Designers in the limelight have created much controversy – are these designers really that wow? Or do products they design sell in exceptional quantities? Compared to designers not in the limelight, are they truly more efficient?

Are these designers that wow?

I would think these designers would have done their job well to impress the design guru, Philippe Starck, to personally hand pick, awarding them such an honor in such fashion – knighting designers, receiving much recognition and glory.

Nevertheless, the guru might not have gone through portfolios that did not appear before him, leaving possible talented individuals without a candidature towards such glorification.

Do products they design sell in exceptional quantities?

It might be possible that products designed by exceptional designers sell well, but it might not be due to its design. Usually, firms that approach big named designers/ design houses would have substantial reputation or profits. Therefore, it would be hard to quantify success via the mere figures from the sales department, as other factors affect sales of products too.

One such factor could be the double branding of products which have proven to be a rather popular strategy untaken by firms. Design gurus like Philippe Starck (Fossil, LaCie, Microsoft), Karim Rashid (Asus, Kenzo, Method) , Naoto Fukasawa (KDDI, MUJI, SAMSUNG) and Marc Newson (Samsonite, Virgin, Nike) often double brand products to reach for a wider target market group.

In conclusion, I would think double branding would bring more publicity, which might lead to an increase in market share, leveraging numbers from individuals loyal to either the designer brand or the producing brand.

Compared to designers not in the limelight, are they truly more efficient?

Leaving out the double branding effect I raised above, these designers might not always be efficient. A designer may have designed a good product, but might not be able to repeat such success on other range.

Design is especially subjective and clients might not be the easiest bunch to deal with. Having much red tape, and product requirements, designers are ‘forced’ into adhering to such requests. Whereas, being a famed designer, puts you at a better position to voice your concerns and to communicate more effectively with their clients.

Although no one could predict outcomes of a designer’s creativity, designers in the limelight definitely are given more freedom to be creative and to express their idea. This gives famed designers a platform, which probably leads to better efficiency.

In essence, I would wish to be picked by Philippe Starck, the guru himself too. Appearing all over blogs, websites, magazines and newspapers would definitely boost reputation and credibility in this field. Not limiting to the field of design alone, it would be effective too, if selected your industry’s journal, magazine or guru.

My take on this issue would be, design and innovation had always been a pretty much debated issue. There are many schools of thoughts, and each are pretty much geographically and demographically separated. No single perspective would fit all designers/ business thinkers and not all projects could be untaken using a single framework.

Having read Roberto Verganti’s Design Driven Innovation, it was pretty much from an Italian design’s perspective. Truly, Italian design is successful and unique, but too much of particular style of design would kill the framework eventually.

Most firms quoted in the book are firms that produce niche products which are not as technology intensive as compared to most of IDEO’s clients. It is true that products and innovation requires support from a design perspective, but other aspects like user usability, manufacturability, marketability and financial viability are important factors.

User Centered Innovation may seem like a form of incremental innovation, but looking into Boston Consulting Group’s Growth-share analysis, it is what that turn stars into cash cows. Most award winning and best selling designs are not designs that are radically different, but designs that communicates its use best.

Design Driven Innovation would be particularly fueled by markets that are invariably niche, which carries a huge potential for exceptional profit per unit sold, but application of such design strategy company-wide might not present the most attractive P&L.

User Centered Innovation on the other hand, I see as being more adaptable. It could be applied after the company applied Design Driven Innovation on a particular product line to improve on its usability and manufacturability. This form of innovation could be untaken radically too, as the framework could be used to create a radical product, leveraging on similar target groups, their habits, previous knowledge and articulation of visual/ auditory elements.

Both innovation frameworks could, and should be used side by side in projects with a pinch of salt from business strategies to foolproof and meld out a better product/ service. New strategies and frameworks descend periodically but what matters most is the articulation of such processes. New strategies and frameworks do not die out, but are better supplemented with new ones.

That’s probably the reason why people still read The Wealth of Nations (Adam Smith, 1776).

Innovation, the buzzword of today’s gloomy economy seems like a glimpse of hope to many ailing organization. Apparently, innovation might be a double-edged sword and the same reason behind the economic meltdown. The sub-prime mortgage for example, could also be seen as a form of innovation in the banking sector, the creative way of repackaging/restructuring of risky assets into collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and having it being underwritten by a top investment bank.

From this, innovation seems to have lost its luster and attractiveness as an economic revival tool. While so, the main idea to raise this issue is to highlight the need to articulate innovation carefully and critically from multiple perspectives of the stakeholders (employees, managers, owners, suppliers, customers, shareholders, creditors, the government and the society) involved.

To sum up, innovation is an important factor to an organization’s success but it might not benefit other stakeholders absolutely. This might lead to the organization’s ultimate failure when stakeholders take an offensive stand.