4 ms·

Silicon Valley Killed the Design Agency (2014)

37 points by doppp 11y ago

eloisant 11y ago
Wow, [insert design shop here] is getting scooped up by Faceoogleboxes! That's big news!
alvern 11y ago
What type of design is this geared for? UX? Hardware? Software? Brand? The article is an industry fluff piece that doesn't really attach itself to an industry, except for Silicon Valley. Is SV an independent industry?
pbreit 11y ago
The only possible answer is: the design agency killed the design agency. There is so much demand for design right now that if agencies can't figure out how to participate, it's definitely on them.
- spamizbad 11y ago
  Very much this. Successful product companies (usually) have a tight integration between "product" people, design, and engineering. Agencies, in my experience, prefer their design teams to be buffered from stakeholders via a PM. And the "stakeholders" are a very narrow segment of the team building the actual product. As an engineer, I struggled getting face-time with designers to work through challenges or things that were unaccounted for. Often times this was filtered through the design firms PM, who would maybe get back to me in a week or so. It was always an excruciatingly slow process and unless you were the one signing the checks it was like you did not have a voice. Then there's the fact that agencies do not like something that's quite popular these days: Metrics-driven product development. I know certain "thought leaders" in the design community have made some sneering comments about this approach. Metrics don't exactly get me super excited, but if that's how your customers are working you should learn how to adapt and work with them. I worked at two companies that made the transition from agency to in-house. Shortly after we brought on our first designer, productivity went up. We shipped stuff that made our customers happier than ever. Team morale improved. And it was cheaper. Win-win-win.
projectramo 11y ago
I wish there was a little more detail here. - UX needs to differentiate with "higher level" - it is a skillset, not a department I feel he was getting at something but without giving specific examples, he never quite said it clearly. You can't outsource UX design because it has to be an integral part of what people do? Or you can outsource it but it must still be an integral part of what people do?
tostitos1979 11y ago
This article is written in an odd way .. I couldn't bear a straight-through read. It is from 2014 so not sure why it is being posted.
purephase 11y ago
I usually don't criticize in comments, but that article was very difficult to read and understand.
- falsedan 11y ago
  I agree. Here's a sample (first paragraph from this article): Silicon Valley, which is known for putting whole industries on notice, has quietly killed the design agency. Or have they? While Silicon Valley isn't afraid to eat its children, it's also thinking an internet generation ahead as it produces hit after hit. So with chaos comes clarity, then chaos. It's a cycle. Until the next innovation. There's more plot twists in this para than Christopher Nolan on Ritalin.
  - saiprashanth93 11y ago
    Spot on. Sometimes I can't tell if I am reading too fast or if the writing is complicated and I usually assume that I am reading too fast but not here though.
tootie 11y ago
As someone who's worked in agencies for quite a while, this is all way off base and is really just and ad for ZURB. Good design agencies have been agile for quite a while. Switching from specialists to "product designers" is something I've seen attempted with mixed results. The problem isn't specialization it's expertise. If we have work for 50 visual design experts, 50 UX experts, 50 content experts all full-time across accounts, what benefit would be had from hiring the same number of non-experts? Part of the value offer is that we can staff someone with 20 years of expertise in a very narrow area who would never work for your company and let her impart wisdom for 2 weeks that you could spend a year figuring out. Top agencies are already in almost every space including bootstrapping startups and even working for established product companies like google, apple, microsoft.

37 points by doppp 11y ago

Wow, [insert design shop here] is getting scooped up by Faceoogleboxes! That's big news!

What type of design is this geared for? UX? Hardware? Software? Brand? The article is an industry fluff piece that doesn't really attach itself to an industry, except for Silicon Valley. Is SV an independent industry?

pbreit 11y ago

The only possible answer is: the design agency killed the design agency. There is so much demand for design right now that if agencies can't figure out how to participate, it's definitely on them.

spamizbad 11y ago
Very much this. Successful product companies (usually) have a tight integration between "product" people, design, and engineering. Agencies, in my experience, prefer their design teams to be buffered from stakeholders via a PM. And the "stakeholders" are a very narrow segment of the team building the actual product. As an engineer, I struggled getting face-time with designers to work through challenges or things that were unaccounted for. Often times this was filtered through the design firms PM, who would maybe get back to me in a week or so. It was always an excruciatingly slow process and unless you were the one signing the checks it was like you did not have a voice. Then there's the fact that agencies do not like something that's quite popular these days: Metrics-driven product development. I know certain "thought leaders" in the design community have made some sneering comments about this approach. Metrics don't exactly get me super excited, but if that's how your customers are working you should learn how to adapt and work with them. I worked at two companies that made the transition from agency to in-house. Shortly after we brought on our first designer, productivity went up. We shipped stuff that made our customers happier than ever. Team morale improved. And it was cheaper. Win-win-win.

projectramo 11y ago

I wish there was a little more detail here. - UX needs to differentiate with "higher level" - it is a skillset, not a department I feel he was getting at something but without giving specific examples, he never quite said it clearly. You can't outsource UX design because it has to be an integral part of what people do? Or you can outsource it but it must still be an integral part of what people do?

tostitos1979 11y ago

This article is written in an odd way .. I couldn't bear a straight-through read. It is from 2014 so not sure why it is being posted.

purephase 11y ago

I usually don't criticize in comments, but that article was very difficult to read and understand.

falsedan 11y ago
I agree. Here's a sample (first paragraph from this article): Silicon Valley, which is known for putting whole industries on notice, has quietly killed the design agency. Or have they? While Silicon Valley isn't afraid to eat its children, it's also thinking an internet generation ahead as it produces hit after hit. So with chaos comes clarity, then chaos. It's a cycle. Until the next innovation. There's more plot twists in this para than Christopher Nolan on Ritalin.
- saiprashanth93 11y ago
  Spot on. Sometimes I can't tell if I am reading too fast or if the writing is complicated and I usually assume that I am reading too fast but not here though.

tootie 11y ago

As someone who's worked in agencies for quite a while, this is all way off base and is really just and ad for ZURB. Good design agencies have been agile for quite a while. Switching from specialists to "product designers" is something I've seen attempted with mixed results. The problem isn't specialization it's expertise. If we have work for 50 visual design experts, 50 UX experts, 50 content experts all full-time across accounts, what benefit would be had from hiring the same number of non-experts? Part of the value offer is that we can staff someone with 20 years of expertise in a very narrow area who would never work for your company and let her impart wisdom for 2 weeks that you could spend a year figuring out. Top agencies are already in almost every space including bootstrapping startups and even working for established product companies like google, apple, microsoft.