as “design thinking”, a step‐by‐step process. The core premise was to take the creative problem-solving methods used by designers and make them accessible to non-designers. This move allowed IDEO to monetize their concept through training, workshops, and consulting, commoditizing preliminary designerly research into a formula everyone could follow.

This repackaging into a one-size-fits-all process instantly appealed to business consultancies, known until then mostly for long Excel sheets and tedious Powerpoint presentations. Now they could sell cool workshops and colorful sticky-note exercises with the promise that they could solve even the most “wicked” problems in just days.

Let’s look at some examples:

Gainesville, Florida: Design thinking workshops were hald to transform the image of Gainesville. The solution—a new logo, rebranding, and the creation of a “Department of Doing”—failed to engage with systemic problems including poverty and racial issues. Instead, the approach focused on surface-level changes that missed the mark for the community’s real needs.

Kaiser Permanente Health Records: In another instance, a design thinking workshop led to a solution where nurses were instructed to relay patient information orally in front of patients during shift changes. This ignored many of the nuances of patient confidentiality and practical workflow, producing problematic outcomes.

Healthcare.gov Launch (2013): Early workshops employed design thinking, but the site’s catastrophic rollout revealed a glaring gap between ideation and execution.

Sears’ Innovation: The retailer’s design thinking workshops generated ideas but the company was unable to adapt its outdated business model, leading to a continued decline. Sears Holdings filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2018.

Other examples and reports from practitioners reveal that many workshops culminate in ideas that either never leave the ideation phase or, when implemented, fail to yield measurable results.

Design thinking exercises in healthcare organizations struggled because they separated the innovation process from clinical expertise. Teams might generate ideas for improving patient communication or waiting room experiences, but without integration with medical workflows and regulatory requirements they remain speculative.

Design thinking exercises in government agencies frequently can’t survive contact with bureaucratic realities because they don’t account for the complex regulatory environment and multi-stakeholder approval processes required for actual implementation.

Also private sector companies struggled to translate design thinking exercises into actual organizational change. For example, companies in the banking sector have used design thinking to reimagine their customer experience. However, these ideas failed to account for regulatory constraints, legacy technology systems, and internal resistance to change. Workshops produced presentations and journey maps, but the actual customer experience remained largely unchanged.

Design without designers, thinking without knowledge

A common pattern emerges: Organizations bring in consultants for multi-day workshops, generating initial excitement and ideas. These initiatives typically fade within 3-6 months, and the ideas generated never make it past the prototype stage.

Why is that? Short-tems exercises often neglect the complexity of real world problems and lack the depth of user research and prototyping required for meaningful innovation. They often generate ideas that conflict with existing systems, processes, or regulations, and ignore technical constraints, business realities, or cultural contexts.

Sure, exercises with colorful post-it notes and journey maps can be a fun distraction from the daily routines in cubicle-filled offices. But design thinking as a short-term exercise has to strip away the very essence of what makes innovation and design work: Expertise, critical thinking, contextual sensitivity and domain knowledge.

And it’s quite a bit of domain knowledge: A deep understanding of social and organisational realities, systemic analysis, knowledge of materials and technical constraints, aesthetic literacy, technical craft knowledge, iterative prototyping skills, implementation expertise, and of course practiced judgment. Years of training and practical experience that create domain knowledge and inform good design decisions can’t be acquired in a few days.

Short-term design thinking as it is sometimes practiced today is primarily a speculative exercise, divorced from practicality, integration, production, or sustainability. This can be a “theater of innovation”, a performance that creates an illusion of creativity without the insight required to address real issues. This lack of depth is the reason that short-term design thinking exercises often can’t bridge the gap between ideas and implementation.

Design thinking is a journey, not a destination

“Design thinking without design making – skillfully integrated and properly managed– easily becomes hollow and meaningless. Design excellence requires knowledge, as well as end-to-end management, of the resources and the creative energy that go into development and change processes. Design thinking – made up of the acknowledgment of design skills, of methodological choices, the right mindset, and a conducive culture–is dynamic and adaptable to the project itself and the people involved. Design thinking is a framework developed to ensure C-suite endorsement, strategic coherence, stakeholder engagement, and design excellence in all actions undertaken by the organization. Design management is a rigorous and strategically anchored mechanism to capitalize on the investment in design as intellectual capital. And design – as we’ve always known it – is the skills and methods and creative capabilities needed to embody ideas and direction. Design thinking inspires, design management enables, design embodies. Only when the three play together as a team, the result is design excellence.”
(In Design: A Business Case: Thinking, Leading, and Managing by Design, Brigitte Borja de Mozota, Steinar Valade-Amland, ISBN-13: 978-1-95253-826-1)

For organizations to benefit, they must recognize that design thinking is not a quick fix, but a journey. Successful innovation requires balancing empathy with feasibility, ensuring ideas evolve into actionable, context-aware solutions.

Design thinking is not, as it is unfortunately sometimes still promoted, the magic formula to solve any problem in just a few days. But it can be a bridge to connect the disciplines of management, innovation and design.

Design thinking is a human-centric, iterative and intuitive, collaborative and engaging process, involving design methodologies such as visualisations, framing and re-framing, prototyping and user journeys.

Design thinking is a journey, not a destination. If design thinking is implemented as short-term diversion, it will likely fail to deliver impact. However, when organizations use design thinking as a way to experience designerly approaches, as a journey of exploring, understanding and continuous learning, it can lead to a renewed, more open organisational mindset and effective innovation capability.

Use design thinking workshops as a starting point, not as a “quick fix” and end in itself.
Understand that design thinking is a journey, not a destination.
Build long-term implementation capabilities next to ideation skills.
Address systemic and organizational constraints and barriers before launching initiatives.

February 21, 2025

Innovation in AI Development: Stargate versus China

The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) has underscored the critical role of innovation in shaping the global technological landscape. The strategies of the U.S. and China diverge sharply. The U.S.-led Stargate Initiative exemplifies a centralized, corporate-driven model, while China’s state-backed ecosystem is geared towards decentralized, cost-efficient innovation.

Innovation in AI hinges on balancing resource investment with creative efficiency. Breakthroughs like generative AI have shown that even highly complex systems can emerge from iterative experimentation and open-source collaboration. Chinese startup DeepSeek has demonstrated that a creative approach to AI architecture, leveraging open-source frameworks and optimizing existing tools can yield competitive AI models at a fraction of the cost and time required by counterparts such as OpenAI. This agility highlights how smaller players can disrupt hierarchies and challenge resource-heavy paradigms.

The Stargate Initiative and China’s decentralized model embody contrasting visions for AI’s future. While the U.S. bets on corporate capital and infrastructure scale, China is more supportive of grassroots innovation backed by state coordination. Stargate must prove its sustainability and agility, while China must navigate geopolitical barriers. Ultimately, the AI race may hinge on which system better integrates innovation with adaptability—a lesson underscored by disruptive players like DeepSeek. As open-source collaboration blurs borders, the true winner could be a hybrid ecosystem that transcends national paradigms.

Stargate

Announced by President Donald Trump, the $500 billion Stargate Initiative represents the current pinnacle of America’s corporate-led AI strategy. Spearheaded by tech giants OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and Nvidia, the project aims to build a “computing power empire” through massive data centers and energy infrastructure. Key features include:

Infrastructure Scale: Initial construction of 10 data centers in Texas, each spanning 500,000 square feet, with plans for 20 more nationwide.
Energy Demands: Reliance on expanded fossil fuel production, including coal, to meet surging electricity needs—a move criticized for undermining climate goals.
Semiconductor Dominance: Leveraging U.S. export controls to restrict China’s access to advanced GPUs, ensuring hardware superiority.

The initiative is based on the premise that AI will require ever-growing energy and more expensive hardware. This means a growing barrier of entry, with the risk that smaller, more agile innovators could be stifled in favor of entrenched players such as Microsoft and Nvidia.

The Chinese approach

China’s strategy contrasts sharply with the U.S. model. Despite semiconductor restrictions, Chinese firms are closing the gap through:

Open-Source Innovation: Companies like DeepSeek and Alibaba’s Tongyi Qianwen have developed AI models rivaling Meta and Google’s systems at 20% of the cost, using fewer specialized chips.
State-Backed Coordination: The government prioritizes “smart compute” infrastructure.
Cost Efficiency: By focusing on algorithmic optimization and shared resources, Chinese startups avoid the resource-intensive demands of American projects.

This approach has rattled U.S. firms. DeepSeek’s breakthroughs contributed to a drop in Nvidia’s stock, as investors anticipate reduced reliance on its chips. Nvidia and other U.S. chipmakers might face continuous pressure if China’s innovations continue to reduce the dependency on their products. China’s emphasis on open-source collaboration could accelerate its AI capabilities despite hardware constraints.

The rivalry between these models will shape the global AI landscape: The U.S. may lead in hardware and infrastructure, while China is excelling in cost-effective, software-driven solutions. Stargate’s energy-intensive approach to AI risks environmental backlash, whereas China’s AI efficiency focus aligns better with global climate concerns, although its heavy reliance on coal remains a fundamental contradiction.

January 29, 2025

AI for designers: How to stay ahead of the curve

1) Start with understanding what AI, ML, and deep learning are. Focus on concepts like supervised/unsupervised learning, neural networks, and data preprocessing.

2) Explore AI uses in design

Generative design (e.g., Autodesk’s tools).
Predictive analytics for user behavior.
AI-driven prototyping and simulation.
Personalization and customization.

3) Learn Programming and AI Tools

Python is the most widely used language for AI/ML development.
Learn libraries like TensorFlow, PyTorch, and Scikit-learn.
Explore no-code/low-code AI tools such as Runway ML.
Explore CAD software that integrates AI (Autodesk Generative Design).
Collect and preprocess user feedback or sensor data.

5) Experiment with AI-Driven Design Tools

Use AI tools to enhance the design process.
Generative Design: Tools such as Autodesk Fusion 360 or nTopology.
DALL·E, MidJourney, or Stable Diffusion for concept generation.
Simulation and Optimization: Use AI to test and optimize designs for performance, materials, or sustainability.

6) Collaborate with AI Experts

Work with data scientists, ML engineers, or AI researchers to understand the technical aspects of AI.

7) Stay Updated on AI Trends

Follow AI advancements in industrial design
Explore emerging technologies like AI-powered IoT, AR/VR, and digital twins.

8) Focus on Ethical and Sustainable AI

Understand the ethical implications of AI in design: Bias in AI algorithms. environmental impact of AI technologies.

January 28, 2025

Jaguar: A controversial rebrand

Is this Jaguar, the blue chip brand on par with Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin, Rolls Royce – the brand standing for sleek and elegant sports cars which won Le Mans seven times?

Jaguar is a British icon and an emotion which creates loyalty, as evidenced in over 160 million views of the rebrand on social media – with overwhelmingly negative comments. Consider this: Jaguar owners drive these cars although they are notoriously unreliable. They still drive it, simply because it’s a Jag.

Brands are valuable if they convincingly incorporate dimensions reflecting human cognition: time, place, personality, and emotion. The dimension of time is expressed in brand history and stories, place is where the product is ideated and/or made, personality can be expressed in the founding story and in the stories of brand ambassadors and prominent customers, and emotion can be expressed in tactile, olfactory, visual and auditory cues: in the case of a car, it’s the look of the car body, how the interior feels and smells, and the sound of the engine.

Many of these qualities align in historic Jaguars to create an integrated experience: the typical Jaguar roar of the engine, the sleek body suggesting a leaping Jaguar, the front badge with a roaring Jaguar, the fine leather interior. Jaguar also has an impressive heritage: a history of some 90 years, made in Great Britain and having been the car of choice of British TV legend Simon Templar, played by Roger Moore. The slogan “Copy Nothing” is a quote by Sir William Lyons, Jaguar’s founder, who said “a copy of nothing”.

Jaguar E-type, advert from the nineteen-seventies

The new campaign video is kept in dopamine colors and is made like a nineties music video. It’s retro with references to Warhol and Pop Art, the environment and fashion seems to reference a Hunger Games set.

Why would you pin your heritage brand to a campaign like that? We can gain some insight by looking at the situation of Jaguar in particular and the global car industry in general.

Jaguar is supposed to compete with some of the best in the business – Aston Martin, Ferrari, Porsche, Mecedes-Benz, BMW, all of which have lineups of cars you can buy right now. Jaguar however, having decided to become an EV-only company, has stopped making cars, and it won’t offer any until 2026. It is now a brand without a product.

At the same time, the global car industry is shifting fast. EV sales are since a while plummeting, yet EVs get better every year. China is now the world’s largest car market and at the same time the largest competitor for EVs. Chinese EV brands are innovating very fast and are deemed so dangerous for the EU car industry by the EU that it slapped tariffs up to 45% on Chinese EV imports.

Jaguar commercial, 10 years ago.

In the last years, Jaguar was sticking to the comfort zone of its heritage, yet sales were dismal. The reason was not the brand, but their recent cars falling short of their competition, in terms of design, performance, quality and reliability.

Something had to be done. The new managing director of Jaguar explains: “If we play in the same way that everybody else does, we’ll just get drowned out. So we shouldn’t turn up like an auto brand. We need to re-establish our brand and at a completely different price point so we need to act differently. We wanted to move away from traditional automotive stereotypes.”

The company says that is now targeting a different audience in the future – young luxury buyers. The assumption that in a year from now enough Gen Zs have the discretionary spending power for a car costing above 100,000 Pound Sterling plus find Jaguar more appealing than BMW, Porsche, Mecedes-Benz or Tesla seems quite optimistic.

Questioning conventions, breaking the mold and disrupting the market can be a good strategy, but you have to deliver something extraordinary for it to work. Apple is one example, with their legendary commercial of a hammer-throwing woman destroying a 1984 movie screen, followed by the first Mac computer. Another example of a product which breaks the mold is Tesla’s Cybertruck, a car which intentionally does not follow the bandwagon of common car designs with indents and curves trying to sugest dynamism. The Cybertruck design, edgy and angular, is very different from it’s competition and in the process elevated Tesla’s brand.

Lately, another iconic British heritage brand was brought close to the brink by failed attempts to appeal to a young audience, in the process eroding it’s brand equity and alienating it’s brand loyalists: Burberry.

After the storm of negative reactions to the Jaguar rebrand on social media, the managing director of Jaguar accused his potential customers of “vile hatred and intolerance” over the rebranding campaign. Many in social media are outraged that this was a “woke” rebrand. Well, if you connect a heritage brand to a contested issue, finding yourself in a controversy in return is quite predictable.

This is a time of crisis in the Western automotive industry – if it is Ford, Volkswagen or Stellantis, established Western car companies have to battle with high production costs, organisational inefficiencies and a strong competition from China.

Jaguar now has a long time ahead in which they have nothing to sell, while their competitors continue to develop and learn from their customers. A host of new Chinese EV brands such as NIO, BYD or GWM are working hard to establish their own brands in the minds of consumers. Some EV companies – Tesla in Germany and BYD in Hungary – are now also in the process of building brand new factories, thus avoiding protective EU tariffs.

Renewing a heritage brand is not an easy undertaking. The goal is to fill the brand with new life without disconnecting it from its identity and authenticity. This is a fine line where a profound understanding of the brand’s values, it’s customers and their expectations play a big role. It is just as important to realize where the actual problem of a company is – if it is the brand, it’s products or it’s current audience. Changing a brand is no panacea if the product doesn’t measure up. What brands do and how they do it is often misunderstood. Jaguar seems to be a case of what I call Projector Metaphor – more about it in my article here.

Following its rebrand, Jaguar has presented a prototype of their new car at Miami Design Week. Here is a short design analysis.

The large bonnet of the car is, according to the designer, referencing the long bonnet of the legendary Jaguar E-type. The long E-type bonnet however was primarily a functional choice – it needed this bonnet to accomodate its humongous 5.3 litre V12 engine. E-cars have small engines and its batteries are placed on the bottom of the car, so there is no functional reason for a long bonnet. The wheels and tyres of the 00 are large, but large and wide wheels are inefficient in terms of drag and thus not well suited to EVs.

How can that be explained? It seems the overall design of the Jaguar 00 is primarily led by referencing competition products: Rolls Royce, Cadillac, Mercedes-Maybach. The design works with the same semantics as other cars in this segment: long bonnets, low lying bodies and large wheels with graphical wheelcaps.

Also the front view of the Jaguar 00, while more angular, seems to reference the competition: the central area could be Rolls Royce’s characteristic grill, but with the strips turned around 90 degrees.

The design of the Jaguar 00 is situated within the semantic language of similar cars rather than embracing new design possibilities given within the technical context of EVs. The blocky shape makes it appear static, yet not regal such as the Rolls-Royce, and the promotion keywords “exuberant” and “vivid” seem more apt for cars of the competition – the Mercedes-Maybach Vision 6 or the Alfa Romeo Stradale 33, for instance. When considering a design language more suited to EVs, designs such as the Honda 0 concept or the Lotus Theory are more convincing.

Alfa Romeo Stradale 33 (electric or fuel)

Honda 0 (electric)

Lotus Theory 1 (electric)

Bugatti Tourbillon (fuel)

Note how the place of origin and brand history is skillfully woven into these designs – there is an unmistakeable Italianità in the Alfa Romeo, Japanese tranquility in the Honda, British edginess in the Lotus, and French extravagance in the Bugatti.

The now historic Jaguar E was an exceptional car, sleek and elegant, and an instant success at its time. Brand, product and experience – seemingly effortlessly – created an integrated, convincing offering. The Jaguar 00 – both in comparison to its ancestors and its contemporary competition – is not that convincing, coming across as a preliminary design study rather than a fully developed product.

Jaguar sales fared badly in the last years, and it will not have a single product to sell for the next year. The only actual corporate value left was its heritage image and brand equity. The Jaguar brand sure was brought to the attention of the public with the new campaign. In these difficult times for the car industry, can a design study and a controversial rebrand indeed turn into a convincing product on par with its competition, plus be paid for in sufficient quantities by a completely new customer segment?

The owner of Jaguar is Jaguar Land Rover, part of Tata Motors which again is part of Tata Group, the largest Indian conglomerate with over a million employees. From an organisational standpoint, this campaign seems not to gel with the values of an Indian company as established as Tata. It could be result of an internal opinion bubble, an “echo chamber” in Jaguar’s British management team. From a strategic standpoint, this could be a breakout strategy and high stakes gamble, which could make sense when you find yourself economically as cornered as Jaguar. It could however also be a move to intentionally devalue the brand in the short term to make it easier for other car companies looking to take over a heritage brand. Genius move or brand destruction? Whatever it is, it is an interesting story, and we will know the outcome after 2026.

Link to this article: https://mgstrategy.com/ideas/2024/11/24/jaguar-a-controversial-rebrand

November 24, 2024

Design support for the 21st century

Published 2021 by Dongdaemun Design Plaza/ddp Design Fair/Seoul Design Foundation.

From hand-holding to startup financing

The history of design support until today has two distinct phases: project hand-holding and startup financing. From the nineteen-eighties until around the 2000’s, the economy revolved around industrial production, and a preferred model of design support was project hand-holding. In this model, a designer was brought together with a company for a project, and a part of the costs were financed. This worked well to raise awareness for design as a means to add value to companies. However, after the initial funding was completed, there was little follow-up, and the first project often remained the last.

⁠Around the 2000’s, the overall financialization of the economy led to a new model: to directly finance start-up teams through state investment agencies or investment aggregators. After the early years of excitement, it turned out that some freshly financed startup companies were unable to deliver their envisioned project. The incentive to get high amounts of funding, coupled with demands to become profitable in a very short timeframe, led several startups to exaggerate their claims. Some projects turned out to be mainly speculative, and problems in startup teams included lack of design competence, lack of product development experience, and difficulties with production and logistics.

⁠The hand-holding model suffered from a short-term focus and a lack of follow-up analysis, and short-term design jobs often suffer from a lack of engagement by designers. Also the startup model suffers from short-termism. In the startup model, companies are expected to quickly grow out of thin air: development, production, sales and logistics, all has to be built from scratch. The hand-holding model at least has the advantage that the wheel doesn’t have to be reinvented: the company is already existing and has capabilities, and bringing designers in should add value.

⁠In search of a new concept

⁠After the industrialization of the eighties and the financialization of the 2000’s, a new, more considered concept to support companies and advance growth is needed. New laws to reduce harmful ecological impact demand better resource utilization and options for recycling, and a new generation of consumers demands new standards of corporate transparency and resource traceability.

⁠SMEs thrive in specialized niches. There, design can help with creating innovative product and service concepts or with improving existing products, including ecological considerations and consumer trends.

⁠Which SMEs are successful, and why? Italian design producers such as Artemide, Alessi, or Zanotta are driven by passion and a long-term commitment to design. They provide meaning, pride and security for family members and employees, and they cooperate with a range of designers for their collections. Similarly, excelling medium sized German companies such as Festo or Durst base their strength in their commitment to innovation and technical excellence. None of these organizations exist to reap short-term profits: Instead, they have a long-term focus, cultivate innovation and are driven by an untiring motivation to excel.

⁠Design Collaboration

⁠Already In the nineteen-sixties, car companies entered collaborations with designers, either because they lacked sufficient design capability, or the in-house team needed design inspiration. Designer Giorgetto Giugiaro created cars for Ferrari, Maserati, Alfa Romeo and others, while Giovanni Bertone designed cars for Lamborghini, Citroën, Fiat, Volvo and others. Design cooperations are also a successful model in fashion design: recent cooperations include Virgil Abloh for Off-White or Jil Sander for Uniglo.

⁠Design Collaboration can be a highly effective support model for SMEs because it instantly adds design capacity and experience which would be time-consuming and costly to establish in-house. To make it work, a range of points have to be considered.

⁠To be suitable for Design Collaboration, projects should have a shared vision and long-term development focus, keeping in mind that a new design offering can fundamentally improve the market position of a company. Design Collaboration is built on the premise that designers and companies treat each other as partners. To make sure of a good match between a designer and a company, a design audit looking at capabilities and motivation should be conducted. To maintain lasting motivation, designers should share risk and reward of product development by being remunerated through a percentage of revenues.

⁠Design Collaboration is ideally supervised by a design promotion organization which acts as catalyst, principal supporter and consulting partner of companies and designers, helping with audit, analysis, and match-making.

⁠Creative professionals are mostly educated to compete, but complex tasks can only be mastered through collaboration.

Principles of design collaboration

Design Collaboration instantly adds the power of design to the capabilities of a company – transparently, fairly, and with a long-term focus. Here are 5 principles to ensure successful cooperations:

1: The Design Audit

Finding the right fit between a designer and a company is a step where often mistakes are made. Sometimes, a designer is simply taken because somebody in the company happens to know one. Other times, a design company is chosen on the grounds of being famous, but their work style and expertise might not fit to the company and design project at hand. Sure, these approaches might work by chance, but more often they don’t.

Every design project is different, so it is only partly helpful to deduce from a designer’s previous work how a future design will turn out. Instead, to find out if a designer is right for a project, conduct a design audit – see more about this below.

After the audit, have a conversation to find out about interests and passions. Then let the designer make a presentation about his vision for your project and company (this is not about the design itself or how it will look like – you don’t want ideas for free – but about the designer’s vision and approach). If the project at hand captures a designer’s heart and imagination, you will see it reflected in his presentation.

2: Collaboration from Brief to Launch

It often happens that companies do not know enough about design to use it to its full potential. Take the design brief, the start of each design development. In a conventional service relationship, the designer is given a brief by the client. For example, a company might tell a designer to design “something like” the product or brand of a competing company. But copying is not only unethical, it is also a strategic mistake – copies never help a company to achieve lasting success on the market. This brief is hence not in the best interest of the company, and it would need to be changed.

In a Design Collaboration, the design brief is created collaboratively between company and designer. The designer is not a mere receiver of orders: instead, he has to learn about the capabilities, needs and visions of a company to come up with concepts which work. The collaborative brief pins down a schedule, process and envisioned result. During the design process, key ideas and milestones are shared and discussed with key people in the company. Finally, the designer helps with suggestions for production, promotion and product launch.

3: Share Risk and Reward

Will a design be a success on the market? Every new endeavor comes with risk. In a traditional service relationship, the designer is used as a service provider, and he company bears all the risk for the design being successful on the market. In a design cooperation, on the other hand, risk and reward are shared.

The resulting design is offered on the marketplace mentioning both the company or brand name and the designers name, and the designer is mainly remunerated through a percentage of sales. That way, it is in the designer’s interest to do what he can to make the design successful on the market, and he will cooperate with production, marketing and sales to help with ideas and suggestions. That way, both company and designer profit.

4: It’s Top Management Business

In successful companies, there is often a special relationship between design and CEOs.
In the early years of Sony, Norio Ohga stablished a distinctive design and later became Sony’s President and Chairman. Steve Jobs of Apple had a great passion for design and spent a great amount of of his time discussing with his designers. Elon Musk takes design so serious that he personally leads all product design and engineering at Tesla.

Design is a strategic resource to envision, to innovate, and to create compelling offerings. It must be concern of top management.

5: Multi-modal and Transparent Communication

Genuine cooperation requires understanding, trust and openness with everyone involved. A designer needs to understand every aspect of the design project, from top management strategy to shop-floor production issues. Therefore treat everybody as a partner, from the CEO to the shop floor worker. Always communicate openly and transparently, and present ideas in a multi-modal manner: visually, with sketches and renderings; in a haptic manner, with 3D models or material samples; and verbally, explaining the reasoning and story behind the design.

6: Design does not stop

Design does not end when the designer stops working. Once a product or service enters the market, it enters a conversation with its customers. Consumers will interpret your offering as part of your brand and against the backdrop of competing offerings. Consumer feedback and consumer experiences must be fed back into the design process to iteratively innovate.

Remember: Innovation almost never fails because of a lack of ideas, but because of a lack of persistence. Innovation must be a systemic capability, and design a core competence. It is not just about a new product or service: it is also about values, experiences, processes and networks.

Designing Better Design Support

In the course of previous design support programs, it happened that companies wanted support, but weren’t actually willing to cooperate with a designer. Other companies found that in the midst of a consultation they can’t go forward because of a lack of budget. In another case, a company delayed production until after the support program ended, then produced the design with small alterations in order to cut out the designer.

In order to avoid this kind of issues, a design cooperation support program should audit both designers and companies (more about a design audit below), then monitor design projects and their implementation by a company, regularly follow up both with designer and company, and go forward with defined milestones. Like in every partnership, also Design Collaboration only works when everybody involved behaves fairly and has a genuine intent to make it work.

Conducting a Design Audit

A design audit is conducted on the basis of the portfolio and CV of a designer and must be conducted by people with a solid knowledge of design. The audit analyzes along 5 axes of ability. As each ability is analyzed, candidates receive a point score from 0 to 6. The highest possible score is 30. Candidates with the highest score should go on to have a conversation and a vision presentation.

Audit 1: Innovativeness

Innovation is the lifeblood of new business. What is the degree of a designer’s innovative thought? Does the portfolio show conventional thought and pre-made templates, or does it include innovative approaches and interesting experiments? Analyzing the degree of novel thought of a designer helps you to gauge how innovative his work will be.

Score scale: 0 for using pre-made templates, up to 3 for moderately original projects, 6 for highly innovative projects.

Audit 2: Stance

An often overlooked, but important part is played by the stance of a designer. There are three general stances which I call copiers, egoists and altruists. Does the designer have a tendency to copy other designs, does he develop primarily his own design style, or is he developing distinctive designs for different clients? If the designer applies one style across all products and companies, his interest is more in developing himself than the clients he works for. The best designers always strive to develop the brand and image of a client company rather then their own.

Score scale: 0 for copying, 1-2 for uni-style designers, 3-6 for a designer having developed a range of different successful designs for different clients.

Audit 3: Skill Spectrum

How does the skill of the designer fit to the project at hand? Is the designer a specialist working in a narrow area or does he work across disciplines? The wider the spectrum of a designer, the better is the chance he will be able to deal with the complexity of consumer demands, company needs and market pressures and come up with appropriate solutions. However, if the skill fits the project, a designer who is great in a particular area is a better choice than a designer who does many things, but none of them particularly well. If you are looking to work not with a single designer, but a design team, pay special attention to cooperation readiness and skills complementing each other.

Score scale: 0-1 for a narrow single discipline specialist, 2-3 for designers working across more than one design discipline (such as industrial design, graphic design, interactive design), 4-6 for a multi-disciplinary designer with additional experience in related disciplines such as business administration, engineering, marketing.

Audit 4: Business Experience

Does the designer have experience with business processes, company dynamics and corporate structures? In large and medium-sized companies, corporate experience helps to understand the needs of a company, to navigate business processes and to bring a design to market in an effective manner. Ultimately, ideas need to be implemented, company departments need to be involved, and possible production, delivery and sales issues solved. In small companies with flat hierarchies, corporate experience is less important, but a good understanding of business processes is still vital for bringing a design to market.

Score scale: 0 for no business experience, 1-2 for beginner experience and internships, 3-4 for experience in some projects, 5-6 for an extensive corporate and business experience.

Audit 5: Cooperation Readiness

Did the designer cooperate with others or is he a “lone wolf”? Cooperation can be learned, and experience in cooperations for different projects helps to facilitate a successful design development process and overcome adversities. The work style of a designer is equally important: this can be more theoretical or more practical. Theorists without hands-on capabilities often have trouble in implementation. A solely hands-on approach, on the other hand, might lack the consideration required for a design project. Approaching design from both theoretical and practical viewpoints is most useful.

Score scale: from 0 for poor cooperation readiness to 6 for a person with extensive cooperation experience, both theoretically and practically.

(C) Mario Gagliardi 2021. Published by Dongdaemun Design Plaza/ddp Design Fair/Seoul Design Foundation.

Part 1 (English)

Part 2 (English)

December 26, 2021

Design Integration: From Imitation to Ecosystem

This article was first published in Fall 2005 in Designmatters by the Danish Design Center (DDC) as ‘Imiteret, kommercialiseret, oplevet: Sammenkædningen af design, virksomheder og denverdensøkonomiske udvikling’.

Company structures changed dramatically over the course of the last century. The structures and processes behind the production of goods evolved, and with these also the relationships of products and their users.

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March 19, 2021

Are you a designer?

Design is fundamentally utopian.

As a designer, you live in a certain time and culture, and that comes with peculiar habits, opinions and expectations everybody takes for granted.

Some 10 to 20 years later, all of these veneers and assumptions you take for granted now will look curious, offbeat, and at times shocking.

A designer has to be able to see beyond the immediate.

If what you design manipulates or deceives, you are not a designer. If what you design is a copy, you are not a designer.

If you have curiosity, a taste for exploration, and the unwavering commitment to make things better, you might be a designer.

Design has no beliefs, but it has ideals. Design has no place for deception, but for best practices.

Design always has to give something: something to make life more liveable, something which helps -people, the environment, society – something which enlightens.

If you create something which inspires people to learn something they did not know, if you create a product or a service which gives people joy, if you contribute to improve lives, or if you just write a single sentence which inspires new viewpoints, then you might be a designer.

— Mario Gagliardi, 2021

February 19, 2021

Podchain, ownership and usership

Car ownership was a fundamental idea of progress since Henry Ford came up with his Model T in the early 20th century. During America’s golden years, roughly from the nineteen- fifties until 9/11, owning a car was the first thing on every teenager’s mind. It was a sign of freedom and independence, the visible expression of the American dream, and ultimately a social necessity. The car you owned showed who you are, what you like, and where you stand in the social hierarchy.

Things have changed. Millennials own less cars than previous generations. Notorious traffic jams, CO2 pollution and parking problems make car ownership in cities difficult, and smartphone- based ride-hailing services such as Uber make it less necessary.

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October 29, 2019

On mental models, refusing a five billion dollar offer, and petting a cobra

Mental models are ideas of how things are. They are not about how things are in reality – they are beliefs about how things work or should work. People’s mental models can be wrong. If they are, they tend to be persistent, creating problems and at the same time impeding the ability to fix these problems. Here are two real-world stories about mental models.

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October 29, 2019

Innovation starts with concepts

Organisations often struggle to change. One fundamental hindrance are tacit mental concepts, the foundation for both daily decision-making and the long-term strategy formulation of organisations. Once mental models have become taken for granted, they are held implicitly and can be barriers to novel thinking around a common aim.

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July 14, 2019

From Photoshop to Artificial Intelligence

President Trump recently tweeted about allegedly photoshopped pictures of Melania. It shows that in our social media age, the task of editing images becomes increasingly important. The current market leader in image manipulation is Adobe’s Photoshop, namesake of the now common verb “photoshopping”. Photoshop is part of Adobe Creative Cloud, a subscription service for image software which generated a revenue of over 1 billion US$ in 2017.

The playing field is changing with a new breed of image software powered by Generative Adversarial Networks. Photoshop features intricate workflow processes, making it useful only for trained specialists. AI-powered image manipulation is however capable of much more, with the potential for a much larger market.

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March 17, 2019

Models of Innovation in Japan and Korea: MITI and KIDP

Korea’s strength in the creative industries, together with the strength of their multinational brands, is regarded as a model by other Asian countries. How did this model come about?
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December 13, 2017

Innovating education

Government policies and interventions are powerful instruments that can change social and economic realities on the large scale. However, social reality is highly complex.

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October 10, 2017

Conceptualizing brands: Metaphors of Brand Management

The management of brands is often biased by the way managers conceptualize and understand brands. We have identified four commonly employed metaphors of brands which, all in their own way, produce unwanted effects on the management and utilization of brands.

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April 27, 2016