STRATEGY FOR INNOVATION
Creating new value for our clients through our design strategy process. Our recent collaborations with our clients range from creating new strategies for brand innovation to launching successful brand messaging campaigns. Below are a few examples of our design strategy work.
PRODUCT SYSTEMS
Designing products as a part of a larger system with the user experience in mind.
This modular office seating collection was co-designed for Gensler, a large architecture firm that was able to personalize its use for their varying clients' needs.
- One Collection | Gensler, Collaboration with Martin Btrattrud
BUSINESS INNOVATION
Designing strategy services for business innovation for our clients by creating teams that collaborate with different disciplines ranging from technology, business and design.
In our collaboration with IDEO, a global design consultancy we delivered complete design strategy:
1) Identified challenges that were grounded in design research which lead to opportunity spaces that influenced IDEO's current position in the changing energy industry today
2) Provided a mental model to the team leaders that was in charge of the energy initiatives
3) Translated high level tactics to to concrete steps and how these measured steps would look like within as well as outside of IDEO.
This in-depth research based work resulted in IDEO implementing and revising the language of their web platform with respect to their Energy clients. It also served as a renewed base of understanding of their opportunities.
- Strategy for Energy Industry | IDEO
DIGITAL EXPERIENCE SYSTEMS
We co-design with our clients and provide design strategy services so we can collectively establish the design principles to create better user interfaces.
HoldforJane is a cloud based service that allows the Personal Shopper and Client to engage better on the digital platform. The result was a wireframe document, where it functioned as a guide and base for rethinking the service they provided and the future development of its web platform.
- Online Platform Strategy | HoldforJane
BRAND IDENTITY SYSTEMS
Our branding strategy work incorporates our design research which in turn informs our design principles.
In our collaboration with Nandini, a high-end fashion start-up, we provided brand identity strategy by defining brand positioning, elements, and creating a solid creative brief that also was grounded in our client's DNA as well as our design research.
The result was a design strategy book for branding that provided rules and guidelines for product development including: defining the brand and its relationships to the fashion licenses it held, identifying branding for packaging, color, and styling.
- Branding Strategy | Nandini
ONLINE RETAIL SYSTEMS
We provide a structured approach for driving innovation in our clients' organizations by thinking of innovations as systems.
In our partnership with Bed Bath and Beyond, we provided a list of high level strategic initiatives that were grounded on opportunities discovered from pain points of their retail base. Through our research we also shared with them the deep insights for further development of Nautica's products, services, and user experiences for their Back To School programs.
- Online Retail Strategy | Nautica
RECOMMENDATIONS
“Basak possesses a rare combination of personal traits- a strong design sensibility, creativity, intellectual curiosity coupled with high business acumen, enabling her to repeatedly translate ideas into commercially viable, and innovative products. In her role of Design Director at American Pacific, Basak consistently identified and presented opportunities to management across all aspects of the business-brand management, product design, development processes and organization. As a result, Basak was appointed to lead a key corporate initiative of establishing and managing liaison design teams in each Asia foreign sourcing office for our product lines. In this role, she established individual and team responsibilities and goals, set up all communication protocols, developed time action plans and trained the staff to understand American markets and developed an “eye”for product design. Through her efforts, American Pacific was able to reduce product lead times, develop more than the double prototype samples at a reduced cost and be first to market on new design concepts because the foreign teams were in their local markets sourcing techniques and materials with a greater understanding of desired design aesthetic.
Basak’s design talent, category and brand management expertise and team leadership skills enabled American Pacific to achieve significant growth in sales during periods when the category was down trending in the market place. She achieved sales increases through active study of consumer research and market dynamics. It bears mentioning that in both examples of how Basak had a positive impact on American Pacific’s business, what impressed me most is her true understanding of and commitment to the consumer and ability to operate within defined business parameters while not compromising her design standards and values.”
-Patricia F. Kampmann, Former GMM/EVP of Design and Marketing at American Pacific Enterprises