A very interesting phenomenon that I run into all the time is that owners of small to medium size enterprises think all of this [briefing] is really for big corporations and not for them. Yet they still are doing design projects and they have needs for design, and they are going outside, usually to other smaller design consultancies or design agencies and yes, they should be doing the same kind of briefing process. It’s just as applicable to a small two or three person firm as it is to a 120,000 person firm.
The process is still the same; the desired results are the same. It doesn’t matter if it’s a small design firm and a small company, they’ll get a much better result by doing a briefing process with the kinds of problem definition that I’ve been talking about in my book and on [The Design Council] website. So I would encourage small and medium size enterprises to look at new and better ways to deal with their external design consultancies. And briefing could be a major tool to make a lot of improvements in their output.
I’d like to give you an example of a fairly small company. It was a family owned company that I did some work with, and they made what we call in the U.S. potato chips, which you call crisps here, in the small bags that would be sold at retail and in schools for small money. It was a very small company, probably less than 50 employees but they had needs for packaging design for their chips. They had four delivery vehicles that needed livery graphics. They had posters and brochures and things for schools talking about the quality of their product. They had stationery. These are all designed things.
And the man who owned the company approached me and he said, you know, I’m just a little guy, I can’t afford design, so I just buy all of this out of a catalogue. And he said, but I’m really not doing as well as I wanted to do. Some of these other companies are really taking the business away from me. And I said; It's because you look terrible." You’re buying a mish-mash of stuff out of a catalogue, you know, style four on page 32, you’re not paying attention to design. He said, well I’m too small, I can’t deal with all that. And I said, yes you can. Let me help you. I found him a good small design firm. They established a nice relationship. And then I showed them both how to develop good briefs, for primarily the packaging first, and then the fleet graphics and other stuff. He came up with a strong unified look that instantly made the company more recognisable in the market place, and was much better design work. So yes, small companies can profit by using this design brief process. They can get more awareness, they can save money in the long run, and they can buy design on the outside but still have a collaborative partnership with a design partner.