Dear (none)Designer,
Welcome back to the seventh Design at Scale™ Newsletter – focusing on innovation and how design drives change in a large organisation or an agency.
R/GA, formerly known as R/Greenberg Associates, was founded in 1977 by two brothers, Richard and Robert Greenberg, with one mission in mind – combining an intersection of advertising, technology and innovation.
The most significant difference of the business model is its 9-year cycle, implemented early in the 1970s, due to the CEO's belief in numerology as well as the adoption of change. Over 40 years, the company has evolved from a computer-assisted film-making studio to a digital design and consulting company to a major advertising giant, leading innovation and acceleration in most parts of the creative and product industry.
Joining R/GA in 2010 after working directly with companies like Silicon Graphics, Samsung, and Nokia brought some unexpected learning curves. The expansion of R/GA across Europe and APAC missed a product professional to set up and retain operational excellence. Someone who strengthens and shapes the product offering on the agency side to ensure clients get delivery in increments, not in briefs. Combining the agency's heritage in graphics design and visual communication with the flexibility that agile and iterative delivery creates a unique proposition that drives innovation in small, medium, and large organisations.
This allowed R/GA to grow from 15 people into a 250-member team only in London, delivering business propositions to companies like Nokia, Pearson, Goldman Sachs, Beats by Dre, and many others.
A relatively small team has organised itself within the units that rotate around these propositions. Always present, the design director has the end-to-end direction that the team follow. This allowed us to explore the possibility of experience design and co-creating so-called interactive prototypes that served as a documentation that allowed the team to quickly respond to all the needs necessary to keep the project moving forward.
This satellite approach also brought all parties together to be fully involved in the depth and breadth of the day-to-day decisions and respond quickly to demand when necessary to achieve discipline outcomes.
A close relationship with Design Directors (in-house as well as in agency) drove the quality of our proposition closer to business objectives. Like other agencies, we struggle to deliver on the brief, but we always deliver beyond the brief.
We often create war rooms. These rooms have two sides - experience and visual direction. Both are evolving and informing all parties about changes they need to accommodate. Wireframes dive deep into behaviour, navigation, and mental models, fulfilling specific user journeys. On the other side of the room, we have all our branding exploration and decisions. Yes, decision–documenting design decisions made R/GA one of the fastest agencies I have ever encountered. Allowing us to bring our thinking and direction into a performance through experience for the client.
This simple "design unity" brought designers and developers together, creating unexpected acceleration in our day-to-dayday-to-day interactions that benefitedp the client across the retail, media, music, education, and transportation sectors to redefine their game.
It's an inevitable baseline that distinguishes R/GA from any other agency of the record within the UK and beyond, specifically across the collaborative culture and meaningful integration where all disciplines live amongst each other and support one another to create this collective, almost family-like experience.
Those who have ever experienced the R/GA between 2010 and 2014 would understand how the single-handed agency can do roughly 52 pitches in a year and win 35 of them, alongside delivering the work.
It was an experience and interaction design department that has a significant impact, not only on shaping the business propositions, but also being recognised beyond the walls of R/GA. The entire industry adopts the copy and paste approach, drawing from what Bob Greenberg and his brother established in the 1970s – a well-defined agency model that scales.
That's all for this edition! I hope these insights were valuable and sparked new ideas for scaling your design propositions. Remember, the journey from concept to widespread impact is a shared one, and your experiences are invaluable. Keep experimenting, keep learning, and stay tuned for our next newsletter, featuring more strategies and success stories from our incredible community.
Happy scaling!
J+
