Design managers work inside non-design businesses to oversee all the design related activity commissioned by the organisation.
This may include management of an in-house design team, as well as sourcing, commissioning and working with external designers and consultancies. A design manager might report to a marketing director or operations director, often acting as an ‘evangelist’ for the value of design within the business. It is the design manager’s responsibility to ensure that design output meets all the objectives of the business and remains on schedule and on budget.
Joe Ferry, Head of Design and Service Design at Virgin Atlantic, reports directly to the company’s Chief Operating Officer. Virgin Atlantic has what Ferry describes as a ‘very flat structure’ and both the COO and CEO are ‘design literate and very supportive of innovation.’ This senior management buy-in is an important distinguishing characteristic of Virgin Atlantic says Ferry, who ensures the design team is also allied with departments such as brand management and marketing.
Read more about how Joe Ferry manages design at Virgin Atlantic.
David Mercer, Head of Design at BT, is responsible for the whole of BT’s brand identity and he reports to the company’s director of marketing and brand. The rapid pace of change within the sector, says Mercer, is creating ‘a more dynamic role for design’ as the company must adapt and extend its brand to encompass new service offerings and its new position in the economy.
Find out more about Mercer's experience of design management in a case study about design at BT.
Experience and knowledge of design processes are extremely valuable – it is often trained and experienced designers who become design managers, although there is also a small number of design management degree courses available. See UCAS for listings of these
Clive Grinyer, Director of Customer Experience at Cisco, for example, has a background in product and user interface design, but has taken on a role at Cisco which, he says, helps to ‘identify the opportunity for design that conventional management wouldn’t recognise’.
In the last five to ten years companies have realised that design is part of their armoury and that they need to design and need to engage with design activities. Having somebody in-house who will manage design, who is a jack of all trades, who maybe has some relationships with local consultancies and so on is very valuable. Clive Grinyer, Director of Customer Experience, Cisco