More About "Less is More"

Not a new debate, but brought to mind recently in a meeting with a peer design firm principal from South America. We will call him “M” and his design firm “M-Design.” Very similar backgrounds. Very similar aesthetics. Even some shared clients.

While visiting New York for the Fuse conference, Mr. M made a special appointment to visit R.BIRD offices in a quest to learn more about differences and similarities between North American and South American design practices.

I am most always willing to share. Both he and I learned:

At R.BIRD, our clients are mutually interested in exploring many valid, yet still-fuzzy ideas. At M-Design, the first project step presents a short list of product design recommendations that are fully realized in every detail.

At R.BIRD, a single, second step narrows the field to one or two with minor tweaks. At M-Design, there can be a never-ending series of refinements and experimentations. It’s interesting to note that R.BIRD’s approach to first creative usually results in only one refinement step, while M-Design’s approach somehow encourages never-ending experimentation to follow.

At R.BIRD, project costs expand or contract according to new events. At M-Design, project fees are fixed.

At R.BIRD, our experience has shown that “more is more” when it comes to ideation. At M-Design, “less is more” is what Mr. M demands and his clients seem to expect.

More or Less?

What are the pros and cons?

What does your experience say?

There are 1 comments so far | Post a comment

Ben Jackson | May 23, 2006

I run a [design agency]1 in Rio de Janeiro, and the picture you paint in this article is pretty accurate from my POV.

The public here is not very high up on the imagination scale, and showing a client a half-baked idea is a sure-fire way to lose their interest (Brazilians in particular have very short attention spans). We usually come up with two or three directions internally for a particular job, put them up on the wall for a few days, then pick the one we think will resonate most with the client and flesh it out for the presentation.

In Brazil (and the rest of S. America AFAIK), the market is only now starting to get the hint that Design makes any difference at all in a company’s ROI, let alone a significant one. Most advertising agencies and PR firms do almost all of their design in-house, shopping out to design firms only for their largest clients.

There is in fact a Brazilian equivalent to the Graphic Artist’s Guild Book of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines. It’s published by the Associação de Designers Gráficos (ADG), and the title is [“O Valor do Design”]2 (“The Value of Design”, check about halfway down the page). Unfortunately, the prices quoted in the tables are higher than what 90% of clients are willing to pay, and that’s in São Paulo, the business center of Brazil. Any work done in Rio will generally go for about a third of what it goes for down there.

Most surprising to me when I got here was the standard operating procedure for settling payments. Rather than the standard “deposit on commencement, balance on delivery”, payment for work is (like any mid-to-large expense here) parceled into 3, 6 or even a year’s worth of monthly payments. I often feel like I’m running a Best-Buy rather than a professional services agency.

But hey, at least I live close to the beach ;)
1: http://www.incomumdesign.com/
2: http://www.adg.org.br/html/mod_publicacao.asp