Ursula Davies
Hi, everyone, thanks for coming. My name is Ursula Davies. I’m the Research Manager here at the Design Council. And as David said, I’m going to briefly take you through some of the key findings from our research before handing over to Simon for our debate.
So, this is the second time that we’ve done this survey. The first time we did this was back in 2005, so it’s really exciting for us to be able to present the findings for you today. As David said, this is really quite a unique survey, it’s the only survey that’s... it’s very comprehensive, that covers not just design consultancies and freelance designers, but also in-house design teams.
I’m not going to bore you with a lot of detail and the methodology; I think all you need to know is that it’s a very robust piece of work. We spoke to more than 2,200 design businesses around the UK working across a range of disciplines, and there were two broad themes that we wanted to talk to you about today, that have emerged from the research.
The first is that there’s been growth despite the recession. We know that the last 18 months have been very challenging times for businesses in the UK, not just those in the design sector. I think we were heartened to find that overall the industry has actually grown since 2005 when we last looked at it. In terms of the number of designers in the UK, there are currently 232,000 designers working in the UK. Now, that’s a 29% increase since 2005. So, that’s really quite a significant increase. It’s perhaps no surprise when we think about the ever increasing number of design studies courses that we know there are out there. I mean, to give you a comparison to that number, we know there are 55,000 design studies undergraduates currently in the UK. So, there’s lots of young designers coming out of our Universities looking, you know, looking to work in that sector. And that increase in numbers has also translated to an increase in fee income.
So, when we look at the overall fee incomes of design consultancies and freelance designers, and the budgets of in-house design teams, we get a figure of £15 billion. Now, that’s £3.4 billion up from 2005, which when we take inflation into account, we estimate that’s around a 15% increase overall. In terms of how that £15 billion breaks down, around half of that comes from design consultancy fee incomes, around a quarter comes from freelance designer fee incomes, and a further quarter comes from in-house design team budgets.
We’ve also seen a 10% increase in the number of in-house design teams in the UK. So, we know that there are currently 6,500 in-house design teams in the UK; this is more than 100 employees. I think the reason that we’ve focused on this particularly is that although the number of in-house design teams has grown, actually the number of designers employed in those in-house design teams has also grown. We’ve actually seen a reduction in in-house design team budgets. Those budgets overall have decreased by around a third, which suggests that although businesses are reducing the resources of those in-house design teams, they’re not doing away with them. And we took that really as a positive sign that they’re recognising the value that those in-house design teams give to that business.
So, that’s a little bit on the size of the sector and the fact that it’s grown. That growth has also been accompanied by changing the shape of the design industry, a change in its business dynamics, if you like. If we think back to the overall number of designers that we... that 232,000, a lot of the growth there has come from the freelance design sector. We’ve seen a 39% increase in the number of freelancers working in the UK since 2005. So, that’s really quite significant. Now, we don’t know that’s necessarily a term that’s specific to design, we think that’s, you know, that’s something that we’re seeing with a tranche, a more mobile and more flexible workforce that freelance designers provide. But when we look at the age profile of those freelance designers, one in ten of them has set up over the last year; one in four of them has set up over the last four years. So, there’s a lot of freelance designers that have set up their businesses quite recently. And one of the things that we’re really interested in finding out about... from freelance designers is, is why that is, is it their choice, is it because they want to choose where they work, they want that flexibility, they feel that it gives them more creative freedom? Or is it on the other hand that it’s out of necessity, perhaps they’ve been made redundant from their job in a design consultancy, or they’re a graduate that’s been struggling to find a position. So, you know, we’re really interested to find out from freelance designers why they think that is.
We’ve also found that overall there are fewer larger design consultancies. In 2005 when we asked design consultancies... when we took design consultancies through our server, we found that only 5% of design consultancies employed more than 50 staff. In 2009 that number had decreased to 2%. So, while there were few of them in 2005, there are fewer still in 2009. By comparison, we found that 87% of the vast majority of design consultancies employ less than ten staff. Overall when we look at design consultancy numbers, the number of design consultancies has decreased by 13% since 2005. But the headcounts, the number of designers employed in those design consultancies has actually increased by a third. And we think that growth is really occurring... it’s incurring in that group of businesses with less than ten employees.
In terms of recruitment, it’s quite a difficult job market out there. I think that’s no surprise. We found that 31% of design consultancies and in-house design teams had recruited new staff last year. Now, that’s a 10% decrease for design consultancies on 2005 and a 20% decrease on in-house design teams in 2005. Which is just that it’s, you know, it’s quite difficult out there. By comparison we found that 7% of UK design consultancies and in-house design teams had made redundancies over the last year. So, if we think back to our figure of the 55,000 UK design studies undergraduates that we have out there, I think that begs the question of, you know, just how challenging it will be for them in the next few years, you know, finding the opportunities in that market.
So, that’s really just to give you a flavour of the research. You know, obviously there’s a lot more detail there and do look at what’s available on our website and look at the design week supplement and let us know what you think. And there’s a lot of areas for discussion that come out of that, and we are really interested to hear what you have to say on that. And we’re really excited to have such a great panel of speakers here with us today to talk about three specific areas.
In terms of the recession we’ve talked about the fact that there’s been growth overall, but post-recession, how can that be consolidated? You know, we’re conscious that we don’t want to paint an over-rosy picture of the industry. So, overall when numbers have grown, for instance, when we spoke to design consultancies, one in four told us that their fee incomes had decreased over the previous year. Now, that’s double the number that told us that back in 2005. So, clearly whilst, you know, overall there’s been growth, there have been difficult times for some. And it will be really interesting to hear – I think Mandy and Tom’s different perspectives on whether the recession really has been good news in disguise for designers.
In terms of networking, our research showed that networking had become increasingly important. For instance, when we asked freelance designers back in 2005 how many of them used networking, only 25% said they used networking to target new clients. In 2009 that figure had increased to 75%, so that’s a really significant increase. And we also know that there’s been a growth in the number of local and regional design networks springing up over the last five years, some of whom are joining us on the webcast today. And the research shows us that one in ten design businesses is now a member of a local or a regional design network. So, I think it will be really interesting to hear the discussion between Callum and Shan about the role that those networks can play, how effective they are in helping design businesses grow and develop.
And lastly, in terms of training and CPD. This was something that came up very strongly from the 2005 research, that training participation rates for designers overall were low. In 2009 it was very much the same story. We compared the training rates of UK designers with those of other professions like software professionals, media professionals, architects, we also looked at artists. And designers came out bottom of the lot, lower even than artists which I was quite surprised about. When we look at how the difference between training rates, say for freelancers and for in-house design teams, the freelancers training rates are the lowest of all the different types of design business. So, only a third of freelancers took part in some form of professional training last year. And I think when we think about the fact that we’ve got an increasing freelancer designer population, that suggests that, you know, we’ve got to think quite carefully about how in the future we can ensure that the UK design industry has the skills and the knowledge that it needs to grow and develop. And so Mike and Brian will be fighting it out for us today over the relative benefits of learning on the job versus more formal training.
So, that’s it from me. I’m now going to hand over to Simon for our debate.
Simon Waterfall
Thank you, morning everyone. Well, as I think you’ve obviously picked up the heavyweight paper, today just is about the numbers. And these volumes are testament to Ursula and Ruth’s nine months hard diligent graft into this. The first few figures I saw last week when I went through them were the 232,000 design people in the UK. And the survey which is a very comprehensive study, 2,200 had replied to the bullying tactics of the teams incessantly calling them, and making people who normally hate numbers be honest about them.
Designers normally don’t like numbers, we’re not very good with numbers, we’re not trained in that area. My ex-partner described the design business as a very fast beautiful car at night with the headlights off in fog. Now, the car is beautiful, but it’s unfortunately driven by an egotistical, narcissistic, nepotistic idiot, and he’s not ready for the crash. I was that driver once. I have been at the birth, at the boom and the bust of a company, and so I think it’s only fitting that I sit here at the brink of either the beginning of a recession, a hockey loop thing, I don’t care what it is, but these days I’m really keen on numbers, really keen.
So, we are going to debate three of the main points with my esteemed panel, we are going to be very tight on time because let’s not forget we have another 600 people around the UK who are following us online, and we’ll be taking their votes at the end of each. So, I think a few housekeeping points to make sure your phones are off, I will cut you off at the numbers if your phone rings. I’ll introduce each of the speakers, and the debate at the end of each we’ll have a show of hands. These are the cards, if you are colour blind, this is the grey one and this is the grey one. Good design here, right. So, what I’ll ask you to do at the end is the people at the end just to keep their cards up. We will actually... I’ll do a swingometer, but we’ll actually count the numbers, because this is about statistics. We want to be quite rigorous and we’ll add it to our regions at the end, and I’ll give you the golden envelope summary.
So, that is the time. We are of course late, which is brilliant. So, I’d like to first of all... it’s going to be seven minutes debate. Seven minutes? Seven minutes. Five minutes for questions from you guys and also we’ll take questions from the web. Guys on the web, if you’d like to type questions in as we go, so it’s not just a flurry at the end, so we can get those lined up for you. The questions, no grandstanding, postulating, no debates, no ums, ahs, or repetitions. And with that we will kick off.
So, the first motion, recessions are good news in disguise for designers. Speaking for is Tom Dixon and speaking against is Mandy Merron. And I will first of all introduce Tom who is speaking for. Tom’s progress from being a self-taught design maker to one of the most UKs most prominent furniture designers, thanks to his eye for the creative and commercial. After designing for Italian brands like Capellini, he became Head of Design and later Creative Director at Habitat. He now focuses his own furniture and lighting studios at Artek [?] and the furniture company founded by the Finnish Modernist Alva Aalto [?], sorry. Tom was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 2001, and a most recent accolade included Tom winning the Designer of the Year 2008 from ABTA and WOHA magazine. So, I give you arguing for, Tom Dixon.
Tom Dixon
Standing up?
Simon Waterfall
Standing up. Would you like to stand up or would you like to sit down?
Tom Dixon
I don’t care.
Simon Waterfall
Standing up or sitting down, what do you reckon? Standing up, fine.
Tom Dixon
Okay, I’ve just been robbed of all of my statistics by you guys, because you gave us the briefing notes, and I thought we were going to use those in our arguments. So, I’m going to start from zero and just say that for me, I’m giving you a personal perspective of recessions. I managed to do a bit of swotting up this morning at six on Wikipedia, and I realised that I’ve actually lived through four recessions. And so I’m going to run you through my recessions. The 70s, which maybe very few people remember, was a lot tougher in appearance than this recession. I remember being washed in three inches of bath water, which is maybe why I was called dirty Dixon at school. And power cuts, sometimes 40% a day power cuts. So, in a modern economy, which is mainly computer driven, that would’ve been an absolute disaster I would imagine. A three day week where nothing happened for the rest of the time at all, because you were mainly in darkness.
So, that was my 70s, and the more I think about it, the more I realised that I’ve probably been in recession most of my career. Because when I left school in the early 80s, there was another recession, the 80s recession, which was the dismantling of British industry. So, for a self-propelled designer, which was me, I had no formal education or training in design, there really wasn’t a great deal of designing to be done for other people. So, you had to do it yourself. So, that generation which includes, I guess, Ron Arad and Jasper Morrison, were really formed the experience of having to, A, go out and seek employment elsewhere from the UK, so it gave us a very international perspective, and probably quite a lot of doing it yourself, which meant that we were more aware of the means of manufacturing and the way that things were made. So, we had a more intimate relationship with the making of objects than, I think, a lot of designers do now where they spend a lot of time in front of the screen and send things off by email to the manufacturer, where the engineers redraw the thing and then it goes off to Asia to be made. So, I had a very close collaboration with mainly Italian manufacturers in the 80s, which really opened my eyes to the potential for design to add value to industry.
By the 90s I’d started really growing, and there was another recession in the early 90s which was also quite good for me because some of the bigger designer firms were being dismantled at the time. The Conrad design group kind of collapsed, and I inherited their prototype workshop which was kind of nice. And so for almost no money at all, I suddenly found myself with a fully equipped workshop. It was also a collapse in property prices where one was able to in central London have a huge amount of space for almost no money, which during the fatter years of the naughties [?] [90s?] became virtually impossible. So, the 90s were actually quite good for me, I guess, because again I was able to take advantage of a more flexible and more committed workforce, for instance, which I think again when times are fat it becomes harder and harder to retain and train and get the best staff at a price that you can afford. We were able to have enough space to not only design but also to produce, which again became impossible in London in 2000. So, the 90s were all right for me, and then I spent the rest of the fat years hiding in Habitat which was a kind of isolated environment, owned by IKEA. So, for me that was almost like the recession again, because they ran a very very tight ship. So, I learnt a lot about economy of means and squeezing the most out of what was a very small design team.
Which sort of brings me on to now, and thinking a bit about what I do now, and what the advantages of the recession are. And I think it’s, you know, I have to be very careful here because obviously for a lot of people there’s huge amounts of suffering and disturbance, and you know, if you’re in the financial services, or you are a property developer, or even involved in car manufacture or... it’s going to be a very very painful time. But for me because of the way I’m set up right now, is fairly international, and because I’m also an exporter of goods and services, some of the consequences of the recession have been blindingly good. The collapse in the pound for instance, where in a short space of maybe three months the pound lost 25% of its value, means that immediately me, who sells 75% of my production as export, was suddenly 25% cheaper without doing anything at all. So, for a year I’ve benefitted just from the exchange rate. And I think if you look at the statistics and see that 90% of British based businesses are not exporting, then you can see there a massive opportunity, because British design has now become 25% cheaper as a direct consequence of the recession.
From a infrastructure perspective, London had become so bloated and so overpriced, that we’d become an international joke in terms of even attracting designers to work here let alone having attractive studios, or good places to work. And so I found myself in a position where I can now move into my dream studio, and I’ve just moved into Richard Branson’s old headquarters, their Virgin headquarters. And I now work in the home of the hits, which is where the Spice Girls and the Sex Pistols recorded. So, I’m very proud of myself, I’ve inherited a canteen and I’ve opened a restaurant. All things that would’ve been impossible to do three years ago because of the price of real estate in the UK which had got to the point where it was virtually impossible for anybody in business to actually operate in my view.
So, I think you can see there a few silver linings emerging, and of course I’ve also suffered a huge amount of consequences myself from the recession from a business perspective, we were growing at... we were doubling every year pre-recession, we’re probably only growing now 25% last year, we were targeting 50% next year. But the pace of growth is suddenly much more strategic, we’re paying much more attention to our staff and... internal investment if you like. And we’re looking much more closely at cash flows, which I think could... again, people were neglecting immensely and over-stretching themselves. They were taking advantage also of cheap money. So, I think from... how much time have I got actually Simon? You’re timekeeping right, when did I start.
Simon Waterfall
Have you seen the sign?
Tom Dixon
Oh, I’m cutting, okay.
Simon Waterfall
That sign isn’t well done.
Tom Dixon
My proposition is that if you’re clever, right, let’s say the recession has time to build a very lean mean design machine, is my proposition. Because if you’re lucky like I’ve been, you can probably come out with a more creative and a more profitable business as a result. Okay.
Simon Waterfall
Thank you very much. Arguing against recessions are good news in disguise for designers is Mandy. Mandy Merron is a partner at the Accountants, Kingston Smith who specialise in working with media businesses. Mandy works with Creative Communications and consultancy businesses particularly in design. As well as auditing and tax work, her role involves general advice on a variety of issues such as employee incentives, business plans, mergers and acquisitions , fundraising, start up businesses and pre-sales tax planning. Woo-hoo, Mandy stick it to us.
Mandy Merron
Well, happily I’m not going to be talking about any of that today. So, you can relax. I’ve been asked to speak against the notion that recessions are good news in disguise for designers. I was chatting through the topic with some of my colleagues back at base, and someone said, well saying recessions are good news in disguise or otherwise for designers is a bit like saying the blitz was good for slum clearance. Yes, it had some of the desired effect, but the collateral damage was immense. And that I think is one of the issues with recessions for designers and the creative industry overall. There are some positive effects, but I think the research shows that the design sector is highly fragmented with the majority of consultancies falling in the £100,000 to £500,000 bracket. Well over half, about 60%, I gather, of design businesses employ fewer than five people. These are relatively small businesses. They are also, according to research, young. Nearly a third have been in business for three years or less. So, given that we’ve now lived through, in my working life, three recessions, and I also like Tom can remember being bathed in very little water and doing my homework by candlelight in the 70s, why aren’t there more long term businesses in this sector. I think there’s no evidence that past recessions have helped forge design businesses into established long term players generating an income of, I don’t know, £2 million or more. There are a number of long established and successful businesses of this size, and indeed larger, but at just 2% - 2% of the design industry, that’s a very small fraction. What happened in the last three recessions doesn’t seem to have been successful in driving business growth for design community.
Does size matter? Well, yes it does a bit; absolutely the lifeblood of the design community is the diverse range of talent, the creativity and the innovation. But a business doesn’t have to be small to be creative, but it does help to be established and sizeable to do some of the things sustainably over a number of years that Tom was talking about. It does help to get in with senior strategic relationships with big businesses. It does help to fund geographic expansion. It does help to invest in property when times are difficult that will see you through good times without having to ramp up your rates. Smaller businesses are inevitably more risky than larger ones because they’re dependent on a few number of people and a few number of clients by definition. They can be more fleeter foot absolutely, but they can also be more challenged by loss of a sizeable client, cutbacks on budgets, or the departure of a particular member of the team.
Do recessions therefore foster business longevity in the design community and sustained growth? I think the evidence very much suggests not. So, why are recessions bad news? I think there are three key areas that get hit hard, price, productivity and people. In recessions clients get more demanding, they have less work to give out typically, because budgets for them are being cut, and what they do generally has a smaller budget attached to it. There are more consultancies chasing their business. The inevitable consequence is that they successfully demand more from each project at a lower price. I have no doubt the phrase, the challenge we are setting our suppliers is to deliver the same product for 10%, 15%, 20%, 50% less is not completely unfamiliar to the audience today. The inevitable consequence is that both price and productivity are hit hard. We publish an annual survey that looks at the financial performance of marketing groups, and we’ve done this for the last 20 years. And the shape of the curve for the productivity statistics almost exactly mirrors that which maps out the UK economy. Recessions hit the productivity of creative businesses. The problem here is that once clients have driven down price and discounted the work delivered, they feel it... they value it less. And they get used to this new low price, and it becomes much harder once times improve to get them back up to the prices they ought to be paying to generate a sufficient profit for your business and a better return for your work. I think also it stops them valuing the product as well as they ought. Clearly this in turn impacts design consultancy profits, and these businesses ability to invest in themselves in things like training for example. The pressure on the top line is difficult, but the impact on recessions on people is even more significant.
Leaving aside the terrible impact personally on people who have been made redundant, or people whose businesses have gone bust, there are significant adverse effects on the businesses generally. First, the recession has been designed as shed people, as income to clients. 26% of design companies and freelancers experienced a decrease in income. Some of these people stay in design as freelancers, and some just leave the industry completely, creating a massive drain in talent. Also, these large businesses suffer and they don’t continue to grow, and so we lose the experience that they bring to us. What else happens? People take on less trainees. Overall, fewer businesses are recruiting. Over two thirds haven’t recruited designers in the past year. In three years time, when the recession is over, what’s going to be in short supply - those people? What’s going to go up - their price? What’s going to get hit – profits? So, there are good things that recessions can bring in terms of the improvement to business practices, but I don’t think we need a recession to deliver those, I think we just need to do it. I think we need to concentrate on cash flow, I think we need to concentrate on our negotiation skills and our productivity and our offer. I don’t think we need a recession to tell us to do that, we’ve got the Design Council and many trade associations to help us to do it. Recessions aren’t good news.
Simon Waterfall
Thank you Mandy. We’ll now take some questions from the floor and lining up the questions that are coming in by email. So, I’ll have a show of hands if you’d like to ask a question, and if you’d like to wait for the mike from V or Jo. Take this gentleman at the end.
Audience member
Alan Palin, Ultra Design Management. I’m surprised there hasn’t been any mention of the nature of work that design professionals do, and the range of expertise that they bring on board, and how they are used in the roles they see for themselves in solving business problems. Could you comment on that?
Simon Waterfall
Who would like to answer that? Tom, Mandy, the role of the different types of design.
Tom Dixon
You’re perfectly right. And I think that if we had a bit more time we could go into depth. I mean, the problem obviously with design is that it covers so many disciplines and so many activities, so it’s very hard to pinpoint specific... in seven minutes a specific of series of positives. But, you know, I was involved in a recent project with the Design Council, for instance, in the NHS Design Bugs [?] Out, where design was being used in a recession to target very real problems and to stop waste, for instance. So, I think that even in recessionary times, design can be used very much to increase profitability, decrease waste and make companies run more smoothly in hard times. I don’t know if you’ve got anything to add to that? I didn’t completely understand the nature of the question. I don’t think we’ve got enough time to cover many examples really in this debate.
Mandy Merron
No, I’d agree with that. And I think design has got an absolutely great role to play both in recession and in better times with its range and depth of creativity [?].
Simon Waterfall
Another short question from the floor. Gentleman at the back, yes you’re good.
Audience member
My question is for Tom. You commented about your international career business and so forth at the moment, have you seen anything in other countries as to whether they’re better or worse at handling recessions than we are, particularly since the UK design industry is now so intimately involved with the global economy?
Tom Dixon
Well, you see from a design services perspective people still looking towards the UK for talent and creativity. I’d say that we’ve got to watch that position very carefully because increasingly we’ve trained up huge amounts of... just as described by David in the introduction, huge amounts of talent that is now going out and doing what we could do so well alone before. In terms of how badly hit other countries have been, my own direct experiences were in Finland, where they’ve got it considerably worse than us at the moment in terms of the impacts on retail on industry and on design services. So, I’d say that although in some sectors it’s been very savage here and it’s certainly not over, to a certain extent we’ve had it a bit easier than some other countries.
Simon Waterfall
Online.
Ruth Flood
We’ve got a question from Louie Carter, he’s watching the webcast. If you’re about to graduate with a design degree in the current climate, how would you make your first moves to get a foot in the door? I think probably Tom best answer that.
Tom Dixon
I didn’t catch the question.
Simon Waterfall
If you’re just about to graduate, how do you get a foot in the door? It’s the question that every single designer asks another designer.
Tom Dixon
I never graduated.
Simon Waterfall
Thank you. What a great answer. We’ll have one more.
Ruth Flood
Another one. During recessions should designers try to convince clients to focus on top line growth rather than cost cutting? And that’s from Ed John.
Mandy Merron
Yes, absolutely. I think one of the things that recessions forces everybody to do is look at how effective communication is working for their business, and how they can measure how effective that is. And I think if designers can help clients to focus on that and also work with them to try and measure it, it can be only a good thing.
Simon Waterfall
Right, I’d like you now to use your own opinions, I don’t know if our speakers in seven minutes have managed to sway you. The summary of Tom, his three inches of power in the 70s, and the opportunity for export. So, that was great. The economy of means, which I thought was very useful to hear, especially when it’s coming from the world of IKEA. Or maybe Mandy has swayed you with the most frightening she said, which was in three years time when the recession is over... oh, positive there - excellent. Collateral damage and my favourite size actually does matter. So... and I think Tom you’re out of it. So, I’d like to hold it to the vote. So, the vote is recessions are good news in disguise for designers. A yes vote, please first, for green. Good news, good news. Put that red down you colour blind... Okay, this is going to be close. And of course everybody’s voting no against. The reds please, and keep those up. Jesus, that’s hung. Right, keep them visible, I’ll just ask Jo and Vee to count, because these do matter. I think that’s 50, 50.
Jo
It’s actually... it’s 34 to the reds.
Simon Waterfall
34 to the reds?
Jo
31 to the green.
Simon Waterfall
The negatives win; we are so English, brilliant. Right, moving swiftly onwards and downwards, motion number two. Networks are fine but they won’t keep me in business. And speaking for, Shan Preddy, and speaking against Callum Lumsden. I’ll first of all introduce Shan. Shan is a partner at Preddy & Co, which delivers strategic marketing consultancy and training programmes to the design businesses around the world. Her book, How to Market Design Consultancy Services has become an industry standard. Her new book, good plug, How to Run a Successful Design Business will publish later this year. Can I please welcome to the floor arguing for, Shan and her book.
Shan Preddy
Well, good morning. Good morning networkers. Good morning networkers who are up close and personal and good morning networkers, the webbies [?] at a slight distance there. My brief today is to propose the motion. Networks are fine but they won’t keep me in business. So, like all good designers, let’s start by interrogating the brief. That’s interrogating the brief, not ignoring the brief. We’re going to interrogate the brief. And I’m going to divide it into two, and look first at networks are fine. I totally, totally agree. Networking is more than fine, networking is great. Personally I love networking, and we all belong to all sorts of different kinds of networks, don’t we? We’ve got networked companies perhaps that we might work for, where you’ve got strategic alliances or part ownership in different kinds of companies. We’ve got national and design associations, some are regional, local design associations and international design associations. The latest Design Council survey suggests that 10% and fewer are members of any kind of design association in the UK. I think that’s quite shocking actually, given that our networks in this sense are the envy of the world. So, join some more, get out there, join them. We’ve got general business organisations and of course social media networks are linked in, Facebook, etc. And I’d guess most of you pretty much in this room are linked in in some way to other people in that way. Then of course we have the Twitterati, or as we say in Wales, what’s occurring. And I can see now some of you have your handheld communication devices in your hands here in the room. Are you tweeting? The webbies have got far more of them. If you’re trying to fix the votes, vote Shan, vote Shan, vote Shan, vote for the motion.
Right, now all of this is networking, and it works, networking is a good thing. We all know the clichés, don’t we? People by people. It’s not what you know, but who you know that counts. As Sir Jack Cohen, the late, great founder of Tesco once said, you can’t do business sitting on your B... Barcelona chair. Only he didn’t say Barcelona chair. Clichés maybe, but true nevertheless. A good business network will get you introductions, it will get you introductions to clients, to suppliers, to strategic alliances, to partners, to the media, to employers and employees and possibly socially. There’s many a good marriage that’s been made through business networks.
So, what do I conclude? Networking works. Have I done your job for you Callum? You can go home now if you like. Right, but let’s have a look at the second half of that brief. Networks are fine, but they won’t keep me in business. Now, here’s the problem. To keep in business, you need to balance your expenditure and your income. Okay, and Mandy and her colleagues can tell us far more about that side of things. I’m just a simple person, and here’s one piece of financial advice I really really like. It’s from Samuel Johnson, he of the dictionary fame. And what he said rather pithily, I think, he said, whatever you have spend less. And it’s the having part of that that I’d like to talk about, or rather the getting in order to do the having. And in order to do that getting, what you need is good marketing and good client relationships. First marketing, the purpose of marketing, the only purpose of marketing actually is to generate income. Is to generate income from new and existing clients, and good networking can play a part in it. And it will go quite a long way if you’ve only got one mouth to feed, but not so far if you’ve got five or ten or 50. To do that, to generate sufficient income, what you need is a brilliant marketing strategy and plan. And in a way that’s simple, isn’t it, or simples as our little meerkating friend might say. Well, here’s another slightly less furry expert that can tell us what he thinks about marketing. Peter Drucker, Management Consultant and Writer, and what he said is, the purpose of marketing, the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. If you get your marketing right, you will create a situation where everyone knows what you do and values you for it and knows how to find you. They will seek you out; you will become sought after, not the seeker. To do that you need to think about your marketing strategy, positioning, target markets and propositions, what you are, who wants you and how they’ll find out about you. And having done that, you need to think about a really fantastic plan, how are they going to find out about you. I mean, basically there’s no point at all in being brilliant if nobody knows that you exist. Secondly, unrivalled client relationships. The most important business relationship you’ll ever have is with your clients. Good client relationships will keep you in business, repeat business, additional business, better business. And if the relationship you have with your clients is good, they will act as advocates for your business, as ambassadors. They will actually do a lot of your income generation for you. Can networking help with client relationships? Yes. But in order to get good client relationships, you need a lot more than just networking, a lot more.
So, to sum up. One, whatever you have, spend less. Two, the way to have, to get is to generate income through marketing. And three, look after your clients. Just before I totally conclude, I’d like to thank Louis Hellman for allowing me to borrow his lovely cartoons. We’re very familiar with them through design week, we have been until recently.
So, in conclusion, good networking can be a part of your business, but it can never ever be the whole thing. Therefore, fellow networkers, I urge you to vote for the motion. Networks are fine, but they won’t keep me in business. Thank you.
Simon Waterfall
Next up is Callum. Callum is speaking against networks are fine, but they won’t keep me in business. As Executive Director of the Small Back Room, Callum’s creative and effective design expertise includes branding, design strategy, interior and architects projects. He doesn’t have a book out. Callum’s career has encompassed a wide range of projects, ranging from the design award winning shots in the Tate Modern, to the creation of designating brands for luxury shopping malls in China for LVMH. More recently Callum’s expertise has been called upon for the BBC for the up and coming Mary Queen of Shops series. I give you speaking against, Callum.
Callum Lumsden
Good morning, thank you Shan. This is where I turn into Vic Reeves. I’ve got this slide up here because I don’t claim to have royal patronage, but I just wanted to show you somebody who I met during a recent networking event at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday night. Clang, did you drop something there? He quite clearly didn’t recognise me. But the subject of this small debate does intrigue me, because I have always considered networking to be one of the best natural ways of delivering not only business connections, but also some of the most enduring friendships in my design sector which actually has brought me business in. Cut to the chase, this debate isn’t about companionship and friends, is it? It’s about how helpful networking has been and can be for businesses. So, let me get some facts in place. 15 years ago my original business, which was called Lumsden Design Partnership, began on the back of a networking introduction to my first client. Simon quite rightly says, designers aren’t great at numbers, but don’t delve too deep Mandy, but I’ve done a bit of calculation. That first client over the space of the first two years of my business generated an income for me of £100,000. Over the first two years, that same networking connection introduced me to three more clients, and I can confidently say that networking accounted for 40% of my business in the first five years. That equates to a figure of £1.6 billion over five years. And a very dubious calculation makes me over the span of my career, which is longer than I’m willing to admit to, of something in the region of £6.4 million before tax.
So, maybe I should just finish here with a flourishing, I arrest my case to the gorgeous Mrs Preddy, but that would be remiss of me because this has actually made me analyse a bit about what networking actually is. I mean, I don’t do Twitter, I’m crap at Linked In; Facebook is for my family and friends. And I’ve tried the business links, but I’m not very good at disturbing people’s intense conversations over canapés and a glass of wine, that’s just not what I do, despite wearing, you know, rather loud suits and things like that. I actually don’t do that. What I do, and what I believe the majority of people in this room and the people that are watching - hi mum, they actually develop relationships with networking that becomes more and more valuable. My networking does seem to work at gatherings populated by people who don’t do what I do. That’s the way that I like to make it work. And sadly I have to kind of agree with Shan, because it’s not the only thing to do, but I think it’s a vital part of the mix. But where I do disagree is I could actually put a value to it.
Networking for me has been about building relationships and maintaining them. I will always remember a designer who went over to South Africa for something like 15 years, and came back over to the UK and said to me, what I’m now going to miss is the networking that you’ve built up over your life, which is so valuable it’s going to take me at least 15 years to re-establish that networking. And I think that’s a really interesting point of view. Your personal network, which goes right back to our childhoods, and stays with us all our lives, it connects with our school days, it connects with our children or businesses, our colleagues, and that wide social circle which when we start thinking about it, is actually enormous. The whole thing of it takes six connections to make an introduction to the person you want to meet, actually does work.
So, my premise is that networking, it’s not a cynical activity; it’s a very natural and instilled characteristic which human beings have been using for absolute generations. What is more natural than meeting and greeting your colleagues face to face and more compelling than greeting people through the internet, obsessed society that we all live in.
I will finish with two recommendations. Never network with people who have the same business interests as you. And always network with people who you admire and you have a mutual interest in working with. Thank you very much.
Simon Waterfall
Thank you, Callum. We’ll take some questions from the floor first. One at the front, if you’d like to say who you are and where you’re from.
Audience member
David Kester. I just wanted to ask about learning and designers learning. Because we talked about getting business by networking, but I know that a lot of designers go to events like the designers breakfasts to learn from each other, and actually thereby actually make their businesses better. So, I wondered whether any of the panel wanted to comment on that?
Shan Preddy
I think that’s absolutely right. And we were obviously focusing on the motion it won’t keep me in business. But learning absolutely, we learn by just talking to somebody over a coffee, we learn by attending events like this where you’ve got information being imparted and regular topping up of our professional development through networking events I think is absolutely essential, and I would totally agree with that, yes.
Callum Lumsden
I would say that one of the most important factors for any business, and design is no different, is intelligence, gaining intelligence by talking to people and communicating to other people and swopping notes. And I think that’s something that I encourage in my business very much about what is happening out there, and that is one great way of doing it.
Mike Dempsey
I’d like to just at a point... is this on? Yes. My view about learning from other designers is fine, but I think really designers shouldn’t hang out with other designers. There’s plenty of other people in the world that you can learn from, and it’s much more fruitful.
Simon Waterfalll
Good point, well made, never go to a dinner party at Mike’s. Another question from the floor please, if not, I’ll throw it open to the interweb. Ruth.
Ruth Flood
Yes, we’ve got a question from online.
Simon Waterfall
I’ll take one live and then one digital.
Audience member
Nicolas from Appetite. Shan, you talked about networks being important, but client relationship being as much as important as networks. Isn’t it true that clients are increasingly looking for access to intelligence perhaps via you because you, you know, because of your network? So, in this case you can value your networks to your clients not necessarily directly but indirectly.
Shan Preddy
Sorry, I actually don’t think I’m very clear about the question. You can value the networks to your clients...
Audience member
If the agency is not necessarily selling their services directly, isn’t it important for an agency to have a strong network of professionals around them, or networks of other services that they can give value to clients?
Shad Preddy
Oh, I see. Yes, absolutely. I think that’s another form of network, that’s what I meant by strategic alliances, that if you have a network of people that can do things that you perhaps can’t do, then having that as part of your offer to your clients is essential. And of course networking with your clients is great because you can network with your clients and so on.
Simon Waterfall
Yes, you’re the other way.
Shan Preddy
No, no, no. Networking is fine, more than fine it’s great, but it won’t keep me in business. I’m not anti [?], no.
Simon Waterfall
This is going to be a big vote I can see.
Shan Preddy
Yes.
Simon Waterfall
Is there anybody else who wants to speak for networks in the room? Let’s open it up to the interweb.
Ruth Flood
Yes, we’ve got a question from our satellite event in Wales. If networks are so great, why do you think only 10% of designers are part of one. Is it the cost or value for money, or lack of knowledge about that value?
Simon Waterfall
I’d like to open that to everyone as well after Callum.
Callum Lumsden
I’d love to answer that one. I do think that the number of associations for our industry is so diverse and unfocused that it is not attracting the kind of people that have just asked that question. There’s some great examples, but boy is it so mixed up and unclear.
Shan Preddy
Answer? I think basically there is no excuse, there’s no excuse. If we want to be taken seriously as professionals, we need to make the case for our professionalism. And one of those things is by joining the appropriate design associations, full stop, there’s no excuse.
Simon Waterfall
That does open the debate of saying how political are these networks. So, whether you’re in a network, whether it be a WPP type network, or just the institutions you belong to, people use those to gauge your professionalism. I’m not too sure if I agree on that, I think the politics of these networks are shady in the beginning.
Shan Preddy
I was not thinking of the company networks, but the design associations.
Simon Waterfall
Okay.
Shan Preddy
If we can say as designers that we are part of a design association, particularly one that is picky about who can join, I think that’s a terrific testament to our professionalism.
Simon Waterfall
Thank you. I’ve got one more question in the middle and then I’ll close it. Jo, can we... gentleman in the middle. A good network there, nice pass, thank you sir.
Audience Member
Less of a question, more of a point I just want to draw out, but I would like to hear the response to it. Callum made a very very important point which was really kind of the focus of relationship. And I think part of the challenge here, and I think maybe the question has been asked wrong for the debate, part of the challenge here is whether one sees networks as a way of selling and winning business, or whether one sees networks as a way of building relationships and what the perspective of the panel is on the value of that. Because I strongly believe that the best business, as described by Callum in the examples he gave, are actually those that are done with people that you perhaps become friends with before you become clients. And I think we also need to remember, and there’s not been any mention of it yet, but the world is changing phenomenally. We’ve had a question on the internet. The generation growing up is very used to networking online, and is very used to that being the way of creating opportunity in the future.
Simon Waterfall
I think it’s a great observation that Shan did say people by people. I mean, that is the way, it’s a natural way of working. So, I think all of us would agree with that, and I think it’s... there are various stages along that. Would anybody like to add anything to that, or should we just say... can we take one more question or are you going to say wrap up? One more question with a vigorous hand at the back.
Audience Member
I’m Amanda Tatham, I run Designer Breakfasts, so I know a bit about the networks amongst designers. Although I agree that the best place for getting your business as Callum says, is to network amongst people who are not designers, I think there is another aspect to it. And we know from the Design Council’s statistics that there are a very large number of very small design businesses out there, and they need those networks to get together in order to work together. And I found that through the networking that I’ve done, it’s not then to do with keeping me in business from the point of view of bringing in new business. It’s been very helpful for keeping me in business from the point of view of serving my clients in a very flexible kind of way. And I think this kind of flexibility and getting together on projects is something that we’re going to see more of amongst designers, especially as we move into a different way of getting business which is to do with relationships that are cooperative between people.
Simon Waterfall
A question or a statement?
Audience Member
Well, I think it’s probably a statement, but I think...
Simon Waterfall
I’m going to cut you off the numbers, thank you.
Audience member
Okay, let’s turn it into a question.
Simon Waterfall
Please.
Audience member
I think the... do we feel that the question is wrong?
Simon Waterfall
Yes. Okay, I’m going to now... we’ll open it up to the vote. So, Shan a lady who can’t say the word bum, but does say people by people and actually argued against herself the entire time. Or Callum who is the $6.4 million man, who you should definitely go to dinner with. Both arguing, I think, for exactly the same thing. So, the motion is, networks are fine but they won’t keep me in business, they won’t keep me in business. So, if you are speaking for... for voting for the green, they won’t keep me in business? Abstained, no abstaining, you don’t... there’s no abstain card. And against? This is the weighty one as well. Of course I can, I’ll sit that side. Okay, keep them up. I think that is a resounding trounce. Do we have the numbers?
Jo
It was 80 for, and 40 against [?].
Simon Waterfall
Fantastic. So, our last motion of the morning, and we have tighter finances mean more on the job training - mean more on the job training than there is a good... and that’s a good thing. Tighter finances mean more on the job training and that’s a good thing. Again, it’s going to answer itself that one. Speaking for, Mike. And speaking against, Brian. And let me introduce Mike. Mike Dempsey has been a graphic designer for over 40 years and has worked in the publishing... in publishing for then of those. He founded CDT Design in 1979 and has created everything from stamps to title film sequences and editorial design to visual identities. He’s a writer, photographer, broadcaster, painter, blogger and a friend. And in that time he’s had six children, eight houses, two divorces, five cats, two dogs. He’s won ten D&AD silvers and a gold. He’s a member of the Alliance Graphics International, and was President of the D&AD, and was Past Master of the Faculty of Royal Designers for Industry which is based here. He left CDT in 2007 to start Studio Dempsey, an intimate space to dream and create. I give you arguing for, Mike Dempsey.
Mike Dempsey
Okay, on this... rather like Tom on this motion I can only speak about my own personal experience and beliefs over a 40 year career in this world of design. If nothing else, growing up in post-war Britain made me a very resourceful person, and that’s always stayed with me. So, learning on the job is what I’ve been doing during my entire life. Not only learning on the 14 jobs I’ve had, but also, and more importantly, learning from life something I am still doing today. And like Tom, I had no formal design training. I didn’t go to Art College. I left school at 15 after an appalling education clutching just one O level in art. I was expected to work in a factory just as everyone else in my class. And guess what, that’s exactly what happened. But I didn’t let that stop me because I knew that I had a reservoir of creativity deep inside me, and I just needed to unlock it in order to help me escape from a life of monotony. So, subsequently everything I learnt and absorbed was because I wanted to learn it, I was not told or forced to learn it. I had a passion and curiosity to learn. But I didn’t rely on, or expect others to give it to me. The prerequisite for any designer is to have imagination, that’s something you can’t train. It’s a state of mind. But the designer should also have a burning curiosity and resourcefulness and that’s the state of being. Of course I realise we live in a digital age, and those skills need to be constantly honed, but that is purely a technical function, it’s nothing to do with adding to the creativity of the designer. What I’m talking about is the spirit of the designer, the emotional and intellectual dimension. I do not believe that a designer should be spoon fed with training, presentation skills, creative workshops and a myriad of other programmes on offer. Like a good actor the designer should take personal responsibility to absorb new things that will develop and enhance their skills and intellect.
A good friend of mine, a designer Michael Warf [?], once said when talking to a group of designers about colour, if you’re looking for the perfect green don’t reach for the panten [?] book, go to the park. I think that’s lovely. I was also struck by a quote in the design industry insights report, the one that the Design Council has just produced that’s here, by Ursula Morrish from Fitch Live. And she said, the best learning comes from unexpected sources. While living in Japan I attended a Zen meditation retreat, the living aesthetic of the monks was bare, but rich in ritual. It has informed [?] my own approach to design and the delivery of complex projects. And I think that that kind of experience is far better than any one day course stuck in an anonymous hotel seminar room somewhere in London or the regions. Over the years I’ve come to realise that my approach to design has fed off everything I’ve done in my life. And the richer and more varied that experience, the more I’ve had to draw on. No one owes you a living in this world; you have to make of it what you can. Don’t rely on others to spur you on, I don’t believe in spoon feeding people, give me self-motivated passionate and driven people every time. They are far more interesting, and they are the ones that go on to do great things.
The various jobs that I’ve had were stepping stones to where I wanted to get. I gave a lot to those jobs, and took a lot from them. So, for me regardless of the premise of this motion, that tighter finances means more on the job training, I believe on the job learning and learning from life, because I don’t differentiate between work and life, they’re one for me, is the key to a truly original designer.
Simon Waterfall
And speaking against tighter finances mean more on the job training and that’s a good thing, is Brian Webb. Brian is a designer at Webb & Webb, a visiting professor at the University of Art, and past President of the Chartered Society of Designers. He’s lectured around the world and his work in museum and collections include the V&A, MOMA and he’s co-author of the design series of books most recently are the Design for FHK Henrion and Design Peter Blake. Thank you. So, that’s my anti-vote already. Thank you. Speaking against, Brian Webb.
Brian Webb
Good morning. We’re very lucky, design is a learning business, designers by their nature are inventive, inquisitive, introspective, and I’d say this morning, bloody minded. We like learning. But I’ve been worrying about this motion; tighter finances mean more on the job training. Nobody in their right mind would disagree with that, but then that’s a good thing, and that’s where I have a problem. We’re deluding ourselves if we think that a bit of over the shoulder training in the studio is the way to deal with tougher finances. Sitting by Nelly, as training course managers used to call it, is no substitute for professional training. And the Design Council’s research has produced some startling results. I’m going to repeat some of them, I know you’ve heard them here, but I’m reckoning you’ll have forgotten them by now. In the past five years the design industry has grown despite the recession. Designer numbers have increased; there are more than 35% more of us than in 2005. But the number of designers working in small consultancies has decreased, growth has been in small consultancies, and the research shows that 24% of the design industry is composed of small, young, less than four year old businesses with incomes to match. Most small businesses don’t last more than four years. Is this because small and often inexperienced companies don’t have the time or the resources to professionally train their staff? And there’s been a large increase unsurprisingly in the number of freelance designers, 39% more than 2005. Freelancers are like racehorses, they’re great when they’re well trained and winning, but without professional training, and who has time when you’re chasing a job, they stop being competitive and they’re off to the knackers yard. Sorry, that’s Tom’s.
A most surprising finding in the report are the training figures, as the Design Council’s analysis of the report says; training is still a big blot on the copybook of consultancies and freelancers. The figures are much lower for designers than other professionals. Only 13% of designers have undertaken any form of professional training recently compared just 20% of media professionals, 25% software professionals or compared to 33% of architects. Is this because we’re complacent about skills or lacking in professionalism when compared to regulated architects who are required to undertake continuous professional development. Maybe it’s because unlike buildings, letterheads don’t fall down and kill people. Designers’ incomes remain fairly low. We’ve been described as a cottage industry, 60% of design consultancies employ fewer than five staff. Increased professionalism, I’m taking trends seriously, could repeat... could be a way of changing that. If we wanted growth from a cottage industry we need to train professionally. When the Design Council asked designers what areas they would like to develop their skills, by far the biggest area was IT and software followed by business awareness. And when asked how they developed their skills, in-house training was by far the largest method followed by external courses and by external computer training – computer based training, a way forward that seems to be growing. We’ve heard about training, but there is one last statistic, there are 230,000 designers working in the UK and there are over 55,000 undergraduate sign ups [?]. That’s equivalent to 25% of the industry. These undergraduates are very well educated. I know that if I was looking for a job now with a portfolio that I had when I was at college, I wouldn’t stand a chance. And they’ll all be soon looking for jobs, these undergraduates. We learn from the people we work with, but on the job training is just that, it’s training for the job. Design is not just a skills process, it’s a thinking process. You don’t learn to think watching from an operative Mac [?], we need education and that’s training for life. Thank you.
Simon Waterfall
Both very passionate. I’d like to take questions please. The bold, thank you very much.
Audience member
I’m Paul Askew from Webster & Group. Would the panel agree that a lot of the way in which the last two debates have formed, fall around the size of businesses in the industry, in that, you know, it seemed perverse that marketing, which is the argument in favour of the last motion, should be so resoundingly defeated. And one can understand that on the basis that, you know, we’re talking about lots of small businesses where marketing is expensive, networking is cheap. Similarly with the whole idea of training and the hit in a recession on budgets for doing things like training, is the fact that the industry is populated by small businesses, the cause of this sort of response?
Simon Waterfall
A very good statement and question.
Mike Dempsey
Well, I think that’s very true. I think that the very nature of graphic design, which is really the area that I’m in, is really quite small. And many of the courses that are on offer are relatively expensive. And it’s clear that small design companies just cannot do that. That is why my own personal view is don’t wait around for people to offer you things, you know, get out there and do it yourself. I mean, you know, it’s obvious to me, and I’ve always done that. So, that’s why I don’t buy into this proposition.
Brian Webb
Can I just add that we’re very good at making excuses, there’s never enough time, or never enough money. But I happened to notice this morning that the DVA, whose courses are organised, have Government funding attached to them. So, it’s not an excuse, it is a complacency, or maybe we’re just happy being a cottage industry.
Audience member
I’m Graham from Design Bridge, Creative Director at Design Bridge. And I’d just like to share... we’re one of the few companies, I think we’re one of the 2% where we actually do... we’ve got 100 people in London, 50 people in Singapore, 50 people in Amsterdam. I incidentally sort of share Mike and Tom’s background. I joined John Blackburn in 1979 straight from school, so I had a lot of mentoring and tuition from John. And what we tried to do, and yes we have cut back on some of the internal training programmes, but what we found really works well is you get little programmes of some of the guys we’ve got to coach and train, be it life drawing, lettering, some of the skills, we just share experiences. So, it’s kind of an internal training and mentoring within the talent we’ve got. So, I’d just like to share that, that’s all.
Simon Waterfall
Thank you for sharing.
Brain Webb
Could I just add, interesting adding to that, you’ve heard from both Tom and Mike that neither of them either went to college or undertaken any training. I was just thinking, I wonder what they would’ve achieved if they’d had a bit of training?
Simon Waterfall
Oh, he’s so mean. Do you want a hug?
Mike Dempsey
Tom, maybe we would’ve got A-levels had we stayed.
Tom Dixon
What?
Mike Dempsey
Maybe we would’ve both got A levels.
Tom Dixon
I’ve got quite a few A levels.
Mike Dempsey
Oh, good.
Simon Waterfall
See, people will always needs pots, there you go, that’s a lesson to us all. I think these two debates are kind of inextricably linked in my mind. It’s like training. I learn more off my network than I did when I went to the Royal College of Art. I think the best tool in the Royal College of Art was the lift, where you could go to any department and be absolutely flabbergasted what was going on there. And that inspiration was my motivation to learn more about what they did. And I think it is, I mean, we’re arguing... it’s very difficult to argue against it, it’s just a natural rhythm of it. Please.
Shan Preddy
I think that’s entirely right. I it’s not either or, it’s both and, isn’t it, both marketing and networking, both training and on the job and learning and experimenting and so on. If I may just go back to a comment that was made a minute ago though, you said that marketing is expensive and networking is cheap. Good marketing is not expensive. Good marketing requires thought and effort and a bit of energy, but it’s the grey cells between your brain, it’s not actually how much money you’ve got in your wallet. Training, yes training is going to cost you something, but the only training that’s expensive is bad training, that’s the training that doesn’t work. Good training, okay it’s cliché, good training is an investment, but genuinely it is. But I do think it comes down to both and, which probably doesn’t help the debate.
Simon Waterfall
You’re really... it’s checkmate every time you open your mouth really. And there was another question on the floor before I go to the web. Thank you sir.
Audience member
Could I just differentiate between doing the job and continuing to do the job in the same way and training to do new things? I think one of the most difficult things about on the job training is actually to enable people to break out of the way you’re used to doing things, and trying to develop their own capabilities in a way that extends the team that they’re in. So, on the job training is one of the toughest things that you can do, and it’s the essence of the training as opposed to the doing, what the training is for.
Mike Dempsey
Yes, what I was trying to say was that, you know, I don’t differentiate between on the job training and the outside world. I think they’re just linked. And I think any designer that doesn’t actually feel that the world outside and the world inside are one, is not really a designer. So, I’ve drawn as much experience from outside of the studio as inside. Certainly when I was very young and worked at lots of design companies, I would hone in on someone and literally download their brain, I wouldn’t wait around. And then was very very curious, and I think that’s the essence of a designer, it’s about wanting to fill yourself with knowledge from all sorts of places, not just between the four walls of the studio.
Brian Webb
Can I just add at the end of that? I mentioned the design undergraduates that are coming up to leaving college, how many there are of them. I’ve assessed students for a long time and although we hear about how students aren’t anywhere near as good as they used to be, in my experience they’re much much better. And they’re much more enthusiastic, and they’re much more likely to want to continue their training and education. And it’s not a set up, but the youngest person in our office, a designer in our office who spoke [?] in our office 18 months since she left college, asked me about a month ago before this event was organised if she could do a part time MA. And it’s just the way people are now; they just want to get more and more education, more training. So, I’m all for it.
Simon Waterfall
We have one comment from Tom.
Tom Dixon
For me the education or the educational requirement and the training is often misdirected, you know, the idea that you need more training on your Mac doesn’t seem to me the appropriate thing. I’m very much from your school of learning on the job. But where people need training, and then they’re not getting it, is in economics, in logistics, in IT, in all of the peripheral things which really are not design, which make you a more effective force just generally. And all too often that support just isn’t available, you know, I find it very hard to find somebody, for instance, to act as a managing director, or you know, in a design firm. And the very few courses that existed even at the Royal College had vanished. So, when I look at the statistics and I see there’s, you know, 250,000 designers and 55,000 coming up, I just wonder what they’re going to be doing, unless there’s a more effective infrastructure and support for them to learn or to support them if you like, you know. So, for me it’s training, yes, but of other skills, complementary skills.
Simon Waterfall
Thank you. One more comment, and we’ve got some questions online. Have we got enough time for those or would you like...?
Ruth Flood
We’ve got one quick question online from Ed John, again to the point of changing our ways of working. Most design studios don’t value learning. Managers often just assign roles to designers so that they fit the industry model. How can that culture be changed?
Mike Dempsey
That sounds like a company that is led not by designers to me. And I think a design company should always be led by designers, there are too many that have skewed the other way. Designers are at the bottom of the pile and the management structure is at the top, and the marketing. And I’ve seen so many – certainly with big design groups, I’ve seen many young designers come to me with a portfolio of work, which is just nine months of relentless work on a branding – so called branding project, which is... it’s like being in a slave camp, it has nothing to do with design, they’re at the bidding of a different sort of regime. So, my point would always be, designers at the top of the pile and everything underneath is there to support the creative thinking.
Simon Waterfall
Right, I’m going to cut it off there and I’m going to go to the vote. So, everybody for the last time please grab your cards. Motion number three, tighter finances mean more on the job training and that’s a good thing. Please hold up your green card now. Up or down please ladies in the back, okay. And against? So, that’s... hold them up please, hold them up. So, tighter finances on the job training that’s a good thing, no I’d rather go pro. Somebody’s got some money. Okay. So, whilst we sum up and get the numbers from our extended network, we are about 100 people here, we are 400 individuals on the web, and we are 200 in our satellite events in seven different areas. So, we are really an audience five times bigger than this. And I think that again is another fair poll. It’s going to be really difficult to sum up, because I think everybody’s just generally nodded, and oh yes, that’s definitely right. But my summing up was, the recessions are a good and a bad thing. Network and friends will help me; keep me warm at dinner, with dinner parties with Callum. Training is not expensive, bad training is. Marketing is mates plus, which I thought would be quite nice. But I think Mike’s point at the very end, designers should be led by... design companies should be led by designers, but then with a backup of the people that we were missing. I think the whole idea of designers, we’re very insular, we don’t really mix with the people that we know we need. And anyone who’s had any psycho analysis, which obviously I have, understanding you have a problem is the first in recognising [?] those problems. So, if you’d like to meet me in the bar and give me a hug, that will be fantastic.
Do we have a golden envelope at all? The votes are being counted, look at that. Luxembourg, I’ve always wanted to do that. Fine. We’re just coming... this is when we have to fill. So, let me tell you a little story. Yes, you certainly can. I’d like the mike, because we are still online.
Audience member
Kevin Balmer, Director at Kean Design. We’re really interested in job training, and especially learning. We feel that a lot of designers, I mean, the notion of complacency was [unclear], and I think that a lot of designers, and myself included, do get very complacent in their role, and very... sort of rely on the set sort of patterns, the set sort of formulas of delivering jobs. And I think we could learn a hell of a lot from “masters”, such as yourselves. And I wanted to ask how you felt about... we’re looking at the idea of masters such as yourselves giving up time online to share your time with other designers in the design community. A project that we’re thinking of putting forward and we wondered how you guys felt about it, some of the leading designers of the panel there, how you felt about giving up your time online to be able to have one to one discussions with other designers.
Simon Waterfall
I’m going to ask Mike to answer this.
Mike Dempsey
That’s networking, isn’t it?
Simon Waterfall
I think that’s what you’re already doing.
Mike Dempsey
No, I mean, in fact I do just that. I mean, I do give talks and lectures and mentor and so forth. So, it’s something that I’m... I do as a matter of course. And I think actually as a designer, throughout the years with all of the very many many assistants that I’ve had, I’m doing that all the time. You are in essence passing on teaching, advising, it’s part of life. So, yes is the answer to your question.
Brian Webb
I think I obviously agree. I was thinking interestingly one of the figures that came out of... were obviously from the research was that E-Learning is growing, and that’s basically what you’re talking about. So, there is obviously a future for it. I asked the people in our office what happens if they don’t know a bit about... mainly about computer stuff, you know, just where you go. And as I’m asking the question, they’re keyboarding an answer into it... into the screen. And I said, okay, and if it isn’t on there, what do... we get a book. So, although computer training, sort of photo shop type training, I guess, or applications, is very high on the list of things. It does come from the internet as well which is interesting. So, it’s growing.
Simon Waterfall
Right, I’d like to first of all thank the Academy and my mother. So, motion number one, recessions are good news in disguise for designers. For, 40%. Against, 60. Bigger more definite swing on the external... lost the bet. Motion number two, networks are fine but they won’t keep me in business. For, 41%. Against, 59. Jesus, we’re so negative here. Motion number three, tighter finances mean more on the job training and that’s a good thing. For, 46%. Against, 54%. So, basically it’s... everybody gets the official red card. Let’s go and have a cup of coffee. Thank you very much.
David Kester
I’d just like to give a huge vote of thanks to Simon, to all our speakers for giving up their time, for thinking about these debates, everybody online as well for participating, and also for the networks for hosting some of these events, and for you for coming. Two parting shots, one is as I mentioned right at the beginning, a lot of the detail of this research is available online, I mean, these are... what we published this week in design week, is a sort of summary conversation. So, for those of you who actually do like actually looking in the numbers in detail, particularly, you know, the numbers in your regions, in your sector, actually breaking that down and understanding what that might mean for your own business, do take that off our website. Also I think we were just scratching the surface of course of some of the issues that were... that come from this research. We haven’t talked at all today about the issues of diversity, I think that that was a very strong issue. I hope that that will be debated in the future, the fact that the average designer in the UK is what, was it 38?
Audience member
38.
David Kester
38, white male, surely isn’t a good thing, I propose. There are issues about whether having so many sole practitioners in the industry, is that going to be sustainable in the future going forward. What about... and there are questions around the high level skills to be competitive, and the changes in our industry around things like sustainable design, strategic design and so forth. So, there are a lot of other issues that were raised through this research, I know we’ll all look forward to unpacking those in lots of different forms going forward. But thank you for today, thank you our speakers, and do join us... I think there’s a cup of tea downstairs if you want to do a little bit more of that thing, networking. Thank you.