Ten Design Lessons from Richard Branson.

image courtesy www.woopidoo.com

It might seem odd drawing design lessons from one of the richest men in the world but if you read Richard Branson’s lessons in life and business as contained in his autobiography- Screw it, let’s do it (published by Virgin Books 2007), you will see how apt it is, the fellow simply lives a designer life! Couple that with the fact that design is after all serious business, then you begin to understand why you need to pay attention here, but just in case this still doesn’t make sense to you after reading the ten design lessons on offer from Branson, go get the book and read for yourself…what more can one say?

1. If you can’t get the boat house, get the woman who owns the boathouse.

His car broke down on lonely roads too (what a consolation, so billionaires once suffered minor indignities too!), Richard Branson (while his wealth was still in the making) wanted a boathouse but couldn’t get planning permission to get one. Luckily for him, his broken down car led him to a rare discovery- good old Mandy who was ready to share her boathouse with him and then some…yeah the relationship might have panned out after a while, but young Richard did end up buying the boat house from her didn’t he, he even ran his business from there for a long time. Lesson learnt? Don’t allow planning officials (or other designated obstacles to your design progress) to kill your dreams, rather, employ some lateral thinking and if your lateral thoughts throw up a helpful female, grab her with both arms, as an old professor once told the design sleuth and a bunch of student designers in design school, ‘My only advise to you all as you venture forth on this torturous route? Marry a rich wife.

2. Don’t muck with well established brands.

Virgin has maintained its brand identity since the company’s first music store was launched in 1967. It is not by accident and not due to some outmoded creative lethargy. Branson asserts that he belongs to the school of ‘if it’s not broken, don’t fix it’. Ever wondered why corporations sometimes spend millions undoing a well loved and well accepted, time worn brand identity in favour of a lack lustre and ill contrived alternative? Well wonder no more, just ignore all the corporate speak they spill forth to convince us that they know what they are doing, Branson has said it plainly – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If you really must fix something then go redesign something that really needs fixing and leave that darn logo alone!

3. Play up the sex appeal

Yes, the truism has been over flogged that sex sells, but you can’t overemphasize the fact that that singular act on which the future of the entire human race is hinged is a most effective means of getting people to pay attention. If Branson can get away with a name like Virgin and he can dangle from a crane in a ‘nude’ bodysuit with his crotch covered with a Virgin cell phone to promote his line of mobile phones, if his airline can get away with a pay off that reads: ‘we’re better in bed’, then surely you can get a bit more sexy with that design…throw in a curve or two, make it seductive…if its not going to be attractive, then why are you designing it? Branson has shown that sex appeal is serious business. The design sleuth contends that it is a vital design tool.

4. Design for the environment

It really is infuriating that while third-worlders like us are yet to tap properly into the industrial revolution and all the accruable advantages- albeit that we are like a century late on all that- the first world is now making so much noise about global warming and the need to cut down on CO2 emissions. But think about it, the entire hullabaloo could be to our advantage. Unlike the first world economies who have continually deployed massive infrastructures around the existing energy models and would therefore incur more costs in converting to more efficient energy models, we third-worlders can shift to ‘green’ almost immediately at a fraction of the cost. Richard Branson, after listening to an impressive presentation from former US Vice- President Al Gore, has embraced a more environmentally conscious approach to business which he calls Gaia Capitalism. To the forward thinking third-world designer out there, big business is going green, design to anticipate a change towards environmental conservation, not only will you help the environment, soon, with a bit of luck, you’ll make a lot of money from your environmental conscientiousness, because where big business (like Virgin) leads, big money folloows.

5. Break conventions

If God didn’t break with convention, the universe would still have remained a dark formless void. He must have looked out at a particular point in eternity and said to himself, what the heck, everything can't just keep looking so dreary, let there be light and etc and etc and all the funky stuff you now know started to come into being. Branson might not believe in God, but he sure does borrow one or two gimmicks from him. If you’ve got your sights on being a great designer, be like Branson, nay, be like God, break with convention…who cares what stuff always looked like before you happened on the scene. Create something fresh…that’s your job.


6. Not being a gifted designer should not hinder you from being a gifted designer…if you’ve got the guts to dare.

Okay, this one is contrived I agree, but really, Richard Branson was dyslexic, had no prior experience about journalism and publishing and was just a secondary school student, yet he went ahead to publish Student magazine, his first ‘real’ business venture from which he grew the Virgin group we know today, without the benefit of an MBA or some other grand nod of approval from ‘the establishment’ that he could go ahead and take over the world. He dreamt it and he worked hard at it…two major ingredients on the path to being a great designer, don’t you think?

7. Design must be fun!

And Richard wasn’t stuck up and pretentious at the money making game either, he emphasises over and over again, the importance of upping the fun factor in whatever one does, so business stops being a meaningless, gruelling drive for money that ends up in disillusionment, but an exciting adventure into the unknown with lots of rewarding surprises all the way. When fun becomes a lifestyle, it tells in the products you churn out. Who wants dreary clinical products anyway, when you can have all the fun in the world with outlandishly exciting designs??? Designs are for people, design for lifestyles and not the other way round.


8. Diversify, be a design-preneur.

Richard is fast on his feet, he hits the ground running, at least that’s what you gather from his author biography. As Student magazine was losing revenue, he started up a mail order music business, as a postal strike crippled that venture, he opened his first media store, from selling music, he started a record label, and ultimately an airline…now there are over 200 companies and 50,000 staff worldwide. Businesses are meant to make money, but entrepreneurs start new businesses all the time and thus have a chance at surviving failed attempts. Don’t be a dinosaur unless you have a taste for extinction. Be nimble, try out new things and be one step ahead of your peers. There is always room for a new idea.


9. Screw it, just do it….but remember- take only calculated risks.
He took up dangerous challenges as a way of life, from foolhardy hot air ballooning exploits and risky sea faring adventures to unsolicited interventions in the potentially dangerous politics of the middle east. Branson’s businesses were designed with a similar daring spirit. If he thought an idea through and was convinced it could work, he followed through to a logical conclusion despite all opposition and discouragement. Yes, he didn’t give in to fear but he is human enough to advise – take only calculated risks. How he calculated the risk each time he took off on his hot air balloon misadventures, me - I can never understand, but somehow, his calculations worked out and he didn’t lose his life. If your design career is not worth risking something for, then you’re not worth being a designer, for this is a risk laden enterprise, but remember, improve your mathematical abilities, calculate those risks.


10. Reach for the skies...always

According to Richard Branson, Henry Ford’s Model-T automobile was initially designed “to run on fuel made from hemp” and was built with “hemp plastic panels whose impact strength was ten times stronger than steel, drawing further from the fact that the Diesel engine was initially designed to run on vegetable and seed oils like hemp, Branson went on to suggest that “If the Feds hadn’t banned hemp crops in the 1930s instead of petrol, cars might have still been running safely and in an environmentally friendly way on marijuana”. A fantastic thought Mr. Branson, but the design sleuth wonders if ‘an environmentally friendly way’ includes or precludes having the generality of the populace being high on second hand marijuana smoke from automobile exhaust pipes, now that’s a thought - lets save the environment by all getting high - depending on what side of the ‘ganja’ divide you belong to! On a serious note though, now in his sixties, Branson is not relenting, he has bought the rights to build a fleet of space ships and intends to pioneer space tourism, and is investing in comics, games and animation. For one whose principal at secondary school once told: You would either go to prison or become a billionaire (he’s accomplished both) Branson has come a long way and is still not relenting, so what excuse do you have for limiting your imagination???

-Ayodele Arigbabu
dreamarts.designagency@gmail.com