Gaining New Clients: Role playing with Raymond Loewy and Walter D. Teague
The
Successful Design Business Practices of Walter Dorwin Teague
Part 2 of 5
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| Walter Dorwin Teague in his office-photo WDTA archives |
Gaining New Clients: Role Playing with Raymond Loewy and Walter D. Teague
How did the early
industrial designers sell themselves to new clients? Raymond Loewy and Walter D. Teague answered
this question during a conference in 1946 entitled “Industrial Design: A New
Profession” held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. They demonstrated this by having a mock discussion
between designer and client, with Teague acting as the potential client. What
is interesting about this discussion is that much of the conversation sounds
the same as our discussions with clients today with some notable exceptions. Here is an excerpt:
Raymond Loewy:
…Mr. Teague, let us try to discuss it together. Would you like to take the part of the
client?
Walter Dorwin Teague:
All right, fine. Well, Mr. Loewy, I know that you are a designer of very
substantial and eminent reputation, with a great many successes to your credit,
but you have never served a business exactly like mine. I am perhaps the
largest widget manufacturer in America.
Raymond Loewy: What type of product did you say?
WDT: Widgets.
RL: Oh Yes.
WDT: “You probably don’t realize it, but the business of
making widgets is very different from any other business. I know that you have designed trains and
automobiles and household appliances and business machines, and many other
products, but widgets quite in a class by themselves. I am just wondering what gives you any
assurance that you could do for us what my own staff of engineers has not been
able to do.”
RL: “…We have studied the record of your company for the
past few years. We know that you are
doing very well; we know the reputation of your firm; we know that the products
you are manufacturing are excellent, priced correctly and for the most part
styled right. However, we feel that the
influence of an outsider with an open mind, with no inhibitions about your
product – working in cooperation with your own staff – could bring some fresh
and unusual answers to your problems.
“We can’t promise to do so; but we feel reasonably
confident that if we have the cooperation of you design department, of your
engineering department, and if we have an opportunity to study the
manufacturing facilities you have, the kind of equipment you use, we can do a
job for you.
“We would like to study the widget market, however,
before we go ahead and make any proposition to you. We would like to know what is being done in
the field by competitors, and in what price range, and which are the widgets
that sell best, and we would try to isolate the reason why they sell best;
whether it is price, appearance, function, quality, or a combination of these
factors. Then we can talk to you
intelligently about doing design work for you organization.”
WDT: “Well, of course, Mr. Loewy, that goes much further
than I had in mind. I had assumed that
you would simply make me some sketches of what you thought my product ought to
look like. After all, that is all we had
in mind in connection with your-
RL: “Well, I regret to say that we don’t work that
way. The leading designers, those who
have established reputations and have reputations to maintain—such as Mr.
Teague, a namesake of yours, of Mr. Dreyfuss or Mr. Arens—don’t work that
way. They don’t like to start doing any
fancy designing or blue-sky designing with knowing all the factors of the
problem involved. We couldn’t do that,
then. We wouldn’t be interested, and I don’t think you would.
WDT: Well, do you think that you could come into a
business like ours and in a short time acquire enough information about it to
be able to make wise decisions in the various fields in which, as you have
outlined it, you would like to operate?
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| Raymond Loewy |
RL: Yes. That is the reason we are here to discuss it
with you. We have done work in fields
very close to widgets. The products may not be exactly widgets; but they are in
the same price range, they sell through the same kind of retail outlet, and the
servicing problem of these units is quite similar to yours. We feel confident we can do a job. I would
like to have a look at your facilities, at your plant, and see what kind of
equipment you have. We would also like
to talk to your sales manager, if that can be arranged, in order to have some
idea about your retail outlets.
WDT: Then we would more or less have to take you into the
family and into our confidence in a matter of our business methods and
procedures and so on?
RL: Yes—completely.
That is the only way we could possibly work. You may not have heard about the reputation
of our firm as far as ethics is concerned.
You may be sure that any new development that happens when we work with
you, or any new idea you may have, will be kept completely confidential.
WDT: “the question of personalities immediately intrudes
itself. Do you feel that you could get
along with our technical staff? After
all, our engineers are very experienced in their work, and they are a little
sensitive about people intruding from the outside. I just wonder whether we wouldn’t have a
conflict on our hands when your people come into our organization. … What
guarantee we would have of success? After all, this is going to be a very
expensive thing for us. What assurance
do we have that we will get the right returns?”…( (Minutes of 1946 MOMA Conf.)
It is evident from
this conversation that Teague and Loewy agreed on their business strategy as consulting
industrial designers and communicate many of the concerns that they have
experienced when approaching new clients.
Teague shows an understanding and an empathy for his potential clients
fears. Here are some of the fears that
he mentions:
·
That the designer is not experienced with their
particular product market.
·
Fear of loss of security of intellectual property
and confidentiality.
·
Compatibility with in-house staff. Staff will feel intruded by consultant and
not cooperate.
·
Fear of long term commitment in a relationship with
a design firm.
·
Fear of not getting return on their investment.
Teague and Loewy
knew how to respond these fears with assurance, however they stood firm when
pushed to the edges of their professional ethics. One thing that stands out in this conversation
is that Loewy and Teague refused to take on any short term projects. They would not “simply make some sketches” or
do “blue-sky designing.” They required a
contract of at least one year long, in order to do their best at understanding
their client, its market and their customers.
“After all, we are subject to the wishes of our
clients. This discussion has to do with
the client-designer relationship. Most
of us may have the status of call girls, but we are not streetwalkers: we wait
for the clients to come to us.” – Walter D. Teague (Minutes of 1946 MOMA Conf.)
Coming up next in part 3: How did Teague manage his office and treat his staff? What was it like to work at WDTA during its
heyday?
Works Cited
Minutes of
the Conference on Industrial Design, A New Profession. Proc. of Conference on Industrial Design, A New Profession,
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY. 1946. MOMA archive 45.1 S624 1946
Photo of Teague at his office from the WDTA
archives.
Photo of Loewy from http://tipografos.net/design/loewy.html
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