The glowing age of celebrity endorsements is fading. Sure, large corporations still hand out millions to basketball players and pop stars to attach themselves to some level of current “cool,” but no savvy audience truly believes this is anything less than a financial transaction — a paid endorsement, dollars for smiles. Insert cash, and a celebrity will say whatever you like. But is this good or bad for your brand?
Our short musings on design, branding, business and the human condition.
I haven’t been in a comic book store in at least seven months. I get pubs electronically on my iPad now. I just happened by a comic book store last week, in Chicago’s Loop, and was drawn in. It’s a different experience.
Electronic everything is turning whole industries and business models on their heads. It happened to music. Publishing is the latest. But just because songs, stories and images can be served up on a screen and delivered much like their printed or published counterparts doesn’t mean that the entire experience is duplicated.
Browsing is different than searching. Searching is “need it today,” task oriented, goal-focused — all on the act of getting or acquiring, comparing or contrasting.
Browsing is different. It’s the longer, meandering road to the same destination. But along the way it introduces nuance, context, and the serendipity of discovery. Things look different when categorized in ways the don’t bend to the whim of user-generated search results or keyword association.
Magazine racks have context. Book stores have ambiance. Clothing displays create connection in ways that disassociated products do not. A thin layer of rich, nuanced, personal experience can often get stripped away if a brand isn’t careful. It takes smart people to understand the value of that experience and know when it can’t be replicated.
When you talk to startups, CEOs, and others, it seems like everyone wants to be the “next Apple,” “just like Nike,” or to do things “the way Starbucks does.” Admittedly, these companies are icons and have surpassed the competition to become larger-than-life brands, symbols that stand for things both larger and more sweeping than the commerce they generate. But it’s not like any of them pushed a magic icon button to make it all happen. There’s no road map to guaranteed iconic status, or our world would be vastly different, to say the least. But if we dissect these kinds of rockstar brands, and remove the lucky breaks, the passion, sweat equity, and visionary leaders, what is left? We believe there are some fundamental activities remaining that help illuminate the roads a brand must take to becoming an icon.
It’s not just the hipsters who are doing it. Analog seems to be making a comeback. LP sales are climbing, people are resurrecting Polaroid-style film, preserving wooden type, buying vintage furniture and old-style printing with a vengeance. These are all natural reactions to seismic changes in technology and the ways in which we interact with objects. We can understand these sometimes-oddball interests and activities if they’re viewed through the lens of history. For hundreds — nay, thousands of years, human beings have interacted with physical objects and spaces in a particular way, whether it was hoeing in a dusty Nebraskan field, or signing a paper contract. But then digital devices arrived on the scene, and voila! Things have changed.
Our short musings on design, branding, business and the human condition.
Some people think strategy in design isn’t sexy, but that’s just wrong. You have to know how to see the beauty in purposeful design choices and methods. Great aesthetics without strategic underpinnings are like frosting on a meatloaf. Strategy isn’t sexy like the tipsy girl who flirts with you at the bar. Strategy is the sexy you bring home to meet your Mom.
We collaborated on a touchscreen presentation for Humana, alongside Edelman, Re:Think Post, Grow Interactive, and Humana’s internal team. More details in our portfolio.
Halloween is a hoot — let’s just get that out of the way. But for a seemingly-superficial holiday (dress up and get candy/get drunk), there’s quite a bit going on behind the scenes culturally. And for those of us in the branding world, that’s even more intriguing than the sweets (though less delicious).
This Halloween, we’ve noted the increasing trend for Trick-or-Treaters and Halloween partygoers to forego the traditional fun and/or scary character costumes, and don brand-specific consumer product attire for their once-a-year holiday getups. More and more Xbox consoles, Hershey Bars, Facebook pages, iPhones, and Schlitz beer bottles are sprouting arms and legs each year.
Like a plot twist gone astray, the streaming film company, Netflix, has once again befuddled customers by reversing course with a recent brand announcement. Weeks ago, Netflix announced its intention to divide its streaming and physical mail business units into two separate entities, while simultaneously apologizing for recent price hikes. This effort was intended to kick off the renamed DVD mail service, christening it Qwikster. Apparently, public outcry and common sense won the day, as Netflix backtracked and rejiggered its plans.
This on-again, off-again game of brand Twister has damaged the Netflix name and its brand cache. While we can only guess at the business reasons that motivated these decisions, it’s plain to see how Netflix shot itself in the foot from a brand perspective.
At Hexanine, we believe it’s important to help nurture the next generation of designers, and that’s why we’re involved in mentorship and teaching. Also, we benefit from brushing up against the passion and growth of young designers, and find we get almost as much out of the experience as our students. To that end, we also like to occasionally showcase the standout work of our students here at our blog.
So, as part of Tim’s Brand Standards and Identity class at Chicago Portfolio School, here are identity redesign projects from two students, Diane Johns and Megan King.
Megan has redesigned the logo for the DVD/Blu-Ray publishers, Criterion. She’s done a great job customizing and streamlining an existing typeface for wordmark use, and subtly works in the traditional “widescreen” proportions as part of her mark.
And Diane has reimagined Barnes & Noble with her own redesign. This clever mark is cobbled together from typographic punctuation, with an approachable, offbeat style for 21st century reading.
Great work all the way around, ladies!
