It Don’t Come Easy - 07/07

Welcome to the 2007 American Inhouse Design Awards Annual.

We at GDUSA tend to be modest and self-effacing by temperament. That tendency has been reinforced by the sobering experience of having our magazine scrutinized each month for 44 years by nearly one hundred thousand creative professionals — smart, knowing, sharp, perfectionist, critical and often outspoken. Trust me, it’s not a recipe for a bloated ego.

But today I do not feel like being modest — at least, for the sake of the winners — because this year’s competition brought out the greatest show of inhouse design talent ever.

And their performance is even more impressive when you understand the context.

The winning pieces, selected from 4,441 entries, represent more than individual triumphs, as important as those may be. They also symbolize some healthy collective muscle-flexing by a segment of our community that is finally getting its due. Signs of the rising influence of inhouse designers are everywhere. There is this annual, for one, but also the sheer number of inhouse practitioners, which is now estimated at more than 75,000. There are the numerous events and conferences springing up to address design management matters. There is the continued growth of InSource, our favorite association of corporate creatives. And there are the ephiphanies being experienced by more and more organizations that, in a cluttered and competitive post-industrial era, great design is the great differentiator.

For our winners the moment is especially sweet, since the path to a successful design solution is often steeper for them than for their counterparts at independent agencies. The unique constraints they face are explored in a special feature story in this edition. For now, suffice it to say that working in a corporate setting can trigger a singular existential challenge — justifying one’s place to senior management in order just to secure the resources and freedom to do the job right. George Harrison unwittingly composed the anthem of the inhouse designer when he wrote the lyric, “It don’t come easy. You know it don’t come easy.”

The American Inhouse Design Awards program is an attempt to make it a little easier, to turn conventional wisdom on its head, to declare that the best inhouse work is indeed the stuff of design annuals as well as — and most importantly — a fundamental and invaluable contribution to the missions of their respective organizations.

We (modestly) hope you enjoy the effort.