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Minding the Gap: A Failure in Intuitive Intelligence?

The Gap screws up with their logo redesign. A giant failure of imagination in the boardroom.

But Umair Haque asks the right questions:

  • Do designers have a seat in the boardroom — or just in the basement? How often does your CEO ever talk to a designer?
  • Are designers empowered to overrule beancounters — or vice versa?
  • Is the input of designers considered to be peripheral to “real” business decisions — or does it play a vital role in shaping them? Is design treated as a function or a competence?
  • Are designers seen just as mechanics of mere stuff — or as vital contributors to the art of igniting new industries, markets, and catgeories, sparking more enduring demand, building trust, providing empathy, and seeding tomorrow’s big ideas?
  • How much weight does senior management give to right-brained ideas, like delight, amazement, intuition, and joy? Just a little, a lot — or, as for most companies, almost none?

Seriously.

We all need to wake up. The Chamber of Commerce approach to design isn’t going to work anymore.