superconductor
In some companies, the design, be it for products, communication, or services, seems to be conceived and executed by a single person: everything just fits together perfectly. But we know that many design activities go into creating this perfect picture. Brands that have understood that a well-orchestrated, holistic experience across all touchpoints solidifies their identity are creating the basis for customer loyalty and are a leading example to all other companies. Like an orchestra playing out of tune, customers will turn away from companies that cannot harmonize the ‘interplay’ of their organizational parts to create a collective performance. Remember the story of the kitchen nightmare?
This raises the question of who is in charge of design harmonization: how can one get a grip on all design activities so that everything, be it product or communication, turns out fully harmonized, irrespective of what the business is about? Even more so, since you do not have a single designer but a whole team actively working for your brand? Then it might help to look for a ‘score’ and a ‘conductor’ to achieve a ‘harmonious’ result from your company’s efforts.
A company score has the task of orchestrating all touchpoints with the market, the consumer, the customer, and society at large, by guiding design with a single approach fully aligned with the brand’s personality. To many, a ‘corporate guideline’ will come to mind, also known as a corporate identity style guide.
Most of the style guides around limit themselves to communicative aspects within a brand experience (logo, graphics, type, tonality, etc.) and hardly include product and service aspects as well: a holistic guideline, which truly incorporates all touchpoints to the market, is hard to find, also because there are hardly any agencies around who are able to conceive one…
But if a company has such a ‘score’, which guides all the ‘instruments’ in a brand’s recital towards the market and consumers, it can create a truly holistic brand experience.
This score is no guarantee that the rendering will be consistent: most instruments a company ‘plays’ are dislocated in time and space from one another, and the overarching score is therefore constantly re-interpreted. On top of that, every design function has its own creative director trying to ‘interpret’ the score…
If you then also consider that (in contrast to an orchestra recital) customers, if they engage with a brand, will experience the ‘instruments’ playing one after the other, it quickly becomes clear where the problem lies: a conductor needs to be in charge. One who is able to direct (or let direct) all those different creatives in such a way that the rendering of the score is coherent and consistent despite being disconnected in time and place.
The prerequisites for being such a ‘superconductor’ are hardly to be found amongst the designers: they are too quickly falling in love with their ‘instrument’ and the ‘playing’, they focus on the details rather than the larger whole.
Mostly, you find these qualities in entrepreneurs, with an antenna and flair for the effect of a consistent, coherent design, and the gift of sensitizing their employees to this as well. They can achieve the synchronization of all different parts into a connected whole. And they also know that it’s not sufficient to have a ‘score’ composed by whoever the design guru is, in order to fully leverage design – it’s the rendering that makes the experience!
Most likely it’s because of this that some companies are more successful than others in existing consumer and building customer loyalty: they have a fitting ‘score’, sensitized employees and designers who can render it, and a superconductor ensuring all play in tune!