Designer confidence, which has proven an accurate bellwether of the economy, fell this past summer to its lowest level in a year, according to a quarterly index, but remains above its levels on the eve of the recession.
In August, the design trade group AIGA published its latest index on industry confidence, which ebbed due to sustained unemployment and companies clinging to cash rather than investing in brand initiatives or others. Less than a third of designers surveyed indicated they are likely to hire staff, though more than half believed industry conditions will have improved by yearend.
The owner of the Redding design studio Alexander Isley Inc. said he is seeing early signs of a rebound in client inquiries ”“ a welcome change after the recession during which he was forced to lay off a few employees.
“In our industry across the board, it really (took) a hit,” Alexander Isley said. “The first thing to go is branding and marketing.”
There is empirical evidence to back that statement ”“ AIGA”™s confidence index plunged in the fall of 2007, a clear indication that businesses were reining in spending before the official start of the recession.
Design is making a comeback
On the bright side, the latest index reading was still higher than its level in the first quarter of 2007. The data and anecdotal evidence suggest investment in design is reviving, AIGA stated; the organization surveyed members during National Design Week this month for its next index to be published in November.
Uncertainty prevails in good times and bad, Isley said, whose company at any one point in time has 25 to 30 projects under way.
“I know what I”™m doing the next three months,” he said. “After that, I don”™t know what I”™m doing.”
Founding his brand design company in 1988 in New York City, Isley moved the company to Ridgefield in 1995, and later to Redding where it now owns a converted barn that once was the home of Cannondale Bicycles.
Isley has had a mix of clients
The building is crammed to a loft ceiling with books on design, portfolio examples, and kitschy knickknacks. In one corner, two jars are filled with Alexander Isley Inc.”™s attempt to manufacture fake oil for a children”™s interactive exhibit.
Nearby, a series of clocks are affixed to the wall in the manner of the old-time news bureaus or stock brokers; rather than displaying the time in New York, London and Tokyo, however, they are labeled with places like Ridgefield, where Isley lives; Durham, N.C., where he grew up; and the nearby Georgetown Package Store.
Tucked in another corner are a series of large, cartoon boards ”“ which are actually minutes of a real meeting that occurred, with the proceedings chronicled by the cartoonist Keith Bendis.
The company”™s work has run the gamut, from designing books for the Girl Scouts of America; to retooling the magazine Highlights for Children; to producing a cornucopia of marketing materials for the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, a Westchester County, N.Y., organization that advocates for green agriculture and lifestyle.
For Mad magazine, Alexander Isley Inc. created a cover for a commemorative book that featured the iconic character Alfred E. Neuman on the front, and on the rear the back of the character”™s head and lettering rendered backward, as one might see holding a book up to a mirror.
“They wouldn”™t let us do the barcode backward,” Isley said. “You try your best.”
Designers attempted to get a read on their own industry during National Design Week in mid-October, whose activities included AIGA”™s “Design (Re)Invents” business conference in New York City where it is based, with the proceedings including a heavy dose of the impact of digital media on the industry.
Among the scheduled speakers was Su Mathews of New York City-based Lippincott, who led a brand revitalization effort at Walmart. Lippincott has had a number of clients in Fairfield County and Westchester County, including IBM Corp., MasterCard Inc., and Save the Children, among others.
Reinvention scary but necessary
Mathews agrees that reinvention can by a scary thing for most companies ”“ many see the process as putting them in a completely different “place” from where they started, even if it does not appear on the surface to make good business sense. She attempts to factor in past branding decisions as she thinks about how to get a company to move forward, while looking for the changes that will have the most impact.
On Oct. 29, the “Metro-North” chapter of AIGA holds what is becoming its annual “dead” brands costume party appropriately set for Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., with attendees dressed up as famous corporate brands of yesteryear, including stewardesses from Pan Am and TWA.
Dead brands are not reserved solely for former high-flying corporations, Isley said ”“ and even small businesses that let them languish in a downturn risk being supplanted by fresher faces when spending resumes.
“I don”™t care if you hire us, or hire someone else ”“ just hire someone because you will be out there like a beacon,” Isley said. “It”™s really counterintuitive, like when a car goes into a skid, and you turn with the skid.”
