Advice Centre

Choosing the right design partner is a big decision. Get it right, and they can add huge value to your business and to your bottom line. Get it wrong, and it can be costly, frustrating and even damaging to your business.

Unlike choosing an accountant or a lawyer, there is less predictability in the outcome when choosing a design partner. You are buying creativity after all and you are not going to know exactly what you’ll get once you start working together. However, you can substantially improve your ability to make a good choice by applying some rigour to your selection process.

The following tips are designed to help make the selection process as straightforward as possible.

 
Determine what design help you need.

It’s very tempting to jump straight to the design outcome you want – such as a new corporate identity, website, product development, or styling and then go looking for someone who can do that for you. However, that can be a case of short-term gain for longer term pain. You need to take a strategic approach to your choice of design partner if you want a design solution that will work for you in the longer term.

Drafting an outline brief before you approach any potential design companies will help you clarify your thinking. Even if you want to employ a design partner to help you develop a design brief, it still helps to write down a situation overview and some background information – that way you can provide a consistent story. The outline brief should describe the issues you want help with or the opportunities you have in front of you – and not be a narrow description of what you want the output to be.

Once you’ve written your brief, it might become apparent that you need more than one design partner – for example your project may need an industrial designer, a packaging designer and someone who can develop a complete brand story and identity for you.

 
Be clear about your selection criteria

It pays to have your selection criteria well sorted before you start drawing up a list of prospective design partners. That will make it much easier for you to short-list those companies or consultants who are likely to be the best fit for you.

Your criteria may include some or all of the following things:

• Proven experience and success in their specific design discipline
• A client list that gives you confidence in their ability to handle business like yours
• Previous experience in your industry sector (if that’s important to you)
• A track record of adding value and providing commercial success for clients
• Ability to think strategically about a client’s business, not just at a tactical level.
• Availability of the key design staff to work on your project
• Ability of the design company or consultant to work alongside your team and with other external design partners
• Internal systems and processes to manage work and meet deadlines
• Personality fit
• Affordability
• Location

 
Draw up a list of potential design partners

There are several ways to approach this.

• Seek recommendations from other people who have had a good experience with a particular design company (but bear in mind their criteria may have been very different)
• Use the Design Directory here on the Better by Design website.
• Identify work you admire and find out who the design company was (the Design Directory has a list of client companies you can check)
• Visit the website of the Designers’ Institute of New Zealand (DINZ) and check their list of professional members. www.dinz.org.nz

 
Short-list the most likely

Three to four companies would be the most you should approach to discuss your design needs. If you are clear on your selection critieria, it should be relatively simple to get it down to this number.

At this point, you need to make contact with each of the companies to arrange a discussion and for them to present their credentials. You should send them an advance copy of your outline brief (or detailed design brief if you have one) so they can do some preparation prior to the meeting.

It is not recommended to ask companies to present design ideas for your business, (a creative pitch) unless it is an exceptionally large and long-term design relationship you are embarking upon. If this is the case, then you should provide a detailed design brief and offer a fee to cover the design work involved from each company.

 
Meeting potential design partners

In advance of the meeting your short-listed prospects, it’s useful to advise them clearly about your expectations, i.e.

• Length of the meeting
• What in particular you want them to cover
• Who you want to meet with (the senior design partners or everyone who might be working on your business)
• What elements from your outline brief you want to discuss

Make sure you take notes during each meeting and match this back to your selection criteria. You may want to introduce a scoring system to ensure that the most important elements are weighted accordingly, and you have a robust system to justify your choice.

Other things to consider as part of the selection process at the meeting might be:

• Understanding of your business and your current issues/opportunities
• Ability to ask intelligent and probing questions
• Demonstrated initiative in finding more about you than you provided in your brief
• Ability to listen
• Chemistry

 
Making your choice

There are three key questions you need to answer:

• Can you work with them?
• Can they do the job?
• Can you afford them?

The most important criteria must be – can you work with them? No matter how good a design company or consultant is, if you think there may be personality clashes or one of you may end up dominating the relationship to the detriment of the other, then you should not choose them.

It is important that your design partner is able to question you and challenge you. You are hiring them for their design expertise and it is their job to push for the best work possible, and to open up new ideas and possibilities. By contrast, they shouldn’t be so passive as to appear merely as order takers – no value can be added when your design partner is implementing, rather than creating. A good design partner is just that – a partner in a two-way relationship and not a supplier of services.

The second factor in your decision is the ability of the design partner to deliver on what you require. They should be able to demonstrate this in their meeting with you but reference checking is advisable to determine their ability to deliver good work, on time and on budget. You should ask for the names of clients to approach.

The third – affordability – is also critical. There may be a large number of companies that meet the first two criteria but is their fee structure and the level of commissions charged on external work acceptable to you?

If you are confident that you have a company or consultant who can meet these three conditions, then your choice of design partner should hopefully be clear-cut.

 

Acknowledgements and further reading:
Design Buyer’s Guide, Leading by Design, Business Link UK
UK Design Council, Briefing a designer