Peter Merholz's excellent, web-readable, and picture-provocative interview with Michael Bierut is complete, with the two of them set to meet at Adaptive Path's User Experience Week 2006 firing up 11 days from now. The interview was spread over three parts: Part 1; Part 2; and Part 3. Painful to pull any quotes out of the context of the thing , but here are some choice bits:

From Part 1 PM: ... In your practice, how do you bridge between "business" and "design"? In your client work, how do you demonstrate business impact? MB: Too many designers enter the field spouting design jargon and, predictably, meet resistance or indifference from their clients. So they switch to business jargon, which is usually worse. I did this for a while, got good at it, and then got disgusted with myself...

and

PM: ...Graphic design seems to have two huge forces working against its viability: 1) an immense supply-side, with so many designers offering virtually indistinguishable services, and 2) an almost allergic reaction to demonstrating explicit business value, so that pricing graphic design is something of a voodoo art. MB: ...Each partner runs a pretty small, autonomous team. The overhead is low. I write my own proposals and negotiate my own agreements. I can ask for whatever fees I want, but we basically try to cover our time and expenses plus a 20% profit margin. So much for the the voodoo art of pricing.

From Part 3 PM: You mentioned Design Observer and being exposed to people and ideas. You've been writing for Design Observer for almost 3 years now. How has blogging effected the way you work? What effect has it had on how you approach design?

MB:...Has writing a blog effected the way I work? At first I was going to say no, but when I think about it, I realize that it's helped me get more confident that the issues that we designers deal with are relevant in the outside world. This in turn has helped me think less as a designer faithfully sticking to the task I've been assigned, to a person who's willing and eager to broaden the context for the work. Like I've said before, this is the only way I know to make my work better.