Ag Talk | Design as a profession is young concept in India: Johnson Banks' Michael Johnson

Creative designing in the advertising and media space is considered as the backbone of the business. While the definition and interpretation may differ from location to location and from people to people, however, the basic essence of creating unique, unusual and innovative pieces of work to translate a brand’s idea remains the same everywhere.

One such name in the international designing market is J​ohnson Banks, which has been in business for over twenty years and deals with large, significant and important identity and branding projects. Their client list is spread across blue-chip, government, arts, charity​ and ‘third sector’ projects – and are​ trying hard to keep a wide spread of work to​ approach each new problem with their ​eyes wide open, not half closed.

J​ohnson Banks ​was set up by Michael Johnson, a trained Marketing and Design professional in 1992. Johnson and his company have won many awards​ (including eight ‘pencils’ from D&AD, 13 Design Week awards and four NYADC ‘cubes’, amongst many others and has dozens of designs in the V&A’s permanent collection).

Adgully caught up with Michael Johnson​, Creative Director & Principal, Johnson Banks to know about company’s history, scope of designing and  more...

Adgully (AG):
As the founder of Johnson Banks, give us a sense of the business?
Michael Johnson (MJ): We just wanted to be an interesting design company then, which can solve unique problems in interesting way...and that’s how it all started. Later, we were interesting in branding and identity and today 90 percent of our work is based on planning design for corporate and institutional clients and solving their problems. Today it’s been 21 years and we are doing well!

AG: You are a marketing and design professional and then went on to become an entrepreneur at an early age. What triggered this leap? How has journey been so far?
MJ:
I think probably in the first 10 years I had decided that if I’ll go wrong then I’ll go for a different job or else will help in creative in some organisation. And the journey has been really nice; I am looking forward to grow with it.

AG: Shed some light on the kind of services the company offers to its clients? Also, what does Johnson’s Bank’s clientele look like?
MJ:
We offer different solutions to our clients; some of the projects would take more than 9-10 years to complete. There is a lot of research and design work involved in the process of providing service to company. So, we split our work in 5 stages. Classically design is all about having great ideas. Before starting with any design idea we talk to our client, we look at their competitors; we audit the client as in how they fit in the market. And then we ask them what you want to do and where you want to be and sometimes clients are happy in the position they are, sometimes we are asked to revive our strategies. Usually people do come and say that the services are quite expensive. But, overall things are changing somehow and we help to find new place in the market. We’ve worked for clients across blue chip, non-profit organisations, cultural, education, government, professions and leisure. Some of our most talked projects are Virgin Atlantic, Science Museum, direct insurance company More Th>n, Cystic Fibrosis, Trinity Laban, UK Presidency of the EU 2005, Skate and others.

AG: Johnson’s Bank is almost two decades old now. How is the company placed globally and in Asian countries? How has the team size scaled up over the years? 
MJ:
I always wanted to keep the company small. There is a paradigm which I wanted to break that big companies do big projects and small companies do small projects. We have shifted the paradigm, because we are quite small for huge projects, which is very unusual, if we don’t believe in the project we don’t do it. We are currently working on projects in East America, China, Japan and in Gulf countries as well.

AG: Share your thoughts on the consistently blooming designing sector internationally. What is the kind of scope of growth you seen in India?
MJ:
I think the understanding of design and the kind of designing we do is quite young in India and it’s a young market and has been dominated by advertising agencies. Some of the big designs in India are been acquired from overseas countries. I think the market is an immature market. I am hoping that design as a profession in India will go more professional. When I come to India I always get questions about logos and symbols but it’s just a one part of design, the industry is much bigger than that. I want to widen the vision and perception of people towards the design industry.

AG: If you have to highlight any milestones achieved by the company till now, what would they be? 
MJ:
Many of our projects involve complex stakeholders, all with their own unique points of view, requiring careful management and negotiation. Increasingly we carry out the strategic analysis stages ourselves. Normally that would result in work hampered by compromise and committee, but we are firm believers that good thinking and good design will outdo, and so far that’s been proved correct. I think we are proud of all the projects we’ve done.

AG:  What according to you are some of the acute challenges the industry faces, both India and Internationally?
MJ:
I think as the society develops, the understanding of designing, marketing and branding will develop, but it might take a while. In Japan it’s a very mature market and they have their own creations of design. In China, the market is very young and they don’t have any idea of China’s identity from a design perspective, even in India it’s a young market. Interestingly, as a part of Kyoorius Design Jury meets, India, none of the show list entries were in Hindi. Some Indians are forced by the clients to design things that look western. I think there are many good Indian designs and that indigenous design voice should come forward.

AG:  How has the development and growth new media assisted the growing demand of innovation and exclusivity in the domain you cater to?
MJ:
I think with the course of things, somethings haven’t changed at all...we still need to work out where someone needs to be there in the market, what will make them different/unique and we always needed to do that. The change we’ve experienced is that applications are very different today, years ago we used to work with the idea but today we have to also work on the timings. People have gone from big screen to small screens, they want to be everywhere.

AG: What according to you is Johnson’s Banks USP that helps it stay strong in the highly competitive industry?
MJ:
The industry is challenging. We’ve done loads of works for Museums, we’ve done big project for Google in Europe. Keeping footwork in a new market is like your record. We have done Museum work in America, we will be taking to America and Gulf countries. Globalization is impacting by sectors, family projects are interesting but it all depends upon sectors. We’ve tried to do cultural projects we’ve done that in Japan which lend to more projects like even in China. We have not done anything at all in India, I visit India very less. We love words and languages and we keep searching for new ideas.

AG: What is the kind of change you have seen as far as spends in the domain are concerned?
MJ:
Illustration in terms of designs and right now we are working on really big projects in America.

AG:  Going forward, what is the priority on the planning charts?
MJ:
Continue to work with interesting and unusual clients and do unique work. We are working with UNICEF at the moment. I love working on cultural projects.

Michael is been cited as one of the most notable British​ Designers by the Guardian and The Independent, has featured in Design Week’s ‘Hot 50′ list of prominent figures in design and edits the influential ‘Thought for the week’ design blog. [By Ranjana Gupta| Twitter: @RGrightsreserve]

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