Why Design Companies Should Be More Like Advertising Agencies

I got the idea for this after reading the “Innovate or Die” post @ Logic+Emotion. It is a really interesting post and demonstrates the new perspective on ad agencies that has been created over the past few years.


One part about ad agencies that I find intriguing is that they have so many individualized positions. What I mean by this is that you have account planners, directors, copywriters, art directors, etc. However unless you happen to be IDEO or another big name design firm, than you only have designers. I find this weird because most design practise is highly specialized and designers usually have a niche that they work in. It would make more sense to have design firms that were comprised of experts in there field like IDEO, but I don’t see evidence of this Now, maybe because I have never worked in the industry I am off base with this, but it strikes me funny. Do design specialists exist? From my perspective I think design needs to take a page from advertising and rethink how to build a firm.

photo credit to n0nick