Digital media deserves our special attention

At Design Week we tend to celebrate design in its totality. While there is a strong business case for design groups to specialise in particular disciplines or sectors, their project teams invariably comprise a mix of skill.

Given this, you might find it odd that we have singled out one area of design for special treatment. But we believe there are good reasons to look at digital design outside the framework of our annual Top 100 Consultancy Survey, the next incarnation of which will be in March 2000.

It looks set to grow rapidly from moderately humble beginnings. Most big businesses now have a website, and while the quality is currently as variable, the Internet market is set to expand. But, with the exception of the top end of the consultancies ranked by fee-income for creative work, independent digital media businesses remain relatively small, using mainly freelance specialists to work collaboratively on projects. Their fee-income is likewise tiny when compared to other communications agencies, meaning that most won’t get a look in on the Top 100 charts.

The performance of digital media teams within multidisciplinary groups and ad agencies is often hidden. Their input may even be thrown in for free, particularly if a big identity programme or ad campaign is at stake.

While design sits alongside film, scriptwriting, sound, production and other activities, designers have proved well equipped to take the lead in digital media teams. But in many instances they need to learn better business skills, especially as the high capital investment required to set up digital media kit has already broken several early players.

It is an area ripe for takeovers to create bigger groups. US company Razorfish, for example, ate up Sunbather, while French media conglomerate Havas bought the then distressed AMXstudios. Marketing services groups such as WPP Group are, meanwhile, always on the lookout for interesting buys to broaden their scope.

Though website design has been the main focus, particularly with the growth of e-commerce, digital media does not stop there. There’s more scope for interaction – and fun. A simple example is Tomato Interactive’s sound-sensitive installation for London restaurant Busaba Eathai, developed with North, but more conventional areas such annual reports could be more interactive on-line.

Digital design is a fascinating area, packed with potential. But, outside its technical aspects, it tends to lack the business clout of more established design sectors. By singling it out, we hope to understand it better.