Being able to build an in-depth knowledge of a business’s design and brand thinking is the in-house team’s trump card. Scott Billings goes behind the scenes.
There are around 6,500 in-house design teams inside non-design businesses (with 100-plusemployees) across the UK. They vary in type and structure but between them they employ just over 80,000 designers, similar to the number employed by design consultancies. And although there are a further 66,000 freelance designers in the UK, the reach and importance of non-design businesses is clear: they account for more than a third of all design employment. While in-house design employment has continued to grow slowly, by just 8% since 2005, it is estimated that around a quarter of businesses with more than 100 employees have some form of in-house design operation. Of these, 63% employ up to four designers and 20% have five to nine designers.
A few of these in-house teams are distinct entities with a high profile – the London design studios of Nokia and Samsung, for example. But most are small, typically housing four or fewer designers. In fact, in-house teams have on the whole become smaller, and more numerous.
According to Clive Grinyer, Director of Customer Experience at technology network company Cisco, ‘Most in-house teams are tiny or made up of just one person. There are very few big ones, especially in the UK, apart from the odd ones that have been brought over like Nokia’s. But it’s interesting that the numbers of designers working in-house and in consultancies are at the same levels.’
Historically, working as a designer in-house was often seen as a bit second rate compared to holding a position at a successful consultancy, but this is changing. ‘Ten years ago the perception was that in-house designers were the poor relation to consultancies. Consultancies would do all the fun work while in-house were the duffers who couldn’t cut it in the real world,’ says Mark Delaney, Design Director at Nokia Connect. ‘But then we had the emergence of some very talented in-house teams – at places like Apple, Philips, Nokia – and it has switched. Now it is attractive to work in an in-house team; I get a lot of students wanting to get into in-house design,’ he says.
The rise of the larger in-house design function seems to be very prevalent in technology-led product companies. Nokia, for example, handles almost all of its design work in-house, while other companies blend in-house skills with those of external consultancies.
Richard Newland is Group Head of Design and Development for HSBC and his 20-strong team is responsible for the design of every HSBC branch worldwide. ‘First we started building design in-house, but more recently we have moved to work with external consultancies. The ability to offer work on a bespoke basis by commissioning out and using the in-house team alongside external groups has been hugely successful. The very best results come from this combination,’ says Newland.
At Waitrose, Head of Graphic Design Maggie Hodgetts runs a small team of nine designers and one artworker. By nurturing the ‘skill and enterprise’ of this team, Hodgetts believes the in-house design function has steadily become more valuable to the business. ‘I believe a highly skilled in-house team is entirely complementary to working with the best external agencies, but an in-house team can provide the anchor for brand values and from my experience they are actually better placed to drive change,’ she says.
Developing a deep and broad knowledge of design and brand inside the company is one of the key strengths of an in-house team. As Delaney says: ‘Because we’re trying to evolve how we engage with customers it’s very helpful to have people here year after year to attend the same meetings. If we make a decision and then assess it two years later, I’m still here. If I get it right I gain credibility; if not, I lose credibility.’
Working as a designer in-house was often seen as second rate compared to holding a position at a successful consultancy.
Whether to have an in-house team at all – and whether it should perform a design management role, a design execution role, or both – may depend on a number of factors. According to Delaney, consumer electronics companies need a strong design function because the technological distinction between competing products has narrowed so much that purchases are now made on emotion, interaction and feel rather than on product specification. Designers are uniquely positioned to embed this very ‘X factor’ in products. ‘It was a very deliberate decision that design would become a skill to drive Nokia forward in the market. The company chose to make what is a very significant investment [in setting up its design teams] and tried to make it very attractive for people to work here in order to get the best talent,’ says Delaney.
In retail, it might depend on the scale of the product lines, the nature of the brand and the financial organisation of the company itself, says Kate Blandford, Director of Kate Blandford Consulting and former head of packaging design at Sainsbury’s.
‘Sainsbury’s changed 15-plus years ago from having design in-house to having only design managers,’ she says. ‘Which model is better? Where it sits on your balance sheet might make a difference. Is it accounted for as headcount or is it a marketing budget? Sainsbury’s would rather have design as a variable budget than as a fixed overhead; this way you can allocate and get rid of the cost in a number of different ways and departments. ‘Working as a designer in-house was often seen as second rate compared to holding a position at a successful consultancy’
Brand makes a difference too. Some people have moved toward templated design as far as possible, using repro houses to do it as cheaply as possible. It depends on the management team in place at the company.’
While consumer electronics brands may now see long-term in-house design knowledge as valuable and necessary, companies in other sectors perhaps vacillate over in-house design depending on who’s in charge. ‘Over the years I have seen the likes of Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury’s get an in-house team, then make them all redundant and do it again,’ says Hodgetts. ‘I think it’s down to the people running the business and their attitude towards design. Keeping lean, keen and flexible has been key for us.’
Indeed, changes in management might bring new opinions of the value of design: some will view it as an investment, others as a necessary cost. Interestingly, either view can work for or against an in-house team because a permanent design function can itself be seen either as an inflexible overhead or as a cheaper way of maintaining design throughput. Again, it depends on the business and its directors.
However, the rise in the number of in-house teams indicates that the value of design as a tool – and therefore the value of holding design knowledge in-house – is growing, despite an overall dip in in-house budgets during the recession. As Grinyer notes, in-house designers can reach people in an organisation who would not otherwise engage with design, allowing an important ‘design evangelism’ to take place.
‘In the last five to ten years companies have realised that design is part of their armoury and that they need to engage with design activities,’ says Grinyer. ‘Having somebody in-house who will manage design, who is a jack of all trades, who has relationships with local consultancies and so on, is very valuable. I’m like a Trojan Horse in a way – identifying the opportunity for design that conventional management wouldn’t recognise. And this only happens because of this army of internal designers inside companies. They are heroes in a way and probably have a huge impact on the economy by getting design recognised and bought.’
Nokia
Mark Delaney
Nokia’s in-house design team is unusually large, with 320 employees based in four studios worldwide. The majority are housed in Espoo, Finland and in the Soho studio in London. The team covers a gamut of functions – including industrial designers, materials specialists, psychologists, researchers, anthropologists, engineers and interaction design specialists. As a result it handles almost all of its projects in-house, buying in external services only when there is ‘overspill’ in workloads, or when very specialist skills are needed. ‘I have found it more rewarding here than working as a consultant because I take a lot more responsibility,’ says Design Director Mark Delaney. ‘You get a view in-house that you never get as a consultant – an enormous overview of how things work together to make a product. It moves you way beyond simple styling.
HSBC
Richard Newland
A 20-strong creative team at HSBC is responsible for ensuring that 8,500 branches and 1,000 non-retail spaces worldwide reflect the financial brand consistently, but with local adaptations. The team covers retail space, office space and brand identity, with skills in project management, interior design and graphic design. Increasingly, the unit works in partnership with external consultancies, recently including Fitch, Checkland Kindleysides, Gensler and The Brand Union. ‘Design is certainly a growing element at HSBC – our branches are our most expensive form of advertising. But the day-to-day business of the company is banking, not design, so it’s incredibly important to have somebody internally who can explain the importance of brand and branch design, somebody who can evangelise these things in the company,’ says Group Head of Design and Development Richard Newland.
The story on in-house design
- In-house design teams in the UK employ as many people as design consultancies.
- There is a lot more demand to work in-house nowadays and more prestige attached, as the work has become more pivotal to business.
- The added value of an in-house design function is the ability to build your knowledge internally over the longer term.
- The decision to operate an in-house team rather than outsource design is very often based simply on what a company wants its balance sheet to look like.
- An in-house design team can be used like a Trojan Horse, to attract interest and find new opportunities for design within a business.
- Strong in-house design teams are great evangelists for design, spreading the word about its value and earnings potential.