by Woody Holliman
We all know that design can play an essential role in the success of a new product or company, and it’s no secret that many of the most celebrated companies at the moment—Apple and Target come to mind—lead all their efforts with design and branding. But a bestselling book makes a more radical and compelling claim that design is now a fundamental driver of the world economy, with design, rather than price or quality, being the fundamental differentiator between products and brands.
“Companies traditionally have competed on price or quality, or some combination of the two,” notes author Daniel Pink in A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. “But today decent quality and reasonable price have become merely table stakes in the business game—the entry ticket for being allowed into the marketplace. Once companies satisfy those requirements, they are left to compete less on function or financial qualities and more on ineffable qualities such as whimsy, beauty, and meaning.”
Pink finds validation in this statement made by Norio Ohga, former chairman of Sony: “At Sony, we assume that all products of our competitors have basically the same technology, price, performance, and features. So how can we compete? It has to be with design.” Pink insists this is part of a seismic shift in the world economy, as we transition from a society built on the logical, linear, “left-brain” skills of the Information Age to one built on the inventive, creative, big-picture skills of the new economy—which Pink dubs the Conceptual Age. This leads Pink to his oft-quoted (and hyperbolic) claim that “the MFA is the new MBA.”
Of course, Pink is quick to acknowledge that the defining skills of the Information Age, the left-brain skills of so-called knowledge workers (accountants, lawyers, computer programmers, etc.) are still absolutely necessary—he just insists those attributes alone aren’t sufficient for the demands of this new Conceptual Age. They’re also more easily outsourced and automated than right-brain work, which is why, for example, computer programmers in this country no longer command the salaries they once did.
Pink tells us “the only way that businesses can differentiate their goods and services in today’s overstocked marketplace is to make their offerings physically beautiful and emotionally compelling.” In this environment, the right-brain capabilities that were once considered frivolous—inventiveness, empathy, joyfulness and meaning—become the critical recipe for financial success, and the profession of design, too often dismissed as mere decoration, becomes widely recognized as an essential ally of economic development.
It’s no accident that in the United States, the number of graphic designers has increased tenfold in a decade—even as graphic design software becomes widely available to the general public. Needless to say, one doesn’t become a brilliant designer by buying a software program, any more than one becomes a master carpenter by buying a fancy set of power tools. But expanded access to professional-level technology has empowered greater numbers of potential designers to develop their skills and choose the creative disciplines as a career path.
The process of creative thinking may seem intangible, but good design—whether product design, graphic design, identity design, motion or interactive—has always delivered a substantial return on investment, and for all the reasons cited by Daniel Pink, that return is becoming more quantifiable and dramatic every year. In this so-called Conceptual Age, will the work of designers finally be acknowledged as an essential driver of social and economic progress? Will right-brainers, as Pink predicts, really rule the future? Will the MFA truly become the new MBA? Let’s hope so.