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I watched The Apprentice last week with interest; it was the ‘branding task’ week.

Both teams had to create a brand for a trainer: A brand that would stand out in a crowded market place: A brand with an idea behind it.

One team came up with an interesting idea – it was a bit crass – but it had a concept behind it. The other team came up with an identity, created their ad, but there was no idea behind it. They lost the task.

The second team missed a fundamental part of what was requested because they simply didn’t listen to the client. Also, they were far too self-indulgent.

Now, I don’t claim to be a branding expert, but then again, one of the losing team was a global branding ‘expert’ and another was an advertising specialist, but with that said, the whole episode did follow a pattern I see far too often in businesses without rigid brand guardians.

Design Without Purpose

Many clients come to The Escape with a big picture idea. They rely on us to sort the good points from the bad points but to have their end goal in sight and to make it work. And making it work is what it’s all about.

Design is not there to be indulgent with. Design is usually about reaching an audience, and we are not the audience. We facilitate the designed-piece so that it is accepted, appreciated, and acted upon, by the [target market] audience.

Any business that spends money on design understands that it is an investment that needs a return, a project with a start and a finish that aims for a specified outcome. So, it makes sense that any approach to a design project by the individuals involved needs to be pragmatic: Agency and Client Side. The design is simply what makes the idea look good and design alone can’t, in most cases, make a bad idea good.

That may sound incredibly boring but design without any purpose is just bad art. So, if you want to be subjective, if you insist that something is the way it is just because you like it, or if you want something designed with no end goal in mind – become an artist.