The Contemporary Designer vs. James Bond.
RMIT MDF — Future Design Clients, Assessment 1
This is a brief compare and contrast post. Comparing my current Design Services, with another type of Professional Service.
I’m going to consider a slightly different interpretation of ‘professional’. Like the 1981 French movie ‘Le Professionnel’[1]. Which is about a French Secret Service Agent. Thinking along these lines I decided to compare and contrast my design practice with the only professional assassin I know anything about; Ian Fleming’s James Bond aka 007[2].
Despite the seemingly far fetched premise of comparing a designer with 007, there are a surprising number of similarities with how a contemporary designer, like myself, and the fictional character James Bond, tackles projects and adds value to their services. The modern day designer needs to be equipped with knowledge and skills, be open minded and adaptable to overcome obstacles, and be prepared to take on specialist partnerships. Similarly, Bond, is the embodiment of skilful adaptability and an unwavering instinct to do what’s needed to achieve goals, and ultimately providing immeasurable added value for the recipients of the services he provides.
Running my own design practice.
I don’t have staff, so I play many design roles in my daily practice to successfully deliver the myriad of projects that come in; UX design for web platforms and mobile games, interactive design, motion graphics and art direction for TV, visualisations for architecture and products, and branding and marketing designs. These projects all need craft skills to visualise and finalise art work. These projects also need a deep understanding of context, business needs, user motivations, and overall required outcomes, they may also require the right partnerships; taking these other areas into account during the design process allows me to work with the client to achieve better outcomes for the project, thereby adding value to my craft services.
I have found with my own practice, the more diversified my knowledge and skills, the more added value I am able to give to a project. We are witnessing the design epoch mature, with this maturity, design applications and processes will infiltrate wider areas of the contemporary economy, having positive knock-on effects to the wider community. In this scenario adaptability and breadth of knowledge will be key for designers’ success and well worth the investment in their own human capital, as it will have compounding benefits over the length of their career.
Before I compare and contrast services, let’s define why 007, and who or what is a contemporary designer.
Why 007?
James Bond has sufficient material written and movies made about him, for Bond to become a fully rounded character, exhibiting predictable habits, and well enough established to understand his motivations — though obviously over dramatised, he’s a great persona for this exercise, and provides an interesting journey to compare and contrast with my design services.
A quick example: It is rare that I take a brief that is purely production — Can you imagine a Bond movie where 007 is told who to kill and he just shoots the villain—no questions asked? Bond is entirely different to the others in the ‘00’ section because he doesn’t just blindly follow orders[3]. In this scenario Bond would offer no value. He would be withholding his knowledge gained from experience. So too are designers that blindly take on production work; suppressing and withholding knowledge and instinct that is honed by years of experience in the design field.
What or who is a contemporary designer?
A contemporary designer, in my opinion, is someone that has a flexibility of approach and process, has a mental agility / open mindedness that can be applied to any situation to achieve a desired outcome. For designers this is improving value and experience to both organisations and people that interact with that organisation. The designer is channel agnostic, they aren’t (or shouldn’t be) confined to a singular method or industry.
Sadly, too often these days, the term ‘designer’ seems fixated on someone that can do UI or print layouts with an Adobe program. Is seen as a junior. It’s the job level before becoming an Art Director. This design taxonomy is entrenched in agency land, both digital and traditional, and is far more aligned to a crafting career than a design career. Which is why I’m using the term ‘contemporary designer’.
Contemporary designers are endlessly curious and observant about the world, which means they are constantly thinking, and mentally, if not physically, applying their hypothesis to situations around them. While a designer may over time specialise in one or two areas, this won’t mean they stop considering things outside of their specialisations. Allowing a continual evolution in their knowledge and approaches, increasing the value they can offer clients and deepening the coffers of their human capital. When you consider a designer in this broad context and compare to the 007 persona, and the many roles, guises, skills, language, and partnerships, Bond needs to achieve his goals, a comparison to a designer’s role starts to resolve itself. What also comes to light is the sheer number of ways a designer can offer an expanded value to their clients.
The Briefing
- Briefing
- Meeting key people
- Clarifying goals
- Asking questions
- Initial research
Bond receives a dossier in which contains background information and the current situation. M will also share additional information on what needs to be done. At this point Bond will question and challenge areas of the brief that he feels aren’t accurate or are contrary to what he already knows from his past experience.
Before Bond leaves this initial meeting he will clarify the project’s goals and know where to start his research.
Seems familiar right? This is how many design projects are briefed in: Background information, data analysis, and other information are passed on to the designer so he has a wide scope of data to start the process of understanding the situation that needs to be resolved. Both myself as a design professional, and the Bond persona go through an initial process of filtering out and bringing to the fore potential issues, further probing that may have been overlooked in the brief. Both professionals will go from this initial meeting to digest the information.
For the sake of drama Bond will probably end up defying orders from ‘M’, his superior. Whereas designers will endeavour to bring clients along with them. By working closely with clients, designers form a solid working relationship. Any issues that arise, arise early. The client feels they are part of the project enabling higher levels of trust and respect of the process.
The Mission
- Information gathering
- Applying tools of the trade
- Partnerships
- Keeping client up to date on progress
- Feedback
Before Bond heads off into the field he’ll gather some tools or technologies from ‘Q’ — reminding us Bond has a team helping him, and may have a co-worker, like Moneypenny, gather more information for him as he works in the field.
Bond reaches the destination and starts to work on the mission. He has further information coming in, the right tools at his disposal, and may find partnerships are necessary mid-project, which will help him take the project to a successful conclusion.
HQ will either receive reports from Bond, or they keep tabs on him; either way both HQ and Bond have knowledge of what’s going on, and can feedback to each other during the project.
As designers; with all the research and information we have at hand, and our experiences, we can start peering into possible futures and which directions may solve the design mission before us. While we consider the possibilities, we can strike out which ones defy timeliness, budget, technology constraints. What concepts give the project an advantage over others. And if specialised partnerships may be required to execute concepts.
Designers during this phase can iterate. Improve initial ideas. Work with stakeholders. In contrast Bond can’t iterate. He’s on a linear path with fail or success his only two options.
During this design phase there’s regular process meetings with clients. Both designer and client understand where and how the project is tracking. If things change this needs to be communicated quickly so both parties are fully aware of the situation.
Delivery
- Meeting deadlines
- Success of project delivery
- Debrief
- Ready for next assignment
With a heroic escape, a billowing cloud of dust and smoke, a disheveled Bond strides into frame, calls HQ from his satellite phone and declares, ‘It’s DONE.’
M congratulates him on the work and to take 2 weeks leave.
Sometimes, with no less drama than the conclusion of a Bond novel, design projects are delivered just in the nick of time; sleep deprived, a little worse for wear, perhaps too much caffeine for that final push. But it’s there in all its glory. — Though if one adhere’s to timelines, or any changes in scope are properly communicated and allowed for, this shouldn’t happen!
I find debriefs to be an important part of the design process, though often overlooked or avoided. A debrief confirms what went right or wrong, if anything in the process could be improved. A debrief reinforces to the client that the working relationship is forward looking. It also provides a platform to talk about future projects.
Debriefs allow for self-reflection as well. Analysing your own performance throughout the project, the highs and lows. Understanding yourself during project stages will help define areas of where improvements can occur.
How does a design practice contrast to the services of 007?
An interesting outcome of this comparison are the many similarities to how a designer and the persona of James Bond undertakes projects. While a designer may not risk, or take, a life to uncover the truth behind people’s motivations and achieve desired outcomes, designers need to dig deeper than the surface-layer of a prepared design brief to achieve the real goals of a project, and to generate as much value as possible to projects by exploring all opportunities.
We designers also have an advantage over Bond’s line of work, we can iterate to improve concepts, test them in the field, refine based on feedback, have staged releases, and pace the evolution of a design implementation. Bond works in a very linear field, action equals reaction; it’s do-or-die.
Let’s also remember Bond is fictional character that needs drama surrounding him to have the edge of friction. This includes insubordination with his managers and seemingly, at times, going against the wishes of the government (his client). This creates an air of isolation around him, which in turn increases our empathy and hope to see him overcome obstacles. Designers may have impassioned debates with both co-workers and clients, but these discussions need to be constructive, and in the best interest of the project. Client and co-workers are working partners with the designer, and need to be brought along for the ride.
Conclusion
While there are many similarities in this comparison between James Bond and a contemporary designer, there’s obviously some hilarious differences. While a designer’s passion for the work and emotional attachment to projects may run high from time to time, I doubt a designer has ever killed anyone over protecting their ideas.
Another key difference, we designers can iterate concepts, to cycle through ideas. Test them in market. Amend. Improve. Adjust. We have many tools and models that allow us to create a desired future. Whereas Bond, in the field, only has a do-or-die situation confronting him.
As contemporary economies become more intwined and intermingled across industries, technologies, and geographies, designers will need to be capable of reaching beyond their comfort zones, strike up new partnerships with specialists within seemingly disparate industries, and we must never stop learning. In this way the overall human capital of societies will increase as our interactions between ourselves and organisations become more refined, more frequent, and more particular. The modern-day designer is an instigator, that can harmonise and work within diverse teams. We deliver far better outcomes as a team than when we’re working isolated, much like our long-suffering, but ever suave professional, 007.
As always, designers need, I need, to find where I can add value for a client. If I don’t or can’t add value then why would clients come to me? I would become a ‘008'[3] of the design world, a thoughtless, un-asking, though skilled, executioner of briefs. Clients will simply move to engage a designer who will add value to projects. If I don’t have extra value I can offer a project perhaps it’s not the right project for me to take on or perhaps I need to further extend my own human capital…
[1] The Professional (1981 film): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Professional_(1981_film)
[2] James Bond: http://www.ianfleming.com/james-bond-2/
[3] The Living Daylights, M threatens to replace 007 “00:31:47 — I’ll recall 008 from Hong Kong.”… “00:31:52 — He follows orders, not instincts.”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/00_Agent
Bond images have been sourced via Google Image search. Copyright of images belong their respective owners. Image links provided.
