"Design is differentiation made visible, visceral, and experiential. Creativity and innovation are emerging as disciplines because we have no other choice." - Mark Payne

Have you noticed that design is starting to loose that ‘you guys just do artsy stuff‘ label? Its happening everywhere – most notably in the C-suite. Design suddenly matters as more than a nice frill. Its a business discipline.

Fast Company wrote an article this month aptly titled, The United States of Design. In it,  Linda Tischler wrote:

From GM to 3M, in boardrooms and on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley and on Madison Avenue, design matters more than ever. Around the globe, American designers have never been more influential.

Of course its worth noting that Steve Jobs and Apple can be credited with much of this. Before the billions in revenue and a rock-star brand, few considered it likely that Apple could turn the tide against the Microsoft/PC monopoly. And yet today, we widely accept that holes in that monopoly are showing up everywhere – evidenced as many a CEO across corporate America opts to allow their employees to choose Apple machines over PCs. And design was at the center of that groundswell.

Even more compelling is the height to which this design success has grown, burgeoning into a full movement – and a competitive one at that. Businesses opting to embrace design in their products and services are winning, and their bottom lines are thanking them.

American design is becoming a national competitive advantage in a very global & competitive market. Again from Fast Company:

Design can be a critical competitive advantage–if American business seizes this moment…This is all critically important, and worth studying, because in the global marketplace, finding an edge is becoming harder. "We will not be able to remain relevant by competing on such factors as labor or raw materials," says Northwestern University's Andrew Razeghi. As Fahrenheit 212′s Mark Payne notes, in a world where all products start to look alike, design's role and importance expands. "Design is differentiation made visible, visceral, and experiential," he says. "Creativity and innovation are emerging as disciplines because we have no other choice." Design, in other words, can be a critical, and uniquely American, competitive advantage–if the nation seizes this moment.

There is much that we can do to facilitate this American opportunity: bring an even greater professionalism to the industry, connect radically beautiful design with consumer insights and business objectives, and push success beyond the confines of portfolios and design awards and into the stratosphere of customer delight and revenues.

Design is breaking through previous business assumptions. So where does it go from here?

Credits given to Marty Neumeier and his book, The Designful Company – a great book worth the purchase.

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