Given the lack of success with the Tropicana and Gap fiascos, I can only imagine that big change, game-changing change, will be harder to come by in terms of opportunity.
When confronted with paradox, I paraphrase Atticus Finch from Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. “To understand a person, you have to walk around in their shoes for a while.”
Let’s see designers step into Marketing/Brand Director shoes and vice versa, the ol’ role reversal.
Would Designers be as bold and brazen in their decisions if it were their multi-million dollar brand on the line? A brand that pays their paycheck? Would they go to shelf without any research? Would they expect to get what they ask for since they’re now the client, the one paying the designers?
Would the Client, now in the Designer’s role, only give what’s asked for when they discover a more effective way to communicate an element? Would they make something more graceful or impactful when they see the opportunity? Would they work an extra hour or hours to get something just right because it’s their work on the line?
In the end, we all have to work together. No matter who’s in charge, everyone gets disappointed when more revisions are requested after a lot of time and energy have been put into writing a brief, designing a logo or working up a proposal. Perhaps this Client/Designer tug of war is more beneficial to both parties than they realize.
If a client saw only an initial phase of work and said, “Design Number One, perfect, don’t change a thing, we’ll take it.” I’m sure all involved would be left speechless, especially the designer who would most likely have more ideas on how to improve on the presented design. And likewise, any other Brand Manager would have some ideas how to push a design further.
So we put our grumblings aside, acknowledge it’s part of the process and soldier on. As Harry Lime says in The Third Man, ““…in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.