Fura Johannesdottir on Why Design Is Essential, Not Just ‘Nice’
Cannes Lions is just around the corner and as adland rushes to the South of France, we collectively try to reflect on the changes that the industry has gone through since last time this happened. Today, we specifically discuss the Design Lion - a celebration of visual craftsmanship with category-defining work, set on a mission to help the industry and its clients truly understand the power of visual identity.
Fura Johannesdottir - this year’s Design Jury President - started her career in digital over 20 years ago, when the then elusive sector was fairly new and in her own words “people were still trying to figure out how to use this new medium - the internet.” Safe to say we’ve gone a long way since then, however we might be at the precipice of something else people might not be fully understanding today.
After leaving Iceland, where she kick started her career, Fura pursued a degree at the Parsons School of Design in New York, to explore the “intersection of the digital and physical worlds.” This was quickly followed by a long and fruitful 12 years at R/GA, where Fura honed her craft.
Shortly after leaving the R/GA family, Fura joined Publicis Sapient, where she led the agency’s experience capability across their international offices, as the company was starting to shift their gaze towards digital business transformation for their clients.
In her latest adventure, Fura led Huge’s design team globally for over four years before departing from the agency. Reflecting on her experience, she says that she shared Huge’s dedication to connecting spaces, digital platforms, physical products and marketing.
Given Fura’s incredible experience across numerous clients and markets, it comes as no surprise that she is the Jury President for the Design category at Cannes Lions next week. Ahead of the festival, we took a minute in between the chaos to speak to Fura about her expectations of the category.
LBB> What have we learned from last year's Grand Prix winner in Design and how have expectations towards the category since changed?
Fura> Last year's Cannes Grand Prix for Design was the ADLaM campaign for Microsoft. I think it’s a great example of the type of work we should be celebrating.
The problem was clear – no digital typeface for a language which was slowly fading away, along with the culture behind it. I thought the execution of the typeface was outstanding, it was well crafted and powerful. Lastly, it was implemented across the Microsoft ecosystem, making it easy to access and scalable. It was being adapted by the Fulani people of West Africa, making the language more accessible for all.
The similarity between then and now is that we are always looking to show the real impact design has on day-to-day lives, the impact it can have on businesses, and proof that it should not be considered to be ‘nice to have’, but is essential to the future of your brand.
This year we are looking for outstanding, well-crafted design work. We want the work to signal what comes next for design and we believe it’s important that the work shows the value of design. Ask yourself: Is it really creating a deep impact on brands and in culture?
LBB> This year, how do you expect AI to impact your category?
Fura> I’m not sure if AI is going to impact the category a lot. I see GenAI as a great new tool that we can use to unleash creativity and do better work. I think AI is important to be aware of, specifically when we think about the future of service design, digital product design and automation of processes. I think knowing it well can equip us to come up with better ideas and generate new, fresh ways of seeing white spaces and new opportunities.
But, I don’t think we have gotten there yet as an industry and I do worry that we are falling behind on this important change. Right now I suspect that we are using it a bit more as a ‘gimmicky’ way of coming up with concepts instead of really leaning into the intelligence and power of AI to do something meaningful. But we will get there. We need to dig deeper, get bolder, experiment more and truly understand the depth of this change.
LBB> Comedy is the big new 'culture and context' sub-category this year - how do you think comedy could be better leveraged, and specifically in the category you're judging?
Fura> Generally, I like when we are not taking ourselves too seriously. The trend for the past few years has been ‘purpose-driven’ work and with that focus, we lost some of the fun. I would say that I see that fun work is back on the rise. I see more playful work, more experimentation and even more fusion between the physical and the digital, which I do celebrate. I wouldn’t say that I saw a lot of comedy in my category since, it’s a bit harder to execute it in design. But I saw more fun, interesting work than I have seen for a while that I think is worth celebrating.
LBB> What will you be looking for when you're judging?
Fura> I’m always looking for craft excellence, specifically when it comes to design. But I also want to see something that’s different, brave, forward thinking and that signals something new. I do want to make sure that it truly represents the brand it’s meant for and that the work is connecting with their audiences in meaningful ways. Did it drive impact? That’s important, because if we can’t prove the impact design has, why would clients come to us?
LBB> What are the most exciting current developments in the Design category and how do you expect them to pan out in the future?
Fura> I do think there was a lot of great, interesting work that’s starting to fuse the physical and the digital worlds (long overdue). I saw a rise of design work in installation spaces that I thought was interesting and even cross-craft thinking and executions that made me happy. I saw more ‘fun’ work than I usually do and some playful executions. I would say that it is overall very holistic, different flavours of design are showing up, and I think it’s altogether starting to more clearly show that design is about shaping the world we live in. I think we are going to see the fusion of design capabilities in the future and start to understand better how innovation in design is critical to the future of brands - well and our world.
