Chris LoSacco: Is design dead? Are we done with design?

Dave Schell: No. No.

(Laughter)

(CATALYST INTRO MUSIC)

Chris: Welcome to Catalyst, the Launch by NTT Data podcast. I am Chris LoSacco and I am joined by two very special guests to talk about an exciting topic today. The first one is one of our Directors of Digital Strategy and a return guest to the show. It's Chappell Ellison. Hi Chappell, how are you?

Chappell Ellison: I'm good. Hi, Chris. I've never really even heard you do the intro before.

Chris: Yeah.

Chappell: So it's exciting to be here on the official Launch by NTT Data podcast.

Chris: Yeah. And I want to get through the intro because I'm excited to dive into this, like, whopper of a topic. But before we do, let me introduce our second guest, one of our senior Directors of Design, Dave Schell. Dave, welcome back to the show.

Dave: Thank you very much. Very happy to be here.

Chris: Great. So, sometimes we have an idea, you know, for the show, and we make a list and we talk about it, or we, you know, go over things with our marketing team and we come up with a set of topics that we want to discuss, to really put out in the world. And then other times, a thread blows up in Slack, and somebody says, we should talk about this. (Laughs) And this is one of the latter. So, there was this Fast Company article that came out in February, and the title of the article is "The Big Design Freakout: a generation of design leaders grapple with their future." And the subhed, which I love even more, is, "Did business really break up with design? Or did it just break up with a generation of design leadership?"

Chappell: Woof. Oof.

Chris: Pokey poke.

Chris: Pokey poke.

Chappell: That's spicy.

Chris: Yeah. So I want to start by just asking you both, initial thoughts. Chappell, when you saw this article, you had a strong reaction... (Laughs) About its thesis. And I'm curious to get, you know, what's your take on what this article is saying and how you'd respond to it?

Chappell: Well, first of all, I feel like this article was a long time coming. And I think it's a response to what does feel like a specific era in design. I don't know for y'all, like, if you can time-box this era. For me, it's kind of about, like, 2007 to maybe 2016-ish.

Chris: Okay.

Chappell: Really, like, starting with Steve Jobs onstage showing that iPhone. You know, just bringing out Jony Ive, bringing out design. Design started to be the conversation at every company. Even if your company sells lawn care equipment, it's like somehow everyone was talking about design.

Chris: Mhm.

Chappell: And it was a giant boom in design being part of the business conversation, which it had not in this significant way. I don't know if ever... Maybe in the '50s, there's a lot of design conversation, right? In the 1960s as well. But this was different. And it was really embedded with the tech industry. I think everyone on this call lived through this era. And so, to see it summarized in this way and to see such a golden period... Because times were fun. Times were fun in design in that era... kind of come to what feels like an end. And have a design leader himself, Robert Fabricant, who wrote the article, right?

Chris: Mhm.

Chappell: So honestly about, maybe, some of the failures of this so-called golden period of design, is super fascinating for me.

Chris: Well, but... Let me dive into this. Because, again, the thesis of the article, just like you said, is that there was this golden period where the business world, right, business leadership really did embrace design and the importance of design, and design finally had, quote-unquote, "a seat at the table." Which is something we hear a lot, right?

Chappell: A seat at the table. I loved it.

Chris: The article makes the point that that is done. We are moving out of that phase of design. And my question... And maybe I'll put it to you, Dave.

Dave: Yep.

Chris: Is that true? Like, is design dead? Are we done with design?

Dave: No, no.

(Laughter)

Dave: And it's funny to hear you say the article headline again. I must have ignored that purposely and just gone into the guts of the article. It's a bit excessive, but you know, articles tend to be that way. And provocative. I agree with Chappell. I mean, no, do I think this is death to design? Design has enough things pecking at him right now, right? I mean, we have AI, you have this. You know, this was explicitly, at least the way I read it, speaking to design within the business walls. Design moving in with these corporations. Right?

Chris: Right.

‍Dave: At least that's the way I read it. And to Chappell's point, you know, not only did I live through that, but I also, you know, full admit, I rode that wave when I took a client-side stint as well, too. And it was really easy to do. This sounds like a recovering addict, by the way. Um, I realize.

‍(Laughter)

Dave: Honestly, because all the things were there, right? Everybody was doing it, to Chappell's point. Every article talked about how... I remember when IBM, the first headline was 300 people, right? the next headline was, we're going to make it to a thousand people. I think the article that you're referencing, that we were all discussing, talked about how their internal training was up towards half a million people that they were training internally, right? 

Chris: That was one of the pull quotes, yeah.

Dave: So my take... Because I could talk about this for hours. Is, we got carried away. We got excessive ourselves, a bit overcommitted to this, but we fully absorbed, and executives fully absorbed, non-design executives, the language that was being spit out from IDO and Forrester and others that said, this stat is just true, right? If you hire designers, if you bring in leadership from a design perspective, you will innovate, you will build better products, you will do better business, you will have better outcomes. They had every stat, right? And so, the metrics were really easy. You could point to executives and say, we need to hire 10% more, and because of those things there was a commitment. Not a line of results beyond that. So the summary, I guess, is, do I think that's the death of it? No. Do I think it's a stage where we look back and review what happened during that era? And whether or not we even want a seat at the table. I'll be honest, that term is kind of triggering for me.

Chappell: (Laughs)

Chris: Oh, interesting.

Dave: Well, it's like... That, that term... And by the way, I use that in many a PowerPoint when on the client side, right? See you at the table. Look at this article. Reference this. To me, in retrospect, seat at the table is focused on a goal that doesn't necessarily... Like, why. Right? Like, why? If you can influence the table, which design has always done, if allowed, I should say. That is the place we should focus on. Obviously if up at the table, even occasionally, wonderful. But I guess I'll be clear. To me, I think, this is a stage where we look back and we say, What is our role in this? How do we influence the goals that we want to influence? And what does that mean in terms of this term, seat at the table?

Chris: Yeah. Well, I think it's interesting... When we were talking before... And some of what we were, you know, the thread that got spawned in Slack, in our internal Slack. I mean, the headlines, right, are like, it's over. IDO, in the article, they reference, they laid off like 30-plus percent of their staff this year. And so it became this thing where it was like, oh, the bells are sounding, right? But some of what I think we're dealing with is just a little bit of a course correction, because expectations got really high, right? This industry, this business, is cyclical. And we went through a cycle where, you know, for a minute everybody was saying design is going to fix all the problems. So, the need was, let's get a designer to look at every single thing, and then we expect every single thing to be great. And maybe that wasn't the right way to set it up from the very beginning, right? So some of this, I think, is course correction to something that is more realistic, rather than saying no more designers. Does that make sense?

Chappell: Yes. And also, I think a real problem with articles like this is that we risk talking about design as a monolithic culture.

‍Chris: I mean, this is a great point.

Chappell: And so when an article says it's the end of design, I'm like, for whomst? You know. Because... Robert who wrote that article, all the people on this call, we have, A, a very American view of design culture and design industry, and, B, real... I don't want to presume our ages, but, you know, everyone on this call is probably in the, at least in the 40s range, maybe. And we are of a specific time. And so, to say that design is over or design culture is ending, it's a very specific thing. And design has changed now. Design is a lot more fragmented. It's a lot more diverse. Approaches, methodologies, the practitioners themselves, everything is very much more diverse, for the better. But we're talking about an era, this article is referencing an era, when design was a little bit more monolithic, in terms of, a company like IDO really was everyone's idea of design for a minute.

Chris: Right.

Chappell: So, to see a company like that take such a big hit lately, it feels almost like a personal attack on your own industry and craft. But in fact, it's actually one view of design. And I don't mean to diminish, because there are great people at IDO. It's sad to see anyone lose jobs. It is not about diminishing that situation, but understanding it in the bigger context. That... It doesn't necessarily reflect where design's going, but it does reflect where, you know, the consequences of our business choices from basically, like, the mid-'90s into the mid-2000s.

Chris: Yeah.

Dave: Yeah.

Chris: It's interesting. Dave, talk about the parallel you saw to a clinical trial. Because I thought that was interesting and kind of fascinating, building off of what Chappell said. 

Dave: Yeah. So, I tend to think in metaphors a bit. And to me it was, you know, akin to some miracle drug that at least passed enough stage gates in clinical trials that, you know, the stats came out, the pamphlets were printed, and every doctor out there was saying, this medicine will solve this problem, right?

Chris: Right. Design is the solution.

Dave: It is. And not only that, but you don't need a lot of depth in numbers. You just need to do it. Just take it, right? Take this ointment, apply it, and in ten days it will be gone. And that was as clear as it was. So for, especially the businesses that already didn't have design embedded, the businesses that were larger and struggling with more disruptors and more startups, they were the ones that took the medicine the most. Right? And I was part of one of those. Because to them, this was how they think different. And by the way, let me be real clear, like... It had real business results. Like, I could talk about those things too. But, year over year, we didn't measure ourselves then more than it will work. And so yes, now I think we're in the stages where they say, well, now we've been watching this medicine for a while, and now we have to kind of course correct a little bit. Now we need to change the dosage. Now we need to change some of the way the medicine works. And I think that that's right. I mean my view, Chappell, you're right. I have been in several stages of design, and it's fun to reflect on what those were. And you and I quickly talked about, like, design is creative or maybe not? Maybe creative's not design. Are those different? The school I went to really, really focused on concept first, right? Very, very creative design program. And I was also an illustrator. And, when we came out, with very, very conceptual thinking. You need to stay in the understanding and conceptualization stages for a while until you come up with something, right? Don't just commit. I then became kind of an advisor to some of the school programs here in Denver for a while, and they really, really quickly started focusing on the technology and the products that we use. Right? Like, the actual tools that designers use. Which, to me, is wrong. That's just a means of doing it. And so I am curious where this goes, because I think... This is also a part, and I say this with caution, but I'll also just be completely honest. As part of that wave that I think you, you know, accurately captured, Chappell, that was also when design went from, these are just parts of our process and we're going to, like, on the agency side, we're going to ship something. We're going to launch this experience for you. And these are the things that we do to get there, but it's just part of our process, to these are very clear stage gates. We have personas, we have journey maps, we have these things. And each one of those costs this amount of money, and will take this much time, right? And that turned into the business side, which means, well, I need all of these people. I need all these things on the business side as well, too. And so, I think all that got bloated. So I think that's part of the... The way we course correct. I mean, I'd love to hear others’ thoughts on that front too, but I think part of it is to look back at those things and say, do we really need all of those things for this project? Do we really need all of those things to achieve this goal? And I think design has to sharpen the pencil a bit on that.

Chris: I think you are making a really important point, actually. And... Even when you say something like, do we really need all of these parts for this goal? "This goal" implies that there is clarity around some kind of business outcome. Some kind of value a company wants to drive to its customers, to people who are paying for its services, right? There is an underlying tie between what designers are working on, to what we are enabling for the business. And I think what happened a little bit, where design teams kind of lost their way, was when design became not just the means, but also the end by itself. Like, once we're done with the design, we're done. And that was not true. That was never true. Right? One of the things I wrote down from the article was, you know, there's going to be more introspection, more inspection, and less trust. Which kind of implies that before it was just okay to be doing the design. But that's not true, right? Because the business results always mattered. Design is a means to an end, just like engineering and product are a means to an end, right? You have to produce something that people can use, at least in our world, right? The software world, the digital world. You've gotta produce something that people can use. And so, I think as long as design is oriented around making, like, real business change and producing things of value for customers, it will always be necessary. It will always be relevant. And then you can pick and choose the activities of designers that are going to contribute to achieving what you want to achieve for your customers. That's always going to be relevant to business. Where it gets lost is when you just think, oh, well, we got to do some design thinking with a capital T, whatever that means, and not tie it back to what we're actually achieving.

‍Chappell: Yeah. I mean design thinking... As a process, which it is practically a patented process now, design thinking at its best is... It's a way of opening minds to new pathways to meet goals that otherwise might not have even explored.

Chris: Sure.

Chappell: It gets people excited. It gets people motivated. But design thinking at its worst is overpriced team building. You know?

Chris: Mhm.

Chappell: It's  a great way to get people in the room, but when there isn't a focused goal or outcome, it can flounder. Now, part of this, though, I want to say, is like... All of our industries, I don't care if you're a design, I don't care if you're a carpenter or whatever. Everyone is in a pretty desperate race to prove their value. And design, part of its issue and its identity crisis is, it tries very, very hard to prove it does deserve that seat at the table. And we come up with new ideas, we come up with patented design thinking frameworks on frameworks on frameworks to try to sell our relevance. And it's so hard, it's such a trap. You know, I came up through design, but then I went into content strategy, and you want to talk about a discipline that has a constant identity crisis. 

(Laughter)

Chappell: It's content strategy. And in fact, I stopped going to content strategy conferences, because 80% of the talks were about how do we prove our value? And that can be a trap. You know, for me personally, I don't want to sit around and talk about that. I want to just go do the work. And if someone does not see my value, I'm going to go to the next place and do the work for them and show them the value, right? And I feel like we fall into these traps where, because this is a really tough rat race we're all in, we're trying really hard to prove why we deserve to be here. Spiritually, emotionally, physically, you know? That it can blow up and bloat into these things that led to what this article was all about, which is kind of a decade of decadence, where designers were getting on main stage and saying design would save the world. When, I don't know, I would say the world still has a lot of issues. I'm not saying design can't save it or be a part of that, but it was a grandiose moment. It was a very grandiose moment to me.

‍Dave: Yeah. What you're making me think of a little bit too, Chappell, is, in reflection... It was also design separating itself from the end product as a separate unit as part of that, right?

Chappell: Right.

Dave: Like, just some reflection to the agency days, like, back in the early 2000s, it was about what we shipped. It was about what we launched. And design might have been the differentiation in terms of the quality of that, same with front-end engineering, same with a variety of things on that front. But that was what separated you from the other agency's work, which is what led to better business and differentiated business, higher costs, things like that as well, too. Right? So then design said, no, wait, we have processes to do those things. Those processes required extra cost, extra weight. And to me, that was the beginning of, kind of, the separation of design as its own thing, as opposed to going back to saying, no, we just launched something. And if it's better, if it has better results, back to your point, Chris, it's because we took time to do these things. Right? As opposed to that first and then the other later.

Chris: Yeah. But just as a thought experiment, let's go down the path where we ask the question, like, what if no design then?

Chappell: (Laughs)

Chris: Like, I think, you know, certainly my opinion, right, is that design is tremendously valuable as part of the process to drive towards better outcomes and more value. But let's assume design went away, right? You don't have a designer on staff, or you're not using an agency to contribute design thought to your process. What happens, right? Because maybe where I'll start the conversation is, things are still getting designed. It's just happening somewhere else, right? It's just happening directly with engineers. Or it's happening with product people or business analysts, right? There are still interfaces that are going to materialize. It's just that if you don't have a designer looking at them, they happen in a much different way. And, you know, that's why we end up with a lot of bad software in the world. But I'm curious, like, what are your thoughts about, what if no design? And what is the end of that track?

Chappell: You might be asking the wrong people.

Dave: (Laughs)

Chappell: Because we're all pretty biased, because we think that design should be in the process.

Chris: I know. This is why I want to push the conversation in this direction.

Dave: Yeah. So, I think one positive output... And first off, I think there's a ton of positive outputs of this era. And by the way, I hate that term with this article, of this being, like, a generation that we just say, go off to pasture.

Chris: Right. Right. Exactly.

Chappell: (Laughs)

Dave: Maybe that's because I'm personally triggered, to Chappell's point. But, I think there's a lot of good things that we need to reflect on, and maybe we need to write a positive article around it, in terms of design's effect internally on organizations and a variety of other things. But one big metric is that people now know of it very well, right? Whether it's a process, like design thinking or journey mapping or those types of things, right? At least they understand the intention and the goals of some of those things. But also the, you know, I need a designer around my team. So I think where this goes from here, if you don't have design, I think design's done a great job of enabling people to not have design, to be honest with you. We're a narcissistic, I guess, group of people, to a certain degree, where we've created templates, we've created design systems that are free now, we've created all kinds of things that will solve that problem for you. We've created patented formulas that you can run your team through. We've created all these other things. So, design has honestly done a pretty good job of saying, here's what you need, see you later. But I do think that engineering teams within big organizations, a variety of others, they will bring those into their own teams if you don't have a centralized team anymore.

Chris: That's an interesting response, right? Because what you're saying is, design going away does not actually mean design goes away, right? It just lives in new places, or it's different people doing those responsibilities. Which I think is right. I think the reality is, design can't go away. It's incredibly important, and there... And it's happening whether you see it or not. And, you know, I am a firm believer that design translates directly into better business with things like customer satisfaction, right? You want your customers to love what they're using because they will tell people about it. And you get more people coming to the door. You know? Your employee experience, if you think about what internal systems your company is using, if you level those up, things get better, right? You get more efficiency from your workforce. You get better customer experiences through better employee experiences. These things happen because you've got people thinking about, what are those journeys? What are people using and trying to do, and how do we make those things work better? That is design, right? And it's inherently tied to, how do we succeed as a business, right? And I think, as long as you keep that connection strong, design is always going to be important and always going to be in the room.

Chappell: Yeah. I agree. Though I will say, like, you know, the best engineers I know are also people who are very curious about making great products people love, toO. It's really, like... Design has a tendency to, and with any medium that's, like, visual or creative, there's a tendency to kind of be, you know, a little too cool for school. And position yourself as being, like, this, the coolest kid on the playground kind of thing. The best teams that are building things are teams that are all so deeply curious about each other's discipline and practice that they almost kind of blend.

Chris: Mhm.

Chappell: You know what I mean? Like, as a content strategist, say, anytime I've worked on a team, that team should feel like I can step into the Figma files. I can sit with the designers. The engineers should feel like, oh, I have opinions on migration, and you know a lot about automation, let's get to it. These are the best teams that flow together. And I know that, like, there's that old question, should designers learn to code? That's really not what we're saying and it's not what's necessary. But I think for me, the best future of design is one in which we really get back to prioritizing curiosity and learning. And not just sitting in Figma and making boxes. Because anyone can do that. And that is, the fears of automation are really the things that don't require curiosity and thoughtfulness and introspection. And so, like, there are going to be things... God, I hope, I hope one day that websites design themselves. I would love that. Like, put me out of business. Put me out of my job. Let's let the robots design the websites. Because the fact is, we will always, designers will always move on and move forward. My first design job was making Flash ads for Disney DVDs.

Chris: Amazing.

Chappell: That job does not exist anymore. But guess what? I moved on, I advanced. I had friends who were, like, a whole cottage industry that all they did was make DVD menus. That doesn't exist like that anymore. But guess what? All those designers went on to the next thing, because that's what we do. We're intrepid, we're interested and curious, and we also know how to survive. We will do this. Automation does not kill design, and it's not going to remove design from this great process of making things. But we have to get back to that curiosity, the willingness to evolve. And... I mean, I can read a little bit of HTML, I know a little bit of code. I can read a language if you give me a little bit of instruction. But you don't have to be able to write it. You don't have to know everyone else's job. But that's the design of the future to me, is not... Not design will save the world, it's design can help you save the world. It's a framework and a way of thinking and a way of approaching life that can actually enable greatness. Instead of, you know, putting us out on a stage like we're this untouchable monolith. I want... That's the part I'm like, yeah, let's get rid of that.

Dave: I agree.

Chris: Yeah.

Dave: I love your getting back to the team. That's what I hope comes back as well, too, is that... Design is not the independent thing that's going to save everything, right?

Chappell: Right.

Dave: It's about, the best teams are the ones that are in each other's business. In a good way. And influencing each other to get better, right? Like, front-end engineering's a great example, right? That, the thing we used to do specifically on agencies is sit our developers with our designers so that they fed each other on the sites that they were looking at, on the experiences that they were reacting to. Look what this agency just launched. That dialogue, regardless of what they're working on for their actual clients, that dialogue around what good is is critical to be able to have across the team. And not just with design and development, but with your account team, with your product owners, with those other people. And that, to me, was the value of taking design and plugging it into these big businesses, is to spread that internally. Not to say we're this bespoke department that you can come and we'll let you in if you're lucky, right? I think that separation is a big part of, maybe, what they're saying they're kind of done with, with this generation, right? I am too. I never wanted that. We wanted to create areas within our company where people could come and sit and hang and learn more about it, right?Understand what better design is. So I guess my fear, Chris, I guess to go the other side of it, to your point of design being gone. Again, I don't see that necessarily happening, but my fear right now with this counter-hype, with these big sensational articles, is that businesses will go the other direction. Oh, trends are telling me I need to get rid of design, right? It's not important anymore. Well, if you're not doing it internally anymore, and from what I understand, trends are that you're not hiring agencies as much as you used to anymore, well then, where are you getting that curiosity, right, Chappell? Where are you getting the creative? Where are you getting the design? How are you differentiating yourself in those areas? Because it's not just about doing your existing products better and your existing day-to -day better. It's also about influencing new ideas and new business models.

Chris: Yes.

Dave: And things like that as well, too. And so, what are businesses going to do? So my concern is that we're going to hit a phase of the other direction, which I hope inspires better work, because then they're going to need agencies, they're going to need other people to come in and help them on that front. And maybe that's where we flatten out.

Chappell: Yeah.

Chris: Yeah. You know, I think the three of us agree, right? Design as the ivory tower where somebody comes down from on high and says, here you go. I, you know, I've designed the interface. You're welcome. That doesn't work, right? But also, this reminds me a little bit of what we went through 15 years ago when we were moving from waterfall to agile, right? And it used to be, somebody, you know, wrote the requirements document, and then somebody lived in Photoshop and got all the pixels exactly right, and then engineering tried to build it, and what you ended up with was this very disjointed thing, right? Because nobody was talking to each other during the process. It was just going through, you know, throw it over the wall, throw it over the wall. And where I think we are now, I won't speak for the industry at large, but I will speak for Launch, right? What we do is cross-functional teams that work very closely together, right? You've got engineering involved from the first meeting. You've got product managers and designers thinking through throughout. And, to the points that both of you are making, the team is in each other's business in a good way, right? They are working very collaboratively so that it's not about pixel matching some perfect design. It's about, how does this work? How does this feel? What is this going to enable for users? And that is so critically important as you're designing digital products, right? Especially ones that are used by a wide audience. I mean, even ones that are used by a niche audience. It's still very, very important.

Chappell: Yeah, I... Speaking from the experience of overseeing a lot of our project teams, how I know a good team is when I can walk into the room and say, one of our teams that was working on, I'll describe it as a back-end gaming services. I walked into the room and all of our designers could tell me about the APIs, the data feeds that were pushing in the data into this dashboard we were creating. And it made them better designers, and it made our engineers better engineers. You know? That they can all understand each other's worlds. It doesn't mean... Our designers didn't know how to code any of that. And that's not their job. But the curiosity put people together, and then all of a sudden they're all working as a unit. And so, engineers and designers are, actually all become advocates for the user together. It's a really beautiful thing when teams work that way. And if your designers can't tell you anything about how the system works, that's a problem, because design is about the system.

Chris: Yes.

‍Chappell: It brings it to life in a visual way, often, but it has to know the system and to understand the implications of everything going on.

Chris: Yes.

Chappell: Ultimately, like, if I were going to rewrite the headline of that article for me, it would just be, Design Set a Bad OKR.

‍Chris: Say more. Define OKR, and what do you mean by that?

Chappell: Design's OKR, which, you know, we were just talking OKR planning internally, which, you know, everyone's favorite topic.

Chris: Objectives and key results, right?

Chappell: Objectives and key results. In this era that this article is speaking to, design set its own OKR, which was, design will save the world. That's not measurable. It's not really actionable.

Dave: (Laughs)

Chappell: It's not possible. You know, and when you get that grandiose in your way of thinking, you actually end up doing the opposite. You know, there are so many ways design can save someone's world. Design can make someone's day not suck. You know, there are so many other ways that design can make such a difference, that you don't have to talk about it in those terms. You know, for example, I had a friend, it took him five years of work and breaking down a system to finally get a stop sign put into his neighborhood.

Dave: Mhm.

Chappell: And I told him, man, that's some of the best design I've heard of in a while. You know?

Chris: Mm.

Chappell: You affected a system, and you might actually save lives. Or save children from, you know, having a car come towards them. That is designing your environment. And that's a beautiful thing. And it's so small and it's so local, it's literally in your front yard. And this is what I try to tell people all the time about design is like, yes, those big messages will get you on the main stage. That is cool. But ultimately it's about helping people on a one-to-one basis. And design can do that. Design can make someone's life better, and that can be measurable and actionable and whatever OKRs are supposed to be, which I should probably know by now. So I want to bring design back to this place of... Of just, like, being in the work and in the weeds more. And marching towards the hard stuff. And not saying the big dramatic statements.

Chris: Mhm.

Dave: Yeah. You've reminded me of a term, and it was right at the transition of this into, like, when IBM was marching towards a thousand and all these big headlines were coming out. But we... Even though, you know, I led a design team and I've always been a designer, because I am, at my heart, a passionate designer. We called ourselves makers. That was the term back then.

Chappell: Mm. Yeah.

Dave: And it hadn't really hit me until you just were talking about that. And maybe that's the next trend. Maybe we get back to that, right? Which is about making stuff. Because, to your point... You know, I have a neighbor who fixes up old cars, right? Old trucks. He can make the outside look as cool and pretty as he wants, right? And when you see that thing... But it's the engine that's inside of it. It's the cables that are running. It's all of those things that are critical to that experience when you drive that truck. And a true designer understands those things, the content that's coming in, what you have to work with, but then also, all the things that enable a fast load time, quick server response, all those different things as well, too. And that gets us back to, you know, I think the way, way origin roots of design and architecture. Right? Like I always liked, back in the early days,  referencing architects. Architects can't just conjure up some design for a building and say, just build it, look at how cool it is. The Denver Art Museum is a great example. We were just there. My daughter's work, she's in high school and she had some work at the art museum. It was done by this famous architect as part of a call to, you know, for designs for the Denver Art Museum. And it's the most crazy radical design ever. But the function of it is crazy. And it led to so many problems. So if you haven't been here, it's all these crazy angles. And so, people get vertigo when they're in it, because of the angles of the walls. They couldn't hang up artwork. They didn't even think about the interior of the design of these angles.

Chris: What?

Dave: And then because of... Yeah, if you haven't been to the Denver Art Museum, it's pretty crazy. It's beautiful. It's a really amazing, spiky complex, you can do a Google search on it. But the first few things that happened when they built it, and then, you know, kind of launched it, was, yeah, the art, not straight walls. So they had to build up their own walls to be able to do that. But then we get these massive snowfalls, and because of the angles of the building on the outside, the snow would build up in the middle and then melt, and then they had massive flooding because any type of barrier that you put up couldn't hold it. So all kinds of things led to that, right? So form, you know, and function, I guess, is what I'm getting at, is critical. And that comes back to just being makers. And yes, we lean on the design side of it, but that's where you have a team, where you have different people doing different roles, but at the end of the day you're all responsible for making this thing.

Chappell: Yeah, I mean, maybe, is designer the old word? Are we going to a different term?

Chris: I don't know about that.

Chappell: (Laughs)

Chris: I think it comes back to, again, like, what matters to the business? Right? How are we enabling the business to achieve some new value, right? That it is striving for? In the art museum example, right? There was clear disaster avoidance that could have happened if you had design, maybe, more present during that process, and not have to deal with flooding and the like. But I think that this is the thing. Like, did business, you know, quote-unquote "break up with design"? No. I think business is still going to see the value of design, will continue to see the value of design, but it will evolve. And what I think there's little tolerance for is just design for design's sake, right? We're going to spin up a lot of... This is what we've been saying this whole conversation, we're going to spin up a lot of work that is just for doing the work, as opposed to driving towards a particular outcome. Yeah. When we get back to that, when it's really about driving towards an outcome, there's tremendous business value. And so there's not going to be a, you know, we don't want to do that anymore.

Chappell: Yeah. It's also, it's cyclical too, you know? When times get not great in the economy and business, we start looking around and saying, well, who doesn't need to be here at my table?

Chris: That's right.

Chappell: And then those people might get cut. And then, two years later, we say, why does our website look terrible?

Dave: (Laughs)

Chappell: Why can't anyone use it? Oh no. And it's like, oh, you fired all the designers. Oh. And then it comes back. I mean, we've seen this. I mean, there are some benefits of growing up and aging, and one of them is that you see these cycles, and you take comfort in knowing that they are cycles. And it will change. And hopefully, hopefully more than change, hopefully evolve. You know, because we would love to not have the same things happen and repeat, you know, past mistakes of promising to save the world and then maybe not doing so. (Laughs) You know. But I think we could temper our, maybe temper our expectations for design going forward. And, you know, maybe find some middle ground. You know?

Dave: Yeah, I agree. And I think that your point right there brings me back to this article being a bit excessive, obviously, right? Because the people that they reference, the companies that they reference that are doing that, I agree with you. I... You know, we used to say this on the agency side, but, last one in, first one out, right? I remember, when you'd be evaluating a new agency, and if it was hard economic times or you saw that they lost a couple clients, you'd debate that role, because you're the last one in and therefore you could be the first one out if they have a hard time, right? And I think that's exactly what has happened in a lot of those businesses, is they had a core group already at that table. Design was the last one in. And so it was very easy to say, okay, this didn't make sense for us, let's go. But, back to the black and white mentality, I do think it's really important for us to take a moment to reflect that there's plenty of big businesses that have been doing this for a while and are still doing it very, very successfully with some high-powered executives that are doing great work.

Chappell: Yeah.

Dave: Where they're already there, they're not going away. From what I've heard, maybe they had a little bit of, you know, let go of staff and team on that front. But, for the most part they're still at it. They probably laughed at that article, to a certain degree. So I want to acknowledge that it's not as black and white as that article makes it seem like. There are plenty of references that I could point towards where they're still at it, they're still producing. And mostly because they've really empowered more of a culture of makers in their walls, and not just a bespoke design team. Right? They have all of the working parts. So that design can thrive within that group. But ultimately, the business can see the outcomes.

Chappell: Well, and to be the devil's advocate too, let's be clear. There are many organizations, and agencies, that need this wake-up call. And need to understand where they might have strayed. Because I have worked at many agencies, I have had to work with many agencies, and there are some that just plain aren't delivering what they say they'll deliver. And, like, that is part of why I came to this agency, was because I actually wanted to be somewhere that can deliver work. And drive outcomes. I mean, I know that sounds crazy, gang, but that's important to me. And so to actually get to witness that for the first time in my life has been very life-changing. So, I actually do feel... I, again, I do not want to diminish layoffs. This is a terrible time for a lot of people. And I want to see this get better really quickly. But. A lot of organizations can take this moment to take a look at what they're doing and promising when it comes to what design will do for their clients and partners. And consider, are we meeting that promise? Are we actually delivering? And I gotta tell you, a lot of these places haven't been. And that puts people like us in jeopardy. You know how many times we walk into a client room and these poor folks have been traumatized?

Chris: They've been burned.

‍Chappell: By a previous... They've been burned by a previous agency who said, our patented formula design thinking method is going to get you all your dreams and wishes and ponies. And this poor client is sitting there looking at us, going, I don't know if I even want to talk to you. And it's so sad. And that's why, you know, we joke that our job half the time is therapy, because we're helping people move on from a time when their expectations were totally destroyed. And I think about that a lot. And that kind of empathy drives me, because I've seen both sides. I've seen how design can really change things for the best. And I've also seen when it's just straight up a Trojan horse. And it's unfair. And that is... Again, this is... I'm kind of going from devil's advocate to hopefully a middle ground here. I want to see design be the best it can be, and help people be the best they can be. And not do this empty promises thing.

Chris: I think that's a perfect place to leave it. Hopefully we have tamped down the freakout for people. And if you are listening to this and you want to know how to apply design effectively, you are a believer and you want it to help change your business, please reach out. Dave, Chappell and I would love to talk to you. We've got a great team around us that knows how to think about design and think about strategy in a way that actually moves the needle for your business. So please reach out, we'd love to talk to you. Dave, Chappell, thank you so much for joining me. This was a great conversation. Lots more we could say.

Chappell: Oh yeah.

Dave: Thank you for having me.

Chris: Thanks for listening.

Chappell: Thanks, everyone.

Chris: Bye, y'all.

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