Chris Davies: Strong communication starts with the courage to say less
A design nudge in communication design is a way of guiding people through information hierarchy and progressive disclosure, without overwhelming them. On websites, that means clarity before completeness. What people do not need right away steps back.
Companies have more content than ever before. Products, services, data, audiences and messages continue to grow. The biggest challenge is no longer communicating more. It is deciding what actually matters.
That is exactly where „The CSE Website“ stands out. The platform serves investors, listed companies, traders, regulators and international stakeholders at once. Rather than creating separate messages for every audience, Dog and Pony Studios built one overarching communication idea that connects them.
„A lot of people look at communication design as a place where you are producing, but good communication design is about reducing,“ explains Chris Davies (Founder and CEO, Dog and Pony Studios). „Emotionally, you get about 1.5 seconds to connect.“ Accordingly, everything people do not need right away disappears. What is left is communication that resonates emotionally and intellectually. Because time is the scarcest resource.
“Good communication design is about reducing.“
One Idea Connects Many Audiences
The key point is this. The hardest problem was not the interface, but the shared story. The Canadian Securities Exchange speaks to completely different audiences. Creating a separate story for each one would have made the platform fragmented and unnecessarily complex.
Dog and Pony Studios chose a different approach. Instead of starting with the audience, they started with the brand core. The result was the positioning „Always Invested“, a message that works in different ways for different people.
- Investors invest capital.
- Companies invest in growth.
- The exchange is invested in its listed companies.
- Traders are invested in decisions.
Davies puts it plainly: „You have to capture the biggest and most important idea that the brand has to offer.“
Stories Beat Personas
Great communication does not come from demographics. It comes from a story people can repeat. Many processes begin with personas, audience matrices and detailed demographic analysis. Davies believes that is often where things go wrong: “If you look at demographic analysis for too long, you end up creating a persona, but that persona is not a person.“ Of course, it matters to understand who you are talking to. What matters even more is telling a real story.
His advice: “Focus less on lists of characteristics and more on telling a real story.“ The CSE website shows how powerful this can be. Even with diverse audiences, the platform feels consistent, intuitive and easy to understand because everyone understands the same story.
“Focus less on lists of characteristics and more on telling a real story.“
Financial markets are built on numbers, charts, tables and data. At first glance, that does not sound like storytelling. Davies sees it differently. Data tells stories too. The role of communication design is to make those stories visible, in a language each audience instinctively understands.
What Is the One Idea That Makes Your Brand Unforgettable?
The German Design Awards recognise projects that solve complex challenges through design clarity. The Canadian Securities Exchange website shows that outstanding communication design is not about saying more. It is about making the most important things impossible to miss.
If your project offers new answers to the challenges of our time, now is the moment: register for the German Design Awards 2027, present your work to an international jury, and become part of a global network of design excellence.
