The six commandments

It is hard to disagree with Christopher Frayling’s summary of the ills afflicting the design community’s dealings with clients – and, indeed, the wider world.

With typical eloquence, the Design Council kicked off Design in Business Week with a colourful outline of the six “heresies” that need to be overcome for design to be more closely integrated and effective in UK business. For the audience it was an apt reminder that for all the headway made over recent years, the industry must still strive to bring design up to speed with best business practice, as well as communicate its own message.

But there was absolutely nothing new in what Frayling had to say, only in the way he expressed his observations. He merely revisited the premise that design cannot and should not be viewed in isolation, the icing on the cake served to only a few cognoscenti on the “creative” and the consumer side. It should be by everybody, for everybody and is a key to commercial growth, as well as to general well-being.

Addressing any one of the six “heresies” makes a good speech for a lesser orator. To Frayling’s credit, he condensed the whole thing into around a quarter of an hour, adding, in the process, a handful of new phrases to sum up the situation with design.

His first point, that design pervades all activity and that the phrase “creative industries” is too small a pigeon hole, marks a healthy return to normality for the design community. We have been all too happy to be scooped up by politicians such as Tony Blair and Culture Secretary Chris Smith into this handy grouping for which statistics can be generated. But it doesn’t mean much to the likes of the big players such as Interpublic Group, Omnicom or even WPP Group to have what they might perceive as key business communication grouped alongside the “luvvies” on the more sensual side of creativity.

The idea that design “with a big D” is not the only design reinforces Frayling’s first point. Particularly poignant is his view that “creativity” isn’t a word many people use about themselves, but is one that is used about them.

In reinforcing this second “heresy”, Frayling spoke of the unfortunate “ghetto-ising process” that big-D-thinking can lead to, making design a lean-to, rather than being part of the whole building. This leads to his third point, that design should not be brought in at the last minute to turn a business round, but should underpin the whole structure, and this in turn reinforces his notion of inclusive design. Design is not, as Sunday supplements and TV presenters would have it, just the stuff of youth, makeovers and short-term style; it also makes economic sense.

Frayling talks of the littered “brandscape”, picking up on the thoughts of an earlier speaker, Ralph Ardill of Imagination – who in turn “borrowed” ideas from US forecaster Faith Popcorn, among others. Marketers should gain credibility through social responsibility rather than by a scatter-gun approach to exposure, he says, echoing the current mood.

And finally, the Design Council should not be seen as an “exclusive trade association”. No one in design sees it that way anyway, if, indeed, design practitioners see it at all. Outside of a small bunch of Design Council faithfuls, few are aware of its activities – as the general ignorance of Design in Business Week, revealed in this week’s VoxPop trawl, shows (see page 13) – despite Design Week’s attempts to inform folk.

We have heard little publicly from Frayling since April, when he took over the reins of the Design Council from John Sorrell. The expectation from the start was that, while Sorrell had focused on enlightening Government about the merits of good design – with initiatives such as the Millennium Products, CDT Design’s identity programme for Smith’s Department of Culture Media and Sport and the project led by design management doyenne Jane Priestman to improve the way the Civil Service buys design, the Royal College of Art rector would put education on top of his agenda.

But his list of “heresies” surely sets him a different manifesto. He must put relationships with big business first and use his influence to further the cause of design, in the interests of the UK’s economic success and the health of the design community.

Building on the sound foundation laid with the Government by Sorrell, it must now be the job of Frayling and the Design Council team to persuade companies that design can enhance their bottom line, and it’s even better if the design is good. With that message in place, design will surely have greater effect on consumers and, in the longer term, on education.

Christopher Frayling’s six heresies

– The use of the phrase creative industries to pigeon-hole design. Ã¥It is patronising and wrong’, says Frayling, maintaining that design is part of most industries.

– The assumption that design is described Ã¥with a big D’ and carried out only by designers, which excludes the input of design and business managers, strategists and others. He says the practice is Ã¥ghettoising the process’.

– The belief that designers can be brought in at the last minute to save an ailing business which hasn’t previously used design.

– The idea, fuelled by national media, that design is about youth, makeovers and short-term styling.

– Brand owners need to stop littering the Ã¥brandscape’ with corporate images. They should also embrace issues such as credibility and social responsibility.

– The Design Council should not be seen as Ã¥some exclusive trade association’ about ‘the big D’.