April 2009

Design won’t save the world, Design Thinking will

designwontsave.jpg

We couldn’t help but notice the above poster, which was provocatively posted at our local café, The Wall recently.

An anonymous individual had obviously become annoyed at the growing awareness in the design community of its wider responsibility in the world and the exciting discussions that are now taking place regarding the power of design to help mankind in its hour of need. We’ve responded to the poster with our own asking people to visit this blog and begin a conversation (we’re also interested in hosting a round-table discussion in our studio, btw – more on that later).

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Free Pitching, it’s like choosing your partner in a beauty pageant.

  • Free Pitching, it’s like choosing your partner in a beauty pageant.

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We attended a lively and interesting Australian Graphic Design Association (AGDA) talk featuring lawyer Chris Finn of Finn Roache last night.

The talk touched on that ugly elephant in the design studio, free/spec pitching in the context of the global recession – loosely defined as the act of doing significant free work (strategy, ideation or actual design) to win a tender or proposal process. It was refreshing to hear outright condemnation of this terrible business practice from the floor, although Chris’ legal “solution” worried me.

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