The Case for Good Design

Good Design is Good Business

I’ve spent most of my career making things look good. At least that’s how people sometimes describe what designers do, though I’ve never really thought of it that way. Of course, design can result in something beautiful. However, after forty years of working with brands, I have come to the conclusion that its true value lies in something more basic—it can alter our feelings. And the way we feel about something is closely linked to our perception of its value. Think about walking into a grand hotel. You notice the lighting, the furniture, the music, and the person behind the front desk; even before you’ve checked in, seen your room, or ordered a drink. You already have an opinion. No one has given you an explanation of the brand since it's not necessary—you just sense it.

We don’t just buy things

A great deal of the work that we've done at Tandem has been in the field of hospitality and destination real estate, and from that I learned quite early on that people are never actually buying just the physical product.

A house isn't just three bedrooms, four bathrooms, and 3,200 square feet, and a resort isn't merely a room that has a pool; people are purchasing a vision of the kind of life they might lead there.

You have the option of showing someone a floor plan and stating that the kitchen has a twelve-foot island, or of helping them to picture their family gathered around it on Christmas morning. The first provides them with information while the second creates a desire. Both are important.

We sold property on homes that had not yet been built; in some cases the roads were still under construction, and the clubhouse was still just a drawing. Although there was very little that could be experienced personally, people were being asked to make a major investment in the concept. Good design made the concept appear realistic.

Perception is part of the product

Having a glass of wine and drinking it from a plastic cup under LED lights gives you one sort of experience, but if you drink the same wine from a good glass on a terrace with a view of the mountains at sunset, you have a completely different experience. The wine itself is unchanged; it is merely the way in which you perceive it that has altered.

It is, in fact, the way that businesses function even if we prefer not to acknowledge it; if you are asking your customers to pay more, then the experience had better correspond to that price since you can't simply advertise yourself as luxurious on your website and expect to actually be luxurious.

The photography, the writing, the website, and the physical environment are all important; in the case of a house which costs millions of dollars, even the envelope makes a difference—not because anyone is going to buy a house simply on the basis of an envelope, but because it is the combination of all those small decisions that gives the impression that someone has actually taken the time to get it right. People pick up on that.

The bigger problem is sameness

If you spend ten minutes looking at hotel websites, all the images you see will show an attractive couple walking on the beach, having a glass of wine, and sitting thoughtfully on a mountain.

It appears that nobody who is staying at a luxury resort ever checks their email.

The language isn't very different from earlier on—all of it is described in a refined, carefully chosen, authentic, timeless, and memorable manner, even though in the end everything is eventually forgotten.

Another thing that design has to do is to create a distinction, and this does not always mean being more noticeable. In numerous instances it involves doing less: for instance, using one outstanding photograph rather than six, making one statement rather than five, and leaving some space blank because you have the confidence in your own point of view to stick to it.

The truth is that the top brands need not be the ones making the strongest statements; they are the ones whose presence you become familiar with even without seeing their logo.

What does ordinary cost?

It has on numerous occasions been the case that people have asked designers to show their return on investment, and that is completely fair.

In certain instances, this can be done. Better conversion rates, a higher volume of inquiries, faster sales, and greater prices are all measurable. In other cases, however, it is more difficult to determine the connection. How much revenue can be linked to the typography? Was the house bought because the brochure was attractive? Probably not.

Design doesn't work that way.

The design makes the website appear more convincing, enables the advertising to be more easily recognized, and gives the sales presentation greater credibility; as a result, it makes the product seem worth the price at which it is asked for. In the end, all of these factors combine to produce something that businesses spend a large amount of money trying to achieve, namely a situation in which people prefer one option to the other when faced with two reasonably equal ones.

Maybe instead of always asking about the cost of good design, we should from time to time consider the cost of ordinary design. What does it cost when people fail to notice you, can't remember you, or believe that your competitor is more valuable even if your product is better?

It's difficult to find those figures in a spreadsheet, but they are there.

Beauty isn’t magic

However beautiful the design may be, it cannot make up for a poor product, enhance bad service, or turn a standard hotel into an excellent one. Design is not just a mere disguise; it only reaches its best when there is something genuine behind it—something that is useful, interesting, or in fact worth wanting.

What we should do is work out that particular thing, eliminate all the other distractions, and make sure that people are able to see it. I have always kept strategy and design together because strategy decides what is important and design gives it a form so that people can experience it.

Although I have been in the industry for forty years I still believe that people can tell whether an item has been carefully produced. They may not know why it seems different and they probably don't care about the kind of typeface you've used. All they know is that it's the case and, in most situations, they appreciate it.

That makes a very sound business case for producing something beautiful.