Delusional toe-in-water consultancies

Your article on design consultancies, Strategic Survival (MW October 19), pinpointed why the majority of design consultancies are not experiencing the healthy growth that this sector can offer.

There is a massive reservoir of creative, well-targeted talent in the design business. Yet, in spite of this, design consultancies have lived for years with a major inferiority complex about advertising agencies and now brand consultancies. Somehow, they are richer, smoother, more grown-up and closer to the client.

The effect of this piece of self-delusion is a self-limiting attitude. Design companies have become cautious, toe-in-the-water specialists, astonishing in the light of the entrepreneurial spirit with which the industry started.

“Let’s just go a little bit global”, the cliché of “globally capable”, “let’s do a little bit of non-packaging work”, “let’s try a little e-branding”. Although the bean-counters will see this as a prudent strategy, in fact it is a guarantee of being left behind by the rapid changes and developments in the clients’ needs.

There are several very buoyant consultancies, even in packaging. Like any other business, buoyancy comes from commitment and innovation, which is plentiful among designers.

Dave Brown

Group chairman

Brown ID

Hampton Wick

Surrey