Searching for the Right Stuff
By Lucas Daniel
Several months back, I was visiting various design shops in Boston, when an interesting press release crossed my path: "Razorfish Deepens User Experience Expertise with Acquisition of TSDesign." Only two days before receiving this announcement, I had met with the two shops, and they appeared to me as separate entities with different priorities, cultures, and methods of operation. The story of why Terry Swack sold her design business to Razorfish reflects the state of flux that the Web-design industry currently experiences. It pertains to every design shop, large or small, that's looking at its business and wondering how to grow, how to increase revenue, and how not to lose the draw that makes the design process so captivating and the work so invigorating.
So why would a designer sell her 18-year-old business? To be blunt, this remains to be seen. There are various factors in today's market that might motivate designers to sell their business, jump ship for start-up land, bounce to various new-media cities, or take a new job on the corporate ladder. All of these relate to the limited number of talented designers available in the field.
Finding the Talent
The biggest concern of every design shop I've visited in Austin and Boston was recruitment—how and where to find "the talent." "Talent" has as many definitions as there are designers. Terry Swack defines design as "a process into a final solution that synthesizes all of the inputs that create experiences, including business strategies, technology, the customers' needs, and the organizational needs or resources."
