Bennie F. Johnson: How Design Makes Every Part of an Organization Better

Bennie F. Johnson is leading a resurgence at AIGA. Image: AIGA

As designers in 2021, we know that design-led companies outperform the broader market—we have proof!—and that design drives organizational transformation. Yet…design still functions within many organizations as a disconnected activity...and even now we’re having to prove that good design is good business.

To better understand why and to point ways forward, AIGA has released Design Leads and the Value of Design 2021. The new report is based on surveys with more than 5,000 designers, and it speaks to the current state of design in businesses: It’s challenging, but moving in the right direction. We’ve seen the rise of the Chief Design Officer, watched design-led companies like Apple and Airbnb thrive, and noted how design organizations outpaced their peers in the stock market by more than 200% over a 10-year period.

Bennie F. Johnson, AIGA Executive Director, unpacks the report and shares why we’re still having to have conversations around the value of design, the characteristics of a successful design-led business, and which organizations we might emulate (and why). 

In 1973, then-IBM president Thomas Watson Jr. said, “Good design is good business.” Why are we still having to have conversations around justifying the value of design?

We’ve had interesting conversations in the design community over the past 50 years and many of those conversations have been limited to ourselves. They’ve been productive dialogues, but it hasn't been the dialogues that's moved to our left and our right at the seat of the table. The challenges that we face aren't unique to the design profession. The HR profession felt it 20 years ago, and the IT profession felt it early on. 

It is that question of, How do I get the time at the table so impact of design to the business and organization is understood and shared by my peers and contemporaries? The finance team doesn't really understand what's happening. The operations group gets part of it, but not all of it. HR sees it’s important to have a certain type of talent but they can't put their finger on it. 

We are there at the table, and we're starting to be in the conversation, but we're not driving the conversation. We're informing the conversation and integrating ourselves into the other viewpoints.

What can we learn from design-driven companies that affirms the importance of design leadership? 

You see that the power of design is not just one position, but multiple positions where you have a brand leader who's all in on design, plus a Chief Design Officer. They may be at different parts of the design journey and skill set, but it’s understood that design is a professional craft and a strategic advantage.

These organizations understand that design has the ability to work through brand, marketing, technology, and people. One thing that is powerful about design is that we can add “design plus” to any of those areas and it makes them better.

“Design is a critical part of our dynamic future. At its heart, it is about solving the right problems in a caring way to have impact.”

One particular stat really stood out in the report: “We estimate that 16% of the top 100 Fortune World’s most admired companies have a publicly listed CDO (or equivalent) at the executive level with 75% of them being males.” How do we change that? 

We see women leading in design, but, within larger corporations, we're seeing a space in which there needs to be support mechanisms and more opportunities to grow. Likewise, we know the cliche of having a seat at the table. What's unstated in there is that certain people have been excluded from the table. We can work to eliminate that. We know that visibility, expanded training and support, and the resources of a professional community helps to change that.

What’s powerful is that we now have evidence to point into what we know. We've all felt these things before, but we have a tangible way of looking at where this is today and setting benchmarks. We don’t just want different, we want better. 

How do you evaluate a successful design-led business? And who has recently impressed you?

When I think about our AIGA mission, it's about these three pillars: the professional creative craft (doing the dynamic work), the strategic advantage (doing the right work in meaningful ways) and doing things that elevate the culture. That’s how I look at the space. 

These days I am impressed by how Twitter is intentionally building a team. Dantley Davis and his team could check all the basic boxes and be on the front part of the curve, but they don’t. It shows you how sincere they're continuing to build this. They are doing good work, combined with cultivating and growing good talented people and creating a positive culture.

Warby Parker is another example. I love the throughline about the experience from the physical store to the emotional experience to the B Corp mission that work done well creates the opportunity to amplify a bigger social good.

If you could boil down the report to a key takeaway, what would it be?

Design is a critical part of our dynamic future. At its heart, it is about solving the right problems in a caring way to have impact. Sometimes the impact is small, sometimes it's grand, but it's always meaningful. It comes back to that AIGA mission: Design as a creative professional craft, combined with thinking of designing as a strategic advantage and used to have a positive impact on the world. That’s the power of design.

If you’d like to read more from The Creative Factor—such as Morten Bonde’s story about reinventing himself as a LEGO Art Director while losing his sight or 10 Design Principles, Musings, and Contrarian Takes We Can Get Behind, read our newsletter.