Sapient sanitizes for the slowdown
Sapient have redesigned their site. In the main it’s clean, effective
rebrand and refresh of their site which hadn’t changed for around 2
years.
Apart
from the (whisper it) pop-up windows enclosing Flash case-studies (with
a neat little scrolling mechanism that I expect to see pinched by some
other sites pretty soon) – the real story is how they seem to
have renosed and restructred the firm to boost the technology and
‘straight’ consulting offerings and demote or even downright hide the design and creative offerings.
You can’t find any overt reference to brand, interface, information or
graphic design. “Design” where it is mentioned is with a small ‘d’…
part of the technology lead “value creation process”. To be fair, this
is couched in the language of ‘human-centricity’, but again, it’s
played down.
There doesn’t seem to be anyone on the list of senior officers who
represents the creative community at Sapient. The nearest I guess would
be Rick Robinson who was (is?) head of the experience modelling
discipline (the anthopologists, strategists and researchers who carry
out user research), and Clement Mok – who I assume needs no
introduction – who is now in some form of non-executive advisory role
(!!??!)
It’s a bad time for the e-consultancies, and Sapient are
fairing better than most (even with some fairly hefty lay-offs) – they
have been consistent in having weathered other storms and changes of
favour by re-inventing themselves for the market – but the lack of
faith in Design with a big, 72pt, bright-red ‘D’ as a creator of value for it’s clients I find faintly depressing.
And I don’t work there anymore.
Petafloptimism 