Terry,
I have problems with your economic analysis of your suggested business model for graphic design. But even if it did make sense in the end, getting from here to there strikes me as not just daunting but an implausible journey.
A more basic problem is that you have misidentified the nature and value of graphic design. Your description of "outcomes" even misses the point for engineering. A bridge not falling down may be an outcome but it's not THE outcome, i.e., it's not the reason anyone has a bridge designed. The bridge not falling down is damned important but it's not the point.
The equivalent to the bridge not falling down for a graphic design project might be the product name being able to be read on a package from a given distance under typical store lighting conditions. Nobody says "Let's hire a graphic designer to get our product name readable from 12 feet at 80 lux by a typical 45 year old." That's incidental. The main point is to convey some set of ideas or foster some set of beliefs about the product. (And, by the way, you have to be able to read the label.)
Nobody ever paid to have a bridge built with the goal of having a bridge not fall down. If your goal is to have a bridge not fall down, the best way to do that is to not have a bridge in the first place. The proximate goal is to allow traffic to get across some obstacle. The real goal is to, say, allow people to get to a commercial area where they will spend money and increase the tax base (which will, in turn, pay for the bridge.)
So saying "You need to guarantee that this label will sell 20% more product" to a graphic designer is like telling an engineer "You need to guarantee that this bridge will increase sales tax receipts in the downtown area by 15%." The graphic design equivalent to saying "You need to guarantee that the bridge will carry 45% more traffic at average speeds in excess of 40 kph" is saying "You need to guarantee that 75% more people will describe the product as 'fresh and fruity' in a test that gives the following five choices of phrases. . ."
Gunnar
Gunnar Swanson
East Carolina University
graphic design program
http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cfac/soad/graphic/index.cfm
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Gunnar Swanson Design Office
1901 East 6th Street
Greenville NC 27858
USA
http://www.gunnarswanson.com
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+1 252 258-7006
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