Jim Northover

When I began working at Conran Design Group in 1970 I hardly expected 40 years later to be attending a celebration for its founder’s 80th birthday. Last month Terence Conran invited a group of designer alumni for a private view of the Way We Live Now exhibition and a dinner at the Design Museum.

Back in the 1970s, getting a job at Conran was, arguably, as good as it got. There was a sense of being part of something that was happening around us, the extent of which we did not fully comprehend. Back then there were just a handful of influential design groups, and none better known, thanks to the high street presence of Habitat. Speaking at the dinner Terence Conran bemoaned the UK Government’s lack of support for design, its failure to understand how design could materially impact lives and drive economic growth. Despite his and others’ best efforts, this is sadly true. What is also true is the extent to which Conran has provided a context for how consumers and users of design view the world around us. The notion of something being ‘well designed’ has more meaning and matters more now than ever. We may argue about definitions and qualities, but the general recognition of design has been heightened by the example of this man.

Part of a presentation given at a Brunel University Business School seminar in London on 10 December 2010

Apocalyptic scenarios are being hastily sketched out right across the higher education sector. The burning issues of funding and student fees cut right at the heart of current systems of provision. But, whatever results from the debate, the entire sector is sure to emerge as something different, not least in the way that future generations will regard the whole institution of higher education and the fundamental purpose and worth of universities.

For a very long time now there has been a consensus that universities are ‘a good thing’ and that, in line with everything else in a modern democratic state, they should be available to all, in principle. All, that is, who have the intellect and potential to profit from higher-level scholarship and the experience of academic life. More than that, for recent generations ‘going to uni’ has become a rite of passage for many, as students make the transition from teenage to adulthood.

Widening access has been a key strategy of government, based on the perceived importance of the ‘knowledge economy’ to the UK’s success in the world. Now things have changed, as we know. The whole idea of a university education is being re-examined, with a focus on who pays for what, when and how.

The questions I am asking, when the dust has settled and reforms implemented, are: what do universities now stand for, and how do they differentiate themselves in a market-oriented world?

To find an answer, as with every brand, it is always worth looking back, even before we look forward to the future. Brands are the embodiment of multiple interactions and experiences with something, be it a tangible product, a service, a company or an institution. In this sense universities are no different. Time can be a great brand builder. For a thousand years our older universities have been developing and evolving to become what they are today. Tradition and heritage (the words we use to reflect the meaning embedded in these institutions) are an irrefutable part of how they are perceived. Such brands have a patina – ‘the soft glow…produced by age and polishing’ as the Oxford Dictionary informs us.

It is equally true that the old universities still carry forward behaviours, cultures and patterns of operating that in many ways remain unchanged. So powerful was their influence in the 19th century that the great metropolitan universities copied them, and the ‘redbricks’ of the mid 20th century followed them, who, in turn were the aspiration, if not the inspiration, for the polytechnics that ‘traded up’ to university status. The curious thing is this: would any university look and operate the way it does, if it had been designed to meet the needs of the up-coming generations of school leavers? I doubt it.

So, in looking forward we see, in the very near future, some challenges that lie deeper than the immediate debates around funding and fees. What should a truly modern university look like? Excellence in scholarship and research perhaps, but for what purpose, for whom and for what end?

In a very real sense these questions are not ‘academic’. They are simply the questions being asked by 16 and 17 year olds as they contemplate their futures. Without ready and credible answers to these questions, universities may cease in time to command the respect and investment they have received in the past, nor will they attract the students that make their existence possible.

In the next few years as universities struggle to survive and thrive, how many, if not those at the venerable end of the spectrum who will continue to enjoy a level of patronage, will be looking radically at the ways in which they deliver teaching and conduct research?

Much as it may go against the grain and the natural instincts of academics and university managers, it is instructive to look at the successes and failures of corporate institutions. Many great names, and brands, have gone to the wall simply because, like prehistoric creatures, they either did not anticipate change or could not adapt when change was forced upon them. Most successful businesses have dramatically transformed their products, services and operating models. While universities may seek to demonstrate the many ways in which they have embraced technology, for example, they operate in a fundamentally unreformed environment.

It is time for some universities to break cover, to offer high quality, relevant education that makes sense for tomorrow’s students. Realistically, this may not happen overnight, but a radical move on the part of the braver in the sector could signal the need for repositioning their brands to communicate their difference in intent and action. No longer would there be, as now, a succession of ‘me toos’, all competing with each other to provide qualifications of equal (and sometimes dubious) value and commodity style delivery, a pattern replicated in how they describe themselves and articulate their brands. The opportunity for innovation is clear. Step forward the first university to challenge the status quo and show the way ahead.

It was not so long ago, although it seems like a lifetime away, the UK was celebrating design and its contribution to the economy and cultural life of the country. Attending a reception at Buckingham Palace exactly six years ago today was evidence enough to me that design had both an influence and a power base.

Now design is on the defensive again, mainly due to the fact that current Government policy has virtually by-passed it from an educational point of view. With science, technology, engineering and mathematics being privileged over the arts and humanities, design finds itself, oddly, on the wrong side of the line. The whole future of design hinges to a large extent on its ability to be a bridge linking the traditionally imagined dichotomy between arts and sciences. There is an intrinsic absurdity in separating the 'two cultures', a debate that Snow and Leavis had long ago and is no longer relevant in the current century.

It has been widely reported that the creative industries come only second to finance as the major contributor to the economy, and that in the worlds of architecture, fashion and interaction design UK is one of the global leaders. This not to downgrade the strength of our engineering, bio-science and digital technology sectors, but merely to highlight that design, however you define it, still makes an impact for Britain, working as it does in sectors such as these. A recent survey in the Evening Standard named several designers, arts and media folk as key influencers in London, along with a handful of politicians, one retailer, one banker and no industrialists. The same publication also reported last week that one economist at a leading bank had identified three components that contribute to growth: cash, commodities and creativity. As the Standard's reporter Anthony Hilton commented, the UK is noticeably short on the first two components, so it's creativity that counts.

Perhaps some good things will emerge from the Government's scaling back of support for design education and the design sector. If that does happen, then it would be evidence of creativity in itself - doing more with less. However, a more likely outcome is that design education will be driven into the arms of the corporate world for financial support, sponsorship and resources. No doubt, a 'real life' injection might be beneficial, but, equally, objectivity will be compromised. That's inevitable. Likewise, with the Design Council: its new charitable status may throw up interesting and productive linkages, freeing it from its pact with the Government, but these are uncharted territories and it will need great clarity of purpose if it is to make a successful transition.

In the meantime, the implications for design are not auspicious. Perhaps one day there will be recognition that design can be a central part of our sustainable development as a nation, and one that connects the creative and critical spirits of the 'arts' with the objectivity and pragmatism of the 'sciences'. I look forward to the day when the penny will drop. We may need another royal reception to celebrate it!

This month is a small cause for celebration: three and half decades of design consultancy. There are a few companies around from those days still bearing the same names and still with a founder involved in the business, but not many.

It’s been a rocky ride at times, but the business is still there and it continues to survive and thrive.

It all started back in the sixties when John Lloyd and I were students at what was then the London College of Printing. We graduated in 1968, the ‘soixante huit’ of student unrest, the ‘summer of love’ and all that. It took us till the mid seventies to make the leap and start on our own. Rather like now it was a period of slow economic recovery, and starting anything seemed either brave or stupid, perhaps both.

At the time, anniversaries seemed significant and when we had survived our first year in business we celebrated by opening a bottle or two of champagne, thus starting a tradition. The photo above shows dated corks from the first 15 years’ anniversaries.

After 10 years we started recording anniversaries with the design and distribution of t-shirts to our friends and clients. For some these became collectors’ items, with a few surviving today.

In our 15th year we all flew to Paris for the day – the kind of extravagance that was expected of a successful design group. This photograph records the event. Here we are in front of I M Pei’s newly opened Louvre pyramid. It was a good, and as I remember it, very long day.

Some things come in twos. Partnerships often work best in creative businesses: opposing viewpoints, dynamic tension, complementary skills, integrated teamwork can bring out the best in design. After all it is increasingly accepted that design depends on collaboration more than on individual brilliance.

There are plenty of great design partnerships around today, although writing your name over the door is less usual now. Perhaps it was egotism or simply a sense of professional seriousness that persuaded Wolff Olins, Minale Tattersfield, Sampson Tyrrell, Lewis Moberly, Newell & Sorrell, Carroll & Dempsey, Smith & Milton, Trickett & Webb, Lloyd Northover and others to turn their names into brands.

Their founders have mostly moved on or re-formed, their companies sometimes absorbed, the names changed, and little recognition of the originals survive. Some companies are also life partnerships as well as professional ones. Others have moved into second-generation management. Nothing stands still, least of all the partners themselves. A look at the images of John and Jim below, in 1975 and again 30 years later, demonstrates the effects of time and the endurance of friendship.

Going to see Enron in London’s West End last week was to witness an acerbic indictment of corporate excess and self-delusion. As the play pointed out, we all bear some responsibility for the way the corporate world has frequently lost sight of its reason for being.

However, there was a time when Enron looked like a company going places and innovating. It commissioned Paul Rand, one of the most respected corporate designers of his generation, to design the logo and identity for the company.

Today that logo comes readymade as the identity for the play itself, liberally used on all promotional material and signing. I wondered who now owns the rights to that piece of intellectual property. No doubt Rand cheerfully assigned the rights to the company once he was paid for his work. Today the company no longer exists. The brand is ‘worthless’. But for play’s promoters it’s a useful piece of identity nevertheless.

This week saw the takeover of Cadbury by Kraft Foods. Cadbury is another name in the lengthening line of British household names disappearing from the corporate scene. While there is no room for sentimentality in business (as one UK bank chief executive memorable once said to me) the move does give cause for thinking through the rationale and the likely outcome of the merger. Most commentators agree that the financial benefits to Kraft are potentially significant, helping it reach international markets it has not been able to penetrate successfully so far. Clearly, it adds some major brands, of which Cadbury is obviously the foremost, to its portfolio.

It also seems that little interest in being paid to the Cadbury corporate brand, the company with a history and culture that made it distinctive and gave it a reputation for fairness with its employees and in its business practices. While there is little doubt that Cadbury exploited its suppliers of cocoa way back, it also practiced enlightened philanthropy towards its employees. The whole notion of Bournville, quaint though it seems today, was a concept ahead of its time. It was the last surviving chocolate company founded by Quakers; Rowntree’s and Fry’s being devoured long ago.

As deals are increasingly done at a purely short-term financial level, and brands change hands scarcely without a blink, the passing of corporate entities and their cultures goes unremarked. One of the objectives of the corporate identity ‘movement’, if I can call it that, was to project internally and externally the true nature and worth of the business ethos. Companies like IBM became classics of this paradigm.

With Kraft’s takeover, it will be interesting to see how the cultures will blend, if at all. The idea that anything of the Cadbury ethos will remain seems unlikely , as the two cultures appear to have little in common; just a case of the difference between ‘choc and cheese’ perhaps.

Talk delivered at Brunel University Business School 4 December 2009

For years now, brands and branding have been associated with goods and services, mainly those we see, buy and use everyday. The world of marketing has focused on these because that’s where the big money lies, or has done.

We also know that business to business brands are important as companies are consumers of goods and services too. We have become conscious that it is not just the individual products or services that are branded to make them memorable and distinctive, but it’s the organisations behind them as well. There are all sorts of reasons why we need to be concerned about corporate brands. Trust is one. Our attitude to corporate brands in the financial services market is an obvious example. Ethics is another. We are increasingly concerned about the social and environmental impact of corporations on our world. As information travels further and faster we get to know what’s going on.

Of course, brand owners want us to know more (about the right stuff, naturally) and to know more about us, so we can engage more closely with their brands. Increasingly, they want brands to create an experience that builds loyalty, empathy and even affection. But managing that experience is not as easy as it was. To some extent that is the role clients want us to play. To help them coordinate every aspect of what they do, however and wherever they touch their audiences.

And it’s no longer just the consumers we’re talking about, it’s all of those stakeholders our clients want to influence. More and more this means investors, governments, the media, and, of course, employees and potential recruits.

The channels through which brands now interface with all these stakeholders have increased phenomenally. The internet alone has been responsible for transforming the world of branding by creating an astonishing range of networks and relationships. Brand management as a consequence has become much more complex. For the brand owners, it feels like they no longer own the brand at all. And they’re probably right. Even from a legal standpoint, the intellectual property safeguarded through trademark and patent law is either being directly challenged or ignored in many parts of the world.

Even more significantly perhaps, is the sense that stakeholders really do have a stake in the brand. One of the successes of branding is that consumers (as we still call them) are now much more proprietorial about brands than ever they were. “You can’t do that with my brand!” Or even “I’ll tell you where you need to go with the brand next.”

This has changed the nature of the relationship between the two parties. Probably forever. The idea of the brand increasingly revolves around a tense partnership, a tussle between those who choose to be engaged in the debate.

I believe there is a sense in which everyone is operating on a more individual, personalised level nowadays. For example, the division between home time and work time has eroded considerably. While there are more opportunities for employees to work from home rather than attend the office, the quid pro quo is that they are now contactable via email, phone and Blackberry on a constant basis. Not only that but great sections of the community are effectively self-employed or contractors without any single corporate affiliation.

Communications have freed us up and simultaneously enchained us to our work. And even when we are working we are using individual networks and contacts to make our business operate. Linked-in is an example of social networking concepts now operating in the corporate space.

All this is changing how we see ourselves. If we started out by being viewed by brands as ‘consumers’ this term now seems offensive – an undignified role in which we uncritically devour whatever capital and enterprise have to throw at us.

We moved on to being customers, whereby we were seen to have a contractual relationship at least, and the idea of customer service has gained traction over recent decades, such that businesses re-oriented themselves around satisfying defined needs and expectations, rather than just selling product. With all that’s been happen around us economically, and this time on a global scale, we must be ready for another re-appraisal of brands and their role.

Against the background of a corporate world based on wealth creation, enterprise and market-driven economics there has been a separate, parallel development in branding.

For some time now it has been clear that the power of brands to inform, engage, persuade and empower has not been lost on other institutions in our society, whether they are government bodies and departments, government agencies, non-governmental organisations, or entities moving from the public to the private sector, or becoming elements in a public-private partnerships.

The responsibility for delivering public services, including housing, transport, health, education and culture, for example, often in competition to private provision, has forced these organisations to see what they could learn from brands. Some of the lessons learned in the period of the Thatcher government in the UK clearly turned out to be flawed. Seeing a market in everything was an interesting paradigm in that it served to help re-focus some organisations on what they were there for, but, equally, many new structures built fundamental weaknesses into the system, some of which we are just beginning to discover as capital markets falter.

Nevertheless society needs infrastructure in all its forms. Without that continuity of purpose and investment, many of the services we take for granted would simply cease to be.

As consultants we have been involved in some of these changes, acting to help make change happen, not to comment on its political or social significance. Which is fortunate because, looking back over a lengthy career one sees initiatives fall by the wayside, institutions stumble and fail, errors of judgment become exposed.

But it’s not all bad. I think we are beginning to see how branding can have a social function that isn’t some return to Marxist doctrine post a capitalist collapse, but returns to my earlier notion of how we are operating as individuals so much more these days. And part of that individuality and the sense of personal identity and space in which we operate is counterbalanced by an awakening understanding of our wider social role in the world. We are coming to realise, perhaps a bit late in the day, that we can’t leave things to the experts, whether they are in government or in enterprise. Gradually we are re-engaging with our own lives and our interconnectness with the lives of others. And, of course, our environment.

It seems to me that we are in the process of seeing ourselves increasingly as citizens, members of a society that operates around places, infrastructures and enterprises, all of which have a bearing on our individuality and our part in a wider whole. In this context, branding can have a role in building these multiple relationships. Some of these will remain commercial in nature, others more social or cultural.

It’s one thing to identify change happening (perhaps not so difficult in present conditions), but it’s another to see what that change will mean.

So, for now it remains an observation, the beginnings of a discourse and a prompt for you and others to think about.