How to Run a Successful Design Business: The New Professional Practice

The design sector has expanded rapidly in recent years, and now covers a wide range of specialist disciplines from branding and communications to product, commercial interiors and digital. Yet design firms often lack long-term vision, strategies and plans, and research from the Design Council shows that far too many suffer from poor profitability. Shan Preddy believes that the more a design firm knows about business, the more successful it will be, both creatively and financially. That's why she has gathered over 80 design-sector experts from different fields - advisors, practitioners, clients and representatives from design organisations - to provide you with information, suggestions, guidelines and thought-provoking opinions. Whether you're experienced or just starting out, How to Run a Successful Design Business: The New Professional Practice covers everything owners and managers of design firms need to know.

Shan Preddy is a Partner at Preddy&Co which specialises in business development consultancy for design firms and training for their staff. Her professional affiliations include the Chartered Institute of Marketing and the Marketing Society, where she is a Business Leader. She is a member of the Institute of Directors, an Elected Associate of D&AD, a Fellow of the RSA and an accredited consultant on the DBA Experts Register. In addition, she is a regular speaker at, and chair of, design conferences and a skilled awayday facilitator. Throughout Europe, many leading design firms have benefited from Shan's expert business advice, and thousands of design professionals have read her books and participated in her popular masterclasses.