Design Leadership: How Top Design Leaders Build and Grow Successful Organizations
Original price was: $39.99.$21.96Current price is: $21.96.
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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
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85 reviews for Design Leadership: How Top Design Leaders Build and Grow Successful Organizations
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Original price was: $39.99.$21.96Current price is: $21.96.
Amazon Customer –
Generic leadership advice. Unimpressive and mediocre.
Guy –
Banfield does a great job bringing together stories from design leaders around core topics for anyone in design, especially if you lead a team. The stories are shaped into themes that gives you clear takeaways at the end to help you solve problems that keep you up at night. One of those books you nod your head to, and pick up again when you’re scratching your head.
Jeb Banner –
Richard Banfield knows his subject well. He has been leading a design agency for over a decade and actively engages many of his peers to gather their insights and experiences. This book is an excellent summation of the collective experience of dozens of leaders at design agencies around the world. But this isn’t just for people wanting to run design agencies. Design isn’t just about pictures and graphics, it’s a different way of working. Every leader needs to release the power of design to transform how they work. This book shows the way.
Amazon Customer –
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?
Tom Greever –
This book has come at the perfect time for our industry! As more and more companies make design a core strength, it’s become critical that designers are equipped to lead teams and make business decisions. Designers are in leadership roles more than ever before. Richard gives us a framework for making that happen effectively with compelling stories, interviews, and examples.
As a designer and team leader, I have struggled over the past several years to learn how to best manage my team and cultivate a culture that is both productive and rewarding. This book shares in that struggle, validating many critical parts of my own journey while also providing practical advice for growing as a leader. As I grow my team and design practice, I know I will be referencing this book over and over.
The examples and interviews from other design leaders are invaluable. It’s not just the author’s perspective, but the perspectives of dozens of other design leaders. As I read this book, I found myself constantly nodding my head in agreement and making notes of ways in which I could improve my own leadership skills. Every design agency owner needs to read this book and put it’s principles into practice. I can’t recommend it enough!
jc –
Could be 50% shorter if it weren’t for connecting sentences every other sentence. Hard to read
dave bellous –
Overall practical advice. This book is especially useful for design leaders who work at creative agencies. I work at a startup and didn’t find a lot of the advice directly relevant. Much of it too high level. I enjoyed many parts of it though. Especially around vision, hiring and culture.
My beef with this book is the writing style. Every page features 2-4 voices (including the author’s) weaved together, which often felt scattered. At least, for me, it was difficult to follow. Even till the end, I could still barely recall any of the design leader names and agencies mentioned. That may simply be inherent to interviewing “hundreds” of design leaders though. My last issue is that the book is too high level.
Overall, not my favourite book but I’m still happy I read it. Got some good bits out of it. I’d recommend this for junior/mid level agency design leaders.
Amazon Customer –
quick delivery, received as expected.
DC –
This book heavily emphasizes outdated agency practices, making it irrelevant for those working in agile process and tech startup environment. It highlights how out of touch design agencies can be, and serves as a reminder of the efficiency standards in tech companies. Overall, it feels like a waste of time for modern professionals.
David W. Gray –
Disclaimer: I am one of the design leaders that Banfield interviewed for this book. This is an excellent, well-researched summary of practical experiences and lessons learned from people who have started, built and led design-driven organizations. I’m proud to have been a part of it and I recommend it as an excellent resource for design leaders.