There’s no such thing as a Enterprise Designer.

Oh, no? You can design a physical product, a website, a book, a machine, a house, a car, a service, but not a company?

And yes, I now consider myself a corporate designer. Weird, right? The funny thing is, since it’s a “new” job, nobody really knows what I do. So here’s an attempt to explain it as best I can, drawing on other design specialties.

When I work on a project as a Web/UI/UX designer, I go through several stages:

We listen and challenge the brief.
We conduct research.
We sketch, create wireframes, design interfaces and validate with the customer at every stage.
We hand over documentation of our work to someone who programs the design.
We meet again from time to time to check that everything matches the plans… and we make adjustments because we’re not perfect.

And it’s similar for most design specialties: brief, abstract ideas, constrained ideas, construction and adjustment.

What distinguishes the different types of design?

Whatever type of design you practice, the main steps are similar. What distinguishes the different types of designers are the technical aspects they learn in order to work in their field. For example, a print designer needs to know about paper and ink types to get the most out of the medium. The same goes for the UX/UI designer, who needs to master the possibilities of digital technology and understand human behavior, or for the automotive designer, who needs to know how a car works and the concepts of aerodynamics.

In other words, the corporate designer needs to know a company’s specifications and :

Listen to and challenge the brief.
Conduct research.
Sketch the vision, create high-level visualizations and design the changes to be implemented in the company, validating with the customer at every stage.
Deliver documentation of work to the people who build and run the business.
Review from time to time to validate that everything matches the plans… and adjust because we’re not perfect.

The solo corporate designer? NNnaaaaahhh…

It is possible to design and realize a project from A to Z. We all know a UX/UI designer who programs or an art designer who silkscreens and makes his own bindings. I know… I’m one of them…

In corporate design, the context calls for a great deal of co-creation. Companies are inherently complex systems. Unless you’re a solopreneur, you need to collaborate with and rely on many experts.

The characteristics of a company

As a corporate designer, the high-level facets I work on are :

Identity: The values and beliefs that companies demonstrate through their messages and actions.
Organization: The composition of the group of people who work together.
Architecture: The structures needed to run a company and connect it to its ecosystem.
Product: What the company creates, proposes and delivers for the benefit of its customers.
Experience: The impact of the company’s interactions on people and their lives.
Brand: How people perceive the company.

I have to thank my friends in the “Intersection” group, of which I’m an active member, for creating EDGY, an interdisciplinary language, and for continuing to develop tools for corporate designers.

Is that clearer?

If you made it to the end of the article, thank you. I’d love a little help explaining what I do. I’ll have some case studies up soon, but I’d love to hear your questions privately, in comments or by mail.