I work in a fairly conservative architecture firm (design wise, politics is a different story) where myself and another intern made the pitch to the president and vice president of the firm about doing a couple design competitions every year. Believe it or not, they think its a great idea and would like to start figuring out how it can work business-wise. So my question is for all those that work in offices that do competitions: how do you work it into the budget of the firm in terms of hours etc? We pitched it as part of the office marketing, using it to expand the work of the firm to new areas and to get our name out there. Is this what your office considers it? If not, how do they approach it from the business side.
Any help on this would be GREATLY appreciated beause its now the job of myself and the other intern that pitched it to get as much information to feed to our business manager so this can work out.
I would try exactly what you said - pitch it as marketing, and go for competitions with a reasonable amount of public exposure, exhibit or publication, etc. However, if you're firm is conservative on design and you will have senior designers directing you, the reality is your firm probably won't get any new business from the competitions - I've seen the process and it seems to mainly help small very progressive firms, or larger ones that have already established themselves as design names. So, you can pitch it that way but I don't think it'll do anything for the company in terms of business. You could also try to pitch it as a research method for the office, to expand the scope of their work, but you're riding a fine line between being helpful and too critical if the office is already successful and they are happy with the work they do.
Actually both the president and vice-president see it as a chance to break out of the box that they've built around them design-wise and to explore more contemporary designs. They view it as a chance for its employees to keep their design skills sharp and a chance for those of us that do production work to lead projects (instead of a senior designer/project manager). We pointed out that our goal shouldn't necessarily be to win the competitions (although it would be nice) but rather to give us a chance to expand on what our office can provide to clients. Also because of family commitments from the more senior staff members, I'm willing to bet that us wipper-snappers will be doing the majority of both the design and production, which I have no problem with.
They might not be as conservative as they seem then...
I think this is a great opportunity for you to generate some publicity for your office and that's exactly how I would put it to them. At the same time you get to do your own work using what i assume to be some large ressources, so you kill 2 birds with one stone and you keep you design skills up to speed. You need to pick the competitions you'll enter carefully though and make sure that they will get enough exposure so that the name of the office (and yours) appears in publications exhibitions etc. You might even be able to use their references and portfolio of built work to enter some restricted design competitions which usually carry more prestige and generate more spin. Sounds like a good deal to me, hope it works out. Good luck.
Oct 27, 04 8:31 am ·
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Competition as business...
Howdy y'all...
I work in a fairly conservative architecture firm (design wise, politics is a different story) where myself and another intern made the pitch to the president and vice president of the firm about doing a couple design competitions every year. Believe it or not, they think its a great idea and would like to start figuring out how it can work business-wise. So my question is for all those that work in offices that do competitions: how do you work it into the budget of the firm in terms of hours etc? We pitched it as part of the office marketing, using it to expand the work of the firm to new areas and to get our name out there. Is this what your office considers it? If not, how do they approach it from the business side.
Any help on this would be GREATLY appreciated beause its now the job of myself and the other intern that pitched it to get as much information to feed to our business manager so this can work out.
I would try exactly what you said - pitch it as marketing, and go for competitions with a reasonable amount of public exposure, exhibit or publication, etc. However, if you're firm is conservative on design and you will have senior designers directing you, the reality is your firm probably won't get any new business from the competitions - I've seen the process and it seems to mainly help small very progressive firms, or larger ones that have already established themselves as design names. So, you can pitch it that way but I don't think it'll do anything for the company in terms of business. You could also try to pitch it as a research method for the office, to expand the scope of their work, but you're riding a fine line between being helpful and too critical if the office is already successful and they are happy with the work they do.
Actually both the president and vice-president see it as a chance to break out of the box that they've built around them design-wise and to explore more contemporary designs. They view it as a chance for its employees to keep their design skills sharp and a chance for those of us that do production work to lead projects (instead of a senior designer/project manager). We pointed out that our goal shouldn't necessarily be to win the competitions (although it would be nice) but rather to give us a chance to expand on what our office can provide to clients. Also because of family commitments from the more senior staff members, I'm willing to bet that us wipper-snappers will be doing the majority of both the design and production, which I have no problem with.
They might not be as conservative as they seem then...
I think this is a great opportunity for you to generate some publicity for your office and that's exactly how I would put it to them. At the same time you get to do your own work using what i assume to be some large ressources, so you kill 2 birds with one stone and you keep you design skills up to speed. You need to pick the competitions you'll enter carefully though and make sure that they will get enough exposure so that the name of the office (and yours) appears in publications exhibitions etc. You might even be able to use their references and portfolio of built work to enter some restricted design competitions which usually carry more prestige and generate more spin. Sounds like a good deal to me, hope it works out. Good luck.
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