Does it ever feel like your whole career is just one long, slightly combative relationship with marketing?

I threw that question out at dinner recently while sitting with a group of designer friends. Everyone laughed, and not because we dislike marketers.

Every designer in the room knew exactly what I meant.

Too often, designers are brought into a project after the big decisions have already been made. The strategy is set. The messaging is approved. The campaign direction is locked in.

The brief becomes—can you make it look good? The problem is that design was never actually about making things look good.

Designers live in the nuance of ‘brand’. We're constantly making decisions about consistency, recognition, trust, hierarchy, tone and experience. We're looking at how every touchpoint connects to the next. How a customer experiences a brand as a whole, not as a collection of disconnected assets.

When designers aren't part of the conversation early enough, that nuance gets lost.

The irony is that this shouldn't be a battle at all.

Marketing teams are often experts at understanding audiences, positioning and what needs to be communicated.

Designers are experts at shaping how those ideas are experienced, understood and remembered.

The strongest brands aren't built when one discipline leads and the other executes—they're built when both are at the table from the beginning.

Because brand isn't what happens after the strategy.
Brand is how the strategy comes to life.