HOW TOP DESIGN CONSULTANTS DRIVE INNOVATION AND STRATEGIC GROWTH

A design consultant is a subject matter expert who provides advisory services to companies seeking to improve or elevate the design of their products, services, brands, physical spaces and overall customer/user experiences. While in-house creative teams focus on day-to-day design needs, consultants take a big picture perspective and specialize in everything from crafting long-term design strategies to guiding specific aesthetics choices around industrial design, graphics, digital interfaces and more.

Design consultants first aim to intimately understand a client’s capabilities, objectives, audiences and any pain points experienced across their current customer journey. Some focus specifically on branding to align visual identity and messaging while others may examine product defects limiting adoption. Consultants use investigative techniques to uncover these opportunities. Workshops, employee interviews, user surveys and testing concepts with focus groups represent common approaches.

Once needs and possibilities have been identified comprehensively, design advisors ideate solutions tailored to the organization alongside key stakeholders. They may facilitate rapid collaborative brainstorming sprints focused on volume of ideas before refining down concepts informed by industry insights and best practices. Consultants help align aesthetics with functionality for human-centered, eco-friendly outcomes.

Deliverables a design consultant offers typically consists of a strategic plan laying out priorities, timelines, decision guideposts and success metrics as well as creative mockups bringing those big picture solutions alive visually. This helps leadership, engineers and other staff rally around a common creative vision. The consultant may also help implement the designs across mediums like product packaging, software interfaces, office layouts and branded collateral.

Whether a promising startup seeking product differentiation or an enterprise business managing complex touchpoints, hiring an unbiased external design expert introduces fresh perspectives and technical skills into any innovation process. Their outside eye spots unrealized possibilities while expertise executing projects accelerates outcomes. In an increasingly crowded, design-driven marketplace, their value remains indisputable.