You gotta have art

Nation's Business, May, 1997 by Megan Swoyer

Growing businesses share their experiences in creating and marketing new products and services.

He was 10 years old when he boarded a plane in his homeland of South Korea to come to the United States to meet his adoptive family. "To me, America promised to be like Disney World. I had never seen it, but I had learned and heard a lot about it," says Dominic Pangborn, who was adopted by a Jackson, Mich., family in the 1960s.

Chances are that the little boy, whose birth mother thought he would have a better life in the United States, would have become a farmer if he had stayed in the tiny Korean village. Instead, he spent the second decade of his life with his Michigan family and became intrigued with colors and art.

By the time he graduated from the Academy of Fine Art in Chicago, Pangborn already had apprenticed in a design firm. He then moved to Detroit and began his career at a multimedia company, where he designed promotional materials for the 75th anniversary of Ford Motor Co.

In 1984, using personal savings, he launched Pangborn Design, a company that now has $3 million in annual revenues. Pangborn's team of 13 employees designs everything from company logos and annual reports to restaurant menus.

Pangborn relies on a simple management style. He doesn't believe in a multilevel reporting structure; everyone on his staff reports directly to him. In fact, in his headquarters in Detroit River Town, a historic district undergoing revitalization, just east of the city's massive Renaissance Center, the only levels one finds are among the open offices tucked in and around staircases, lofty corners, and catwalks. No cubicles allowed. "We're in the communications business, so we need to communicate," says Pangborn, 44.

Levels are also taboo in dealing with clients. "We don't put account executives between the client and the designer," says Pangborn. "Account executives don't think the same way as a creative person."

Pangborn's designers and marketers, typically wearing bluejeans and sweaters, work amid their prized possessions--festive twinkling lights, old bicycles, and antique tables and lamps--as well as with the latest computers. The offices are filled with dozens of awards for excellence in design.

Some of Pangborn's notable clients include Kmart Corp., Procter & Gamble Co., Pharmacia & Upjohn Inc., Xerox Corp., Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan, and Wolverine Worldwide, which makes Hush Puppies shoes.

Pangborn believes that businesses need art. "Design is one of the most critical assets for companies," he says. "Company logos, themes, annual reports, image--those help to communicate a company's mission. Design helps to define what a company is."

Much of his success comes from making the most of what he calls "happy accidents," such as the time a textile client asked him to design some neckties. The client loved them. Today, thousands of Pangborn's colorful, dapper ties--available at Nordstrom, Saks Fifth Avenue, Marshall Field's, and other department stores--spruce up workday attire.

So what does it take to be both an inspiring artist and a skilled business person? '"When I am talking to a client," says Pangborn, "I understand their financial needs. Their objective is to make money."

Dave Richards, chief executive of Golf Marketing Services in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., met Pangborn when they were working on a project to create an image for a golf course. "The guy goes way beyond what anyone expects him to do," says Richards. "Everything he thinks about and creates is fresh."

Pangborn is also an advocate of community involvement His Wellnesswear line, available at Saks Fifth Avenue and through mail order, includes ties, teddy bears, cummerbunds, bow ties, and more. All proceeds from the line go to the Wellness House in Detroit to benefit people with HIV or AIDS.

Diversification plays a major role in the house of Pangborn. In October he opened the Heritage Gallery at his River Town headquarters to exhibit the works of Detroit-area artists. In addition, he maintains a tiny gift shop on site where shelves brim with colorful Pangborn-designed china and tableware.

Rising above dilapidated, abandoned buildings and potholed streets, the building that houses Pangborn Design--it used to be a factory for plating refrigerator racks--has become every artist's dream. "People are shocked when they walk in here," says Pangborn. It's his own Disney World.

Megan Swoyer is a free-Lance writer in Troy, Mich.