Design Leadership: How Top Design Leaders Build and Grow Successful Organizations

by Richard Banfield

What does it take to be the leader of a design firm or group? We often assume they have all the answers, but in this rapidly evolving industry they're forced to find their way like the rest of us. So how do good design leaders manage? If you lead a design group, or want to understand the people who do, this insightful book explores behind-the-scenes strategies and tactics from leaders of top design companies throughout North America.

Based on scores of interviews he conducted over a two-year period--from small companies to massive corporations like ESPN--author Richard Banfield covers a wide range of topics, including:


How design leaders create a healthy company culture
Innovative ways for attracting and nurturing talent
Creating productive workspaces, and handling remote employees
Staying on top of demands while making time for themselves
Consistent patterns among vastly different leadership styles
Techniques and approaches for keeping the work pipeline full
Making strategic and tactical plans for the future
Mistakes that design leaders made--and how they bounced back

Genres: Design, Leadership, Business, Management, Nonfiction, Cultural

172 pages, Paperback

First published December 25, 2015

Reviews

[Seth · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is as much about consultancies in general as it is about leading design per se. Unfortunately it felt pretty far from specifics of either. Mostly a readout of interviews which don't really provide much in the way of unique insight and the author is careful to draw very few conclusions. End of chapter summaries are probably the most valuable part because they are concise.

[Sashko Valyus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Книга з багатообіцяючою назвою виявилась слабо структурованим збірником цитат та інтерв‘ю. Хоч автори і попереджають про те, що на їхню думку питати про досвід людей і є найкращі знання які можна отримати, вони забувають про те, що спілкування і отримання специфічних відповідей на власні специфічні запитання робить інтерв‘ю з розумними людьми такими цінними. А загалом багато води хоча вірю деякі речі буду резонувати з кожним читачем.
Для мене цікавими були глави про розвиток культури, ріст в умовах вічної нехватки часу і трішки про продажі. Не покладайте багатт надій на книгу, але надіюсь кожен в ній знайде щось своє

[Jordana Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even if it's thought for design leaders, this book is a really good one for every leader. I will absolutely recommend it to my design friends.
My takeaways:
- The team and the people are the most important.
- Therefore hiring the right people is important, always have a pipeline, and let go of people who don't belong.
- Remote teams need frequent and routine communication to stay bonded and aligned, hiring people that are already good self-managers makes remote working easier.
- When you're a leader, your primary customer is your team.
- Having a plan is key.
- Lead by example and don't micromanage
-Leadership means being considered as part of the team and still being able to maintain your status as the leader
- Sales and marketing belong together

[Elena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal.

A book built on interviews of different Design Agency founders, leaders and managers, on topics as diverse as:

- how do you build a culture that nourishes creativity?
- how do you find and keep talent?
- what styles of leadership work best with creatives?
- how much selling or marketing do you need to do?

+ so many others.

No definitive answers, no “this is the one true and fail-proof answer”. But enough of a diversity of approaches, that anyone can pick something new and test it out with their team.

Absolutely recommend this book to anyone getting into Design Leadership. Not only if they are agency founders but also Design Leads, Directors or Managers of creative teams at any level.

[Alex Pricop · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm disappointed by this book - it offers only really general ideas and doesn't try to boil them down to any kind of actionable or core values. I expected to learn more about what it takes to be a leader in a creative context and not have to skip through subchapters on how to sell and market your business. Almost half of this book's content is useless if you're not an owner or partner of the organization you work for.

The book reads like a casual conversation on leadership between the author and industry people at a table while you are a bystander eavesdropping without the possibility steer the conversation deeper or prevent the subject being changed before anything insightful is said.

[Matt Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

General concepts were sound, but I wish there were more tangible examples for some of the chapters. Also wish they included more than a handful of design leaders to interview for the book (generally the same 5-6 leaders were quoted throughout the book).

Good quick read if you're new to design leadership and want the fundamentals towards creating an environment for success. Managing people, expectations, and business are all parts of being a good leader. If you're a seasoned leader then there are likely books that are more focused on topics that can help you.

[Nika · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is not really a guide in design leadership, it’s just some reference material from some interviews with some leaders that gives the reader nothing concrete to work with. The key points at the end of each chapter told me more than the chapters themselves. The key points are also nothing outstanding or new. Just a very dry read.

[Maria Briceño · Rating 4 out of 5]

It made me feel validated in many perspectives I had had in my life as a graphic designer inside agencies and companies, and that’s impressive even knowing the book is from 2015 where I wasn’t even close to work inside an agency.

It gave me some perspective and motivation but it is true that it doesn’t have specifics in organization for a design leader.

[Iulian C · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the most encouraging design books I've encountered so far. It shows business and leadership perspectives of design leaders. It helps shape a common understanding of what it takes to run a design team. Also, it gives you a set of lessons, learned the hard way by other people.

[Mateusz · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's an interesting book for beginners but it lacks nice bibliography with books about mentioned topics like building a positive culture. This book only provides anecdotal experiences and is not validating or confronting it with other sources.

[Arnold Saputra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tips menjalani bisnis desain ala agensi. Gak gitu bagus.

[Lucas]

I did not get a lot of value from the contents or format of this book. It might be because my experience has been mostly on in-house teams vs. agencies.

[Brooke Bell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had some solid advice and things to think on. Would say this is more for design leaders at agencies, though.

[Vlad Golovach · Rating 2 out of 5]

So much water!

[Lance · Rating 4 out of 5]

Humility. Take Risks. Learn the language of Business.

[Tash · Rating 1 out of 5]

A series of verbatim interviews that culminates in chapter summaries that are just shy of making statements. This had a very agency feel to it, I found it difficult to find anything to apply to growing a design org.

[Jascha · Rating 2 out of 5]

A yet another book on leadership, siding those millions of blog posts inf estating LinkedIn. Leadership is important. So are cultivating culture and finding the right balance between professional and personal life. In a market filled with titles willing to teach us how to build the proper team and lead it to success, Design Leadership enters the game and gives the reader his own view through a very friendly series of interviews and advices.

Released early 2016, Design Leadership is a fresh, easy to read and very colloquial book, perfect for those who wanna kill that 30 minutes commute time to get home from work. Spanning through a little less than 200 pages, the author touches, in 8 chapters, the many different key aspects that a Company has to face to build up a successful team and, thus, a brand.

The title, as well as the description that tries to convice us to buy the book, clearly highlight this text is for people working in the design industry. Fine by me, but once you get to the back cover, you will certainly come up thinking that most of the topics apply boradly to any Company on planet Earth.

Each chapter focuses on a specific subject, including talent, working space, and planning the future. The author begins discussing the subject, then presents many different points of view collected by interviewing CEOs of many other companies. Between one interview and another, the author also gives us both his thought and experience. At the end of the chapter, and despite the thoughts of the interviewed people, the author comes with The answer and key takeaways—more on these below.

I have particularly enjoyed the chapter dedicated to culture. The reader is clearly explained what is a company's culture and how to nurture is so that it positively spreads through the team. Now, about those key takeaways. At the end of each chapter is a page containing a list of advices, some kind of too long don't read that resumes the interviews and what we should get away with by reading them. You don't really want to miss this page at the end of each chapter.

At some point the reader can actually come up and directly skip through the pages, jumping from key takeaways to key takeaways. But then, 26$ for merely 8 pages? Is it worth it?

[Erin Weigel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overarching theme of the book is that there is no one right way to be a good design leader. Everyone has their own style. This to me was not an epiphany. However, it was encouraging to reaffirm that most people are just doing the best they can and learning along the way.

This book also mostly focuses on small design agencies as opposed to large design teams within an organization. Our team has over 130 people so there wasn't much of any practical thoughts or advice in this book for me. I'm trying to learn more about effectively scaling a team to hundreds of designers. So if anyone has a recommendation for me, please let me know! :)

If you're a designer who's recently started your own agency or just became a partner in one and you have less than 20 people in your company I can see how this might be useful. Otherwise I'd recommend you read the other O'reilly title, Org Design for Design Orgs.

Cheers!

[Craig Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a bit short and as I've been interested in design and design strategy for years, it's all stuff i've read elsewhere in interviews, book, magazines, and podcasts. I did find that the brevity helped get through the light content easily and the end of chapter summaries are my favourite part of the book. It didn't offer me anything new but did help reaffirm some personal goals and opportunities for growth.

[Elijah Oyekunle · Rating 4 out of 5]

The authors spent lots of time surveying leaders of the top design firms. Presents lots of habits and thoughts they all share in common.