Credit should be due to all involved in design process

I’m a great believer in credit where credit’s due. It’s true, the restaurant Shish was designed in part by Fereday Pollard, but all the work we did on brand concept and vision, design direction, customer profiling, interior, furniture and product design should mean that it was designed in most by Spacecraft with graphics by G2.

Judging by the visuals (Features, DW 5 June) and their very close resemblance to the pilot, it appears that it still is.

Good design should be holistic and the best design is created by all disciplines working as a team. In Shish’s instance the design team very much included the client. It was, after all, his original idea in the first place.

I can understand in some part Stiff & Trevillion’s frustration at not being able to make ‘significant moves away [from the prototype]’, but, hey, if it ain’t broke why fix it?

It begs me to ask the question, is this design or design development and implementation? Was it Stiff & Trevillion’s approach [to develop the original interior] or the client’s brief? There’s nothing to be embarrassed about with development. You could call it tuning and it’s absolutely essential. Just ask any racing team.

Evolution rather than revolution is how these successful brands go forward. Restaurateur Alan Yau certainly understands this with Wagamama and Busaba, Inventive Leisure and also with Revolution.

Shish will benefit from this approach too as David Azouri go on to brief his designers, but asks them to maintain the original spirit. Shish was never meant to be a one off. It will be this consistency that will make the public recognise it and its values.

Unless it is radically or totally altered, the ‘design’ should always be credited to the original team.

Terry Harrison

Creative director

Spacecraft Design Consultants

London SE15