The history of the Double Diamond
In 2003, the Design Council was promoting the positive impact of adopting a strategic approach to design and the value of ‘design management’ as a practice. However, they had no standard way of describing the supporting process.
Richard Eisermann, Design Council’s then Director of Design and Innovation, thought that this was incompatible with their broader message, so he asked his team, “How do we describe design process?”
Deconstructing a common process
"The team put in the work trying to define design, process, methods, etc. What we did with the Double Diamond was codify it, rename the steps and popularise it. It was important work, but we were certainly standing on the shoulders of giants." Richard Eisermann