Designers can get paid to think

Shifts in industry practices mean that design thinking is increasingly a key driver of business transformation and growth. For D&AD Awards 2020, we have launched the Design Transformation category to award brilliant transformation projects, recognising operational, technology-led, experience and holistic business transformation.

Here, Chief Creative Officer at ANNA, a new challenger bank for the creative industries, and Jury President of Design Transformation in D&AD Awards 2020, Daljit Singh, writes about the fundamental role designers play in experiences, sustainability, and much more.

The inclusion of Design Transformation as a new category in the awards is an exciting prospect, recognising the important strategic role that design plays not only in business but as a process that enables creative thinking to a positive effect on all aspects of problem-solving for organisations, society and beyond. It would seem we've moved beyond design just being a visual practice into something more fundamental.

Further evidence of this is reflected in the continued acquisitions of design studios by management consultancies as the value, and economic benefits of good design in business become more appreciated. But I'd warn these organisations to be mindful of how designers need to be nurtured; creative management and appreciation requires a different approach and to benefit from a long-lasting relationship they must look beyond a time and materials model.