subject: Design Should Always Be Fit-for-purpose [print this page] It's difficult sometimes for someone in the graphic design, brand design and advertising industry to resist applying too much polish to their work. After all we all like to produce ground-breaking and beautiful work but we must remember that it shouldn't be at the expense of effectiveness; design, by definition, should be fit-for-purpose.
Dominic Rutterford, founder of Piers and Dominic, says "A good example would be the Easy-Jet brand. A few years ago I was working at a world-renowned brand agency when a creative director told me about when Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, founder of Easy-Jet, approached them to talk about his new low-fare airline. Sir Haji-Ioannou shared with them some initial thoughts he'd had for a visual identity that included the font, Cooper Black, and a primary bright orange colour. The guys at Landor felt that the identity needed some work. Stelios did not. What does the son of a Greek shipping magnate know about branding?
"To be fair to guys at the agency, it can be very easy to fall into this trap. When I lived in Auckland, New Zealand, I remember being entertained by the unsophisticated nature of some of the local advertising on TV with Auckland Glass' advert a personal fave for ridicule. If you haven't seen it (you would need to be outside Auckland not to have) it involves of a slideshow of still-photographs of domestic windows, shop fronts and windscreens and a low-fi smashing graphic effect that looked like it had been applied using Powerpoint.
It wasn't until I tried fitting a cat-flap that I understood the true power of advertising."
These examples highlight how simple communications can be effective but that is not-to-say that marketing communications should always be stripped back to basics; it depends on the brand and its target market. Design appropriateness can be ascertained through a clear understanding of your clients - and their audiences - requirements and, once understood, it should be a pretty straight-forward process to produce on-brand and coherent communications; saving both the client and agency time and money in the long-run.
A good bench-test? If a designer or advertising team are finding it difficult to rationalise their ideas around effectiveness and appropriateness for their client then their solution is probably neither effective or appropriate.
