Merge Design Blog
Affordable And Unique Web Design
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
2017-10-25 / Graphic Design, Web Design

The Business of Social Design: Rethinking Model and Method

Alison M. Ray /

Note: An earlier version of this article was published by Design Management Institute and can be found here. 

Designers have historically had a passionate connection to their community and an eagerness to use their creative skills toward positive social change. In the last decade we have seen a proliferation of this activity, so much so that a new practice area of design-driven social change has emerged that many are calling social design. Despite this increased activity, however, many design businesses struggle to integrate social design—in a sustainable way—into their business model, or to build new models with social design at the core. At the center of this dilemma is funding, but other factors are important to consider as well. Whether they are addressing a complex global issue like climate change or a hyper-local one, like a community garden in an urban neighborhood, designers must figure out how to do this work in a serious and sustainable business way in order to have meaningful impact over time.

While the term social design is relatively new, the movement has a rich heritage that dates back at least to the 1920s and the Bauhaus, which had an explicit commitment to designing residential housing for the poor. This ethos was echoed by many of the great designers of the last 50 years, such as Samuel Mockbee, Tibor Kalman, and Milton Glaser, and continued by design leaders of the last generation, such as Bill Drenttel, John Bielenberg, and Valerie Casey, who have persistently worked to redefine the role of the designer in society. In the last decade we have seen the emergence of academic programs with a focus on social design, such as the Designmatters program at ArtCenter College of Design and the Master of Arts in Social Design program at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). Another indicator of the maturation of this discipline is the number of programs that recognize and support the best social design work, such as Ideas That Matter by the paper company Sappi, Design Ignites Change, Designer’s Accord, and AIGA’s Design for Good, along with conferences like Compostmodern in San Francisco, which has a thematic focus on design for environmental sustainability. Furthermore, the principles of social design align with many of the values that characterize the millennial generation, which comprises an increasing proportion of the design profession. According to a January 2014 Forbes article, “Millennials are focused on making meaning, not just making money.”

One important aspect of the evolution of social design over the last decade is that now designers are being invited into the problem-solving process at earlier and more influential points, whereas the historical role of the designer was often to create the brand, the campaign, the poster, or the website once the core problem was solved by the embedded experts. This trend of greater influence mirrors the increasing power designers are experiencing in many business sectors; as noted in a 2010 Businessweek article, “[Designers] help companies connect and establish a dialogue with consumers, thus enabling firms to innovate more efficiently.”[1] The emergence of human-centered design (or design thinking) methodology pioneered by global firms like IDEO and frog places a premium on design-driven research, divergent ideation, rapid prototyping, and iteration rather than a purely aesthetic focus. This unique approach is helping to position designers as problem solvers and drivers of change, and allowing them to make relevant, meaningful contributions at a much earlier stage than ever before.

What’s wrong with this picture?

In order to maximize this significant opportunity, the traditional business model for a design practice must be reconsidered. Virtually every design business and creative agency is built on the same basic “client service” framework, in which there is a single way to make money: through fees that clients pay in return for design services. For several reasons this model is not appropriate for doing effective design-driven social change over the long term. For instance, in social design there is often not a traditional client: the designer might be self-initiating the project, or there might be a collective of stakeholders, none of whom have the capacity to fund the project. The result is that most social design projects are either self-funded at a minimal level or done on a pro-bono basis. Hence, these social design projects usually get relegated to the periphery of the practice—they are the projects that get worked on after hours or on the weekend. An additional result of this lack of funding is that these projects tend to be done on a compressed time frame of days or weeks, when meaningful social change efforts—including research, assessment, planning, and execution—can take years or even decades.

The rapidly emerging area of online crowd-funding sites and communities like Kickstarter and Crowdrise offers a potential remedy to the funding dilemma. Crowd funding presents an opportunity that simply was not around only a few years ago, and it’s a significant one, with more than $6 billion donated globally in 2013. This is somewhat deceptive, though, because with a few notable exceptions, most crowd-funded projects receive in the range of $5,000-$20,000—not insignificant, but also not enough to stay on the project list of a top design firm for very long.

Another significant opportunity lies in funding from philanthropic foundations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which represent an aggregate pool of hundreds of billions of dollars in endowments. Gates Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation are all prominent examples of foundations with deep and established endowments; locally based organizations and family foundations also offer opportunities. Currently, however, design-driven projects are virtually invisible to these philanthropies, because design businesses are typically set up as for-profit corporations or LLCs, which are not eligible to directly apply for grant funding. This puts most design firms in the position of relying on partnerships with third-party nonprofits in order to gain access to funds for project work—a cumbersome arrangement, at best.

Designers are beginning to recognize this dilemma, and new practice models are emerging. Tomorrow Partners (Berkeley, CA), and Greater Good Studio and Firebelly Design (both in Chicago), are all examples of design businesses that are tinkering with the traditional model. Some are establishing themselves as a non-profit 501(c)3, and others form a nonprofit to sit alongside the traditional for-profit (IDEO and IDEO.org are examples of this); either option gives designers direct access to foundation money. A relatively new option is the L3C business classification, a hybrid structure that combines the legal and tax flexibility of a traditional LLC, the social benefits of a nonprofit organization, and the branding and market positioning advantages of a social enterprise.

Rich Hollant, founder of Hartford, CT-based Co:Lab, has intentionally built his staff to be positioned for foundation funding in a sustainable way. “Co:Lab is an LLC, and we access grant funding through collaborations with (c)3s and foundations,” Hollant says. “Our business development person has a nonprofit management background and has deep experience with foundations. She helps us advise (c)3s through the grant process as a means of subsidizing project funding. We also take a consulting role in the sustainability plans of community-based coalitions and help our partners optimize their in-place funds.”

One NGO that recognizes the potential of human-centered design is UNICEF, which has made a significant investment by building an internal innovation team practicing social design with a focus on children in the developing world: “We aim to engage and partner with the right organizations and individuals from the public, private and academic sectors to support us by co-developing user-driven innovations.”[2]

It’s time to open the door

As we reconsider our business model, designers must also address our methodological approach. Design has a stigma of being a mysterious and exclusive craft that would be contaminated—rather than enriched—by the direct involvement of clients or stakeholders, and designers have a similar rap of being control freaks obsessed with a perfect outcome. Social design, on the other hand, requires designers to open their process and to be inclusive, transparent, nimble and iterative. In order to understand deeply complex social issues and develop credible solutions to them, we depend on the active participation of experts in that area. This means that designers need to be developing networks in communities where these subject matter experts reside. It also means that a key skill for a social designer will be that of facilitation, since the format of the multi-disciplinary design workshop becomes key to drawing out the insights of disparate participants. AIGA, the professional association for design recently launched Facilitation by Design, a series of workshops to help designers build the skills to “successfully facilitate a diverse group and create effective solutions across a variety of sectors.”

These changes to business model and method are triggering reactions throughout the design profession. Many of the top academic design programs are taking on the challenge of building curriculum to train the emerging generation of social designers. At MICA, the one-year Master of Arts in Social Design program “prepares the next generation of creative leaders through collaborative practice-based learning opportunities, exploring social issues, testing processes & defining the future of design.”[3] Still, the career path for graduates of this pioneering program will be murky until the practice space matures in the years to come.

Whether in the studio setting, the academic world, or within large organizations, ambitious and forward-thinking designers are recognizing that social design offers a significant opportunity in an ever-more-competitive design market. They are also coming to terms with the fact that integrating social design practices effectively and sustainably in their business model—so this work contributes to the bottom-line success of a business rather than jeopardizing it—will be the key to long-term success.

[1] Ravi Sawhney and Deepa Prahalad, “The Role of Design in Business,” Businessweek, Feb. 1, 2010.

[2] http://www.unicefinnovation.org

[3] http://www.micasocialdesign.com

email-laptop-computer-marketing-ss-1920
2017-10-12 / Advertising

Email marketing and why you should be doing it

Alison M. Ray / email marketing /

If you are in anyway like me, I am sure you get 10’s if not 100’s of emails sent to you each day by companies promoting their services or special deals. I’m sure the majority of the time you just click delete and never even look at them, but I can bet there are often times you act upon one of these emails and either open it, or better still buy something it is promoting. Welcome to the world of email marketing.

Email marketing allows businesses to direct market to their existing and potential customers. The advertising effect is immediate and easily measured making it a great source of income and brand awareness for companies around the world. Some great uses for email marketing include:

  • general news and updates
  • special offers
  • special events
  • new products or sales and promotions
  • feedback or surveys

Email Marketing Software

There are many solutions out there when it comes to email marketing software. Many companies have been around for decades now, and offer great service and support and make sending email campaigns very easy. There are many free plans on offer, so you can test out different companies before you import all your contacts and start making templates. Here are some brands to look out for:

  • Aweber
  • Mailchimp
  • ConstantContact
  • Campaign Monitor
  • SendinBlue
  • GetResponse
  • ActiveCampaign

Choosing which email marketing software to use can you a difficult process. The majority all have great features to make creating templates and managing contacts a breeze. If you are looking for reviews and comparisons on the best email marketing software then jump over to the Australian email marketing software reviews page for information

Do’s and dont’s of email marketing

There are some basic principles you should following when engaging in email marketing for your business. These simple steps will increase the effectiveness of your email campaigns and hopefully increase business and awareness of the product or service you are promoting.

  • make sure you have permission to use the email addresses you have collected
  • don’t send people too many emails too often – it will scare them away
  • create a catchy subject line
  • dont cram too much content into the email, use short extracts and link back to full articles on your website.
  • ensure you have the option for users to ubsubscribe
  • include photos
  • ensure the emails look good in todays email clients

2017-10-06 / Blog

Important features to look for in web host

Alison M. Ray /

Are you trying to upload the website of your small business on the internet but, you are quite confused with the technical terms of web hosting providers? Putting your website online, like many things, can be very challenging.

With so many web hosting companies offering a reliable hardware, unlimited resources, and affordability it is quite a tough competition. Don’t worry, this article contains the list of main features to consider when deciding on a web hosting company, you can also take a shortcut and choose one from a top 10 web hosting comparison like the one on M2media. Here are the important features to look for in a web host.

Price

People starting anew often look for an inexpensive option. However, that kind of service often brings a lot of limitations. While it is tempting to pay less for what you want, it is not always the deciding factor. Cheapest web hosting service offers shared servers that are good only until the site’s visibility is improved and it starts generating traffic and revenues. Web hosting services can cost anywhere from $2 to hundreds of dollars, in case you are opting for a dedicated server.

Limitations

The best choice you can make is to choose the service that offers an unlimited bandwidth. In case your site serves as an e-commerce store, affiliate marketing blog, or any blog, in particular, it is a commonplace that it will use a lot of data. When your site runs out of bandwidth the service providers will either charge you an additional fee or shut your site down.

This is the major flaw with more affordable options. The service doesn’t offer a lot of RAM or sufficiently powered processor. Discuss the details with the web hosting company you laid your eye on in order to find out what do they offer for their price. Will they charge more domains or additional support? Make sure you have this cleared out.

Technical Support

Accidents happen, and once in a while, you will have to deal with your site going down or something else that interfered with its’ performance. It is of fundamental importance that your web hosting provider offers decent technical supports in order for you to overcome these unsettling problems.

A decent web hosting company has technical support staff, which is included in the overall price of the web hosting service. They should determine what is wrong with the site and eventually fix your problem. However, some lower companies will only give you the necessary information for you to recover the site online.

The help is often available through a phone call, live chat, or email service. Still, make sure with your hosting provider about the options they give. Better safe than sorry when your site goes down.

Features and Hardware

Good web hosting companies offer more than just a server. The better companies will often provide free domain privacy, energy-saving practices, and also, multiple data centers. If you see that your company includes add-ons to your initial package, make sure to learn more about them and how they can benefit you and your site.

The server is a computer and the server’s performance and stability depend on this server. If your company isn’t willing to provide the configuration of the server, then it’s time to move towards more reliable companies.

Customer Satisfaction

Web hosting companies, obviously, host their own website where they highlight the peaks of their services. Good companies are proud of the service they provide and they let their users review them. Also, make sure to google about the personalized, analytical reviews on different blogs, forums and social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and more.

Conclusion

Before choosing the web hosting company it is essential to inform yourself about the features they offer. If you don’t, you might end up unsatisfied and ripped-off. What web hosting are you using and why? Let us know.

feat3
2017-08-08 / Advertising, Blog, Graphic Design, Internet, SEO, Support, Web Design

Web Design Trends of 2017

Alison M. Ray /

When it comes to web design, there are a lot of trends that are constantly changing from year to year. These web design trends are set up by the newer generations of designer that are creating their names. They are putting in a lot of time and effort into creating these trends that will hopefully change the entire design community. We recently spoke with brisbane web design company M2media and here are some of the most popular web design trends of 2017 that we have seen so far.

Mobile-First Approach to web design

As you can guess by the name of this trend, a lot of web designers are approaching new projects by making first a mobile version. There is a lot of reasons why this is happening, one of them I because it is easier to create a web design for devices that have smaller screens. When people create first designs for mobiles, then they can use that design as a reference to work their way up to bigger devices like tablets and desktops. The second good reason why more designers are using this trend is that mobile phones are becoming more and more popular all over the world and each year, they have to offer even more and better performance.

Nowadays, some mobile phones have achieved a lot of great things and thanks to the advanced technology, people can now use them to browse the web just as easily as a desktop. For example, in the UK mobile devices are names primary devices that people use to browse the web. Therefore, more companies that want to create a website, want to start by creating a mobile version because they know that it will be done much faster.

“Designing for Mobile is such a major component of any new website project today. We prefer to start with a mobile first design and then expand it out to fit larger screens” says Matt Ascough from Brisbane Web Design company M2media.

Bold Typography

Visual mediums are what web designers use to attract people to their designs and there is no better way to achieve that than creating big and bold typography. This type of typography is the solution to all problems nowadays. In the upcoming years, we can expect to see much more over-sized titles that have some unique style. Having big and boring typography will not be enough, designers will have to come up with their personal styles of letters.

feat2
2017-08-08 / Advertising, Blog, Graphic Design, Internet, SEO, Support, Web Design

College of Visual Arts Class Of 2017

Alison M. Ray /

Each year, a new and fresh generation of college students from visual art class are stepping up to become someone who will be remembered. In order to achieve such thing, they have to do something that was never done before, something that will change and have a huge impact on the future of web design. Art is something that has no limits, and there is always more room available for improvement, therefore we never know when or who might have a great impact in this community. We surely hope so that the visual art class of 2017 will have some gems who will bring something new to the table.

Changing the Future

The future is always in the hands of the new generations of people that are coming, we cannot forget about them. Usually, they are the ones that have the most innovative ideas that can change everything. Some of these young people will become famous designers that are for sure, but we can only hope that they have some good ideas on how to make things better or easier. New ideas rarely come from old people, they are usually created in heads of young people that want to try out new things. Even if an older designer has an idea, there are small chances that he will even try to make that idea come to life that is because over time people tend to lose their passion for the work. Only a few people that really love what they are doing have a passion for design later on in their lives.

As an older generation of designers, we know that we can count on the new generation to change the future because if everything stays the same, people will get bored. In order to keep something interesting, it needs to be changing constantly and improving by each day. Nobody knows what might come from this new generation of college students. One thing is for sure and that is some of them who are extremely passionate about design will achieve something great in life and in the end, that is what matters the most.

feat1
2017-08-08 / Advertising, Blog, Graphic Design, Internet, SEO, Support, Web Design

A Tragic Loss for the Design World

Alison M. Ray /

 One of the worst moments in the world of design was in 2011 when a community great as this lost a true gem, a member that had a huge impact on the future of the web design Sylvia Harris. If the name Sylvia Harris doesn’t ring a bell to you, then most likely, you are not into web design things because everyone involved into web design must know who was she. That is because she was one of the best designers in the whole world, a lot of people have looked up to her and followed her work. if you don’t know anything about her, here is a quick look into her life.

The Start

Just like anyone else, she had to start somewhere and from nothing, nobody got famous without putting in effort into what they love. For Sylvia Harris, the start was 1980 when she graduated from Yale. Right after graduation, she started to create her own name, of course, she has some help from two associates. She had some ground-breaking work was done that was the first step to success and fame when she was working with some banking systems for the Citibank. In 1994, she decided that she can do things without any help and she wanted to go solo, therefore she changed her focus to designing planning and strategy. In the process of this huge change, she helped out some big universities, hospitals, and agencies with her planning system.She was a woman that was full of energy, ideas, passion and more importantly intelligence. She really loved doing what she was good at and that was designed. Extremely talented at everything that was related to design from drawing to coming up with new unique ideas.

Making Difference

 

She was a woman that always wanted to make a difference, she wanted always to stand out and not be like everybody else. Do achieve that, she needed to impress people and she achieved that by being a citizen designer. Of course, we could talk a lot more about how great she was, but one thing is for sure, she will be remembered as a great woman

2015-09-28 / Advertising, Web Design

Toledo Design Week 2015: Links, etc.

Alison M. Ray /

I had a blast speaking to the great people of Bowling Green, Ohio this week as part of AIGA Toledo Design Week. Thanks so much to AIGA Toledo and the Graphic Design Department at Bowling Green State University for the invitation, and to everyone who came out to my presentation at the Wolfe Center for the Arts. Here is a list of links from the presentation as well as a PDF of the slides.

John Maeda’s 2015 Design in Tech Report

IBM Design and the IBM Design Language

AIGA Design for Good

Design Observer (which my design hero Bill Drenttel co-founded)

BGSU_POWELL

Search

Share

Blue Host

I page

Linkedin

Latest Pins on Pinterest

  • Follow Me on Pinterest

Recent Posts

  • The Business of Social Design: Rethinking Model and Method
  • Email marketing and why you should be doing it
  • Important features to look for in web host
  • Web Design Trends of 2017
  • College of Visual Arts Class Of 2017

Categories

  • Advertising
  • Blog
  • Graphic Design
  • Internet
  • SEO
  • Support
  • Web Design

Pages

  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Home
  • Privacy Policy

12 Trends in Web Design

↑

  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
Merge Design Blog