The most familiar image of design is as a creator of style. In fact despite the many other meaningful things that design can do, it could be argued that infusing products with designer style is the core competence of design. So we enter a discussion about beauty and the value of beauty.

The company that decides to use design to differentiate itself is betting that improving its style is a way of attracting customers. There's an interesting difference in approach to design between different cultures. The yardstick that businesses use to measure good design in the USA is usually improved sales. This is pragmatic and measurable. In Europe, however weight is given to abstract elements of design(the kind art students would talk about; proportion, line, color and so on) which determine whether a particular design has been well executed or not. Ordinary Europeans, and therefore businesspeople more frequently recognize these elements intuitively and are able to form an opinion on a design. This is perhaps why European products have certain characteristic styles that are easy to identify.  

It has been said that other countries like Japan blend the two approaches. This understanding of how design style is perceived is important when deciding when design can be exported across borders successfully.

In product design, improved style means making products look stylish and cool. However there are several layers to this 'coolness' as Diego Rodriguez so eloquently explains. To artists, designers and all aesthetes, creating beauty is in itself valuable. Businesses in America sometimes need to be convinced of that, usually when customers with the same sensibilities react to the beauty by buying it.

In the world of designers, few are able to marry the high art of original, iconic style with the depth of  technical and commercial abilities needed to succeed with complex consumer products. As successful as Michael Graves has been working together with Target designing coat hooks and wall clocks, his range of consumer electronics was a failure. Even Yves Behar of Fuseproject, who has an apparently technically competent portfolio, commented in a revealing interview that the $100 laptop project is much more difficult for his studio than their regular work designing slick lifestyle products.

There is a downside to designer style. If style is the only reason for using design, the gain turns out to be short term. Style is easy to copy (just ask Alessi)and the style focus tends to be on one product at a time because the company is looking for quick easy successes by applying style. Since the reward is short lived, it's prudent to allocate a minimum of resources to developing style as a differentiating factor. Hence the company employing design only for it's style potential is always either playing catch up or jumping ahead only to fall quickly behind again.

In this situation, similar to the company which doesn't yet use design for style, cost is the major weapon. Improved style cannot sufficiently differentiate products and services without highly competitive costs to attract customers. Attractive or distinctive style does offer a business a significant advantage over competitors whose style is less so. It places the company near the head of the pack and can sometimes stop commoditization and purely cost-driven competition.

Fortunately, style is closely followed in the minds of businesspeople by another attribute of design which adds benefits which make it harder for competitors to follow.

Next: Improving Function

The Power of Design is a series in 5 parts by guest contributorTasos Calantzis looking at the different ways in which design can be used within a company, cutting away hyperbole in the typical design sales pitch and investigating the real benefits of design to customers,  the organization and its revenue. The 5 parts discuss incremental steps: no design, style, form & function, solving business problems and achieving leadership.