Branded collaborations still define retail innovation

Originally published for Fast Company Impact Council. The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of top leaders and experts who pay dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership, and more.

Branded collaborations still define retail innovation

In today’s retail climate, these partnerships can powerful—if done right.

09-09-2025

By Ben Wintner 

In 1999, a new kettle changed everything.

It was blue, bold, and sold at Target—not in a design boutique, not in a museum shop, and not in a luxury department store. This wasn’t just a new product launch, though. It was the beginning of a seismic shift in how design, retail, and brand partnerships operate. This was the first time a high-end design firm joined hands with a mass market retailer. Suddenly, “Design for All” wasn’t our tagline; it was a new strategic ethos.

Today, nearly every major retailer has experimented with design collaborations. But despite the proliferation of partnerships, only a select few have truly moved the needle. Why? Because great collaborations don’t start with a product. They start with a shared philosophy and deep strategy.

The blueprint: What we learned at Target

Michael Graves Design’s groundbreaking partnership with Target wasn’t successful just because the products were beautiful and affordable. It worked because both organizations came to the table fully committed with complementary strengths: Target had retail scale and marketing mastery; MGD brought world class design and user empathy. Together, we created something neither could have done alone.

This wasn’t about “us and them;” it was about “we and together.” We were both going to Design for All. MGD wasn’t a vendor. Our designers became extensions of Target, embedded within their merchandising, sourcing, product development, and marketing workflows. That cross-functional integration was radical at the time. Today, it’s more widely understood as essential.

Collaboration is a structure, not a slogan

At Michael Graves Design, we’ve taken what we learned and turned it into a method that we use with all partners. Our Direct-to-Retail Partnership Guide outlines a rigorous, multi-phase approach, from early benchmarking and ethnographic research to final prototype approvals and packaging integration. Often, MGD’s role is to demonstrate to siloed organizations the importance of cross-functional collaboration throughout the entire product development process. 

This approach leads to enhanced efficiency, broad cultural buy-in, and authentic innovation. Five key elements of our process include:

• Shared discovery: We start by collaborating with our partner’s merchant teams to identify product categories and individual items ripe for innovation, using methods like in-store interviews and ethnographic research to recognize product opportunity gaps. We involve marketing teams in the consumer research to ensure that the consumer’s voice makes its way into marketing messaging.

• Integrated ideation: Retail merchant teams weigh in on the hero products and feature sets for each category, becoming the primary focus for our ideation and presentation. To make selections among alternative design directions, we use mood boards, sketching, 3D modeling, 3D printing, and renderings.

• Collaborative vendor engagement: All product designs change during the design-for-manufacture (DFM) phase, driven by manufacturing optimization methods. Design deliverables include detailed 2D and 3D documentation, specification packets, and brand books to eliminate ambiguity; but once the factories get involved, designs always evolve. As the design partner, we ensure design intent and innovation is maintained. Ideally, we loop in vendors and factories early, to partner in feasibility and optimization, and account for factory capabilities, tariff efficiency, vendor matrix, and other factors. With early engagement, factories become true partners, open to experimentation and spurring innovation.

• End-to-end packaging and messaging: From design to social media standards, we ensure the design voice carries through every marketing touchpoint, the true genius of so many national retailers.

This process works because it’s designed around learning, trust, cocreation, and an established division of responsibility, emphasizing each party’s truest strengths.

Retail today: The stakes are higher than ever

Retail today is hypercompetitive. Consumers want products featuring original design and functional enhancements reflecting their own values. This is a high standard, which means standing out is harder and more important now. Legacy retailers are not just competing with one another; they’re competing with direct-to-consumer brands, Amazon, and global marketplaces that redefine convenience and choice. This is why design collaborations remain essential for retailers.

When done right, exclusive design collections carry meaning beyond price. They create items that shoppers can’t find anywhere else, brand differentiation, drive repeat foot traffic, and foster deep emotional connections with consumers. That’s where a direct-to-retail design collaboration becomes a powerful strategic asset. It delivers the prestige of a national brand with the economic structure of a private label. Design brands bring national brand cache, elevated aesthetics, and the cultural relevance of good design, while enabling factory direct sourcing that supports retailer margin goals. It allows retailers to tell the marketing story with gusto.

This hybrid model provides retailers with tools to build customer experiences that are both inspiring and financially sound.

What most collaborations get wrong

Too many collaborations fail because they’re either surface-level PR plays or hierarchical vendor relationships dressed up as partnerships. A true design partnership means sharing a vision and committing to it, listening to each other’s expertise, and building something together across all departments for both partners.

It also means that a design partner is not a “vendor” in the traditional sense. They are an extension of the merchant and product development team. It is a modern model where external creativity and strategic insight enhance efficiency and relevance. That requires a new mindset, especially for legacy retailers accustomed to more transactional models.

Design for All, still

As consumer expectations evolve and the retail landscape transforms again, the question isn’t whether to collaborate. It’s how. And the answer, we believe, still lies in the art of the direct-to-retail design partnership, because when design and retail truly partner, something remarkable happens.

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