Design Imperialism

“A key point of failure in today’s global design landscape lies precisely in the jargon — we need to invent new ways of writing, talking and thinking about concepts of “humanitarian design”; we need new language that doesn’t homogenize entire cultures, new vocabulary that better reflects the intricate lace of the world’s biocultural and psychosocial diversity as a drawing board for design.” Maria Popova on The Language of Design Imperialism. Insightful.

Of Frog Wines and Frowning Watches: Semantic Priming, Perceptual Fluency and Brand Evaluation

“Visual features that have no meaningful association with the product itself can actually make consumers like the product, provided that these features are something that the consumer can easily identify with.This means that critters on wine labels, however odd that may be, can be a good sales strategy. It allows a marketer to target a certain consumer by using images on labels that represent an important aspect of that customer’s life. Moreover, there are potentially many ways to make that label as unique as possible because a logo would be chosen based on who the target customers are and not on what that product is.” Building a Better Brand: How feelings shape product evaluation.

The Sins of St. Paul

“I did not know Paul Rand. I did not work for him or study under him. My understanding of his importance, then, has been gained in the same way as students and practitioners in years to come will gain theirs: through books like Modernist Design. (…) So it’s with some trepidation that I wonder if I might lodge a few complaints about Mr. Rand as a model for graphic design practice. But here goes.” M. Bierut on Paul Rand.

“Any design student could do a better job”

“I never knew a designer that got hundreds of thousands of dollars to design a logo. Mostly, designers get paid to negotiate the difficult terrain of individual egos, expectations, tastes, and aspirations of various individuals in an organization or corporation, against business needs, and constraints of the marketplace. This is a process that can take a year or more. Getting a large, diverse group of people to agree on a single new methodology for all of their corporate communications means the designer has to be a strategist, psychiatrist, diplomat, showman, and even a Svengali.
The complicated process is worth money. That’s what clients pay for. The process, usually a series of endless presentations and refinements, persuasions and proofs, results, hopefully, in an accepted identity design” What they don’t teach you about identity design by Paula Scher.

Steven Heller on Olympic Pictograms

Briefly and to the point (& video): Olympic Pictograms Through the Ages.

Quiet logos

“Lindstrom suggests that too much messaging on a product’s packaging can actually prevent a sale. Logos and words can engage the rational mind, causing people to actually think harder about making a purchase. It’s a counter-intuitive notion, but then think about the effectiveness of the quiet logos on a bottle of POM Wonderful pomegranate juice, or a Method product, or the entire Apple product line up.” The Myth of the Rational Buyer: How Too Much Thinking Can Hurt Your Brand

Meetings, the Google way

Not exactly on the main subject of this blog, but hey, branding actually IS about meetings. Meetings, the Google way:
1. Set a firm agenda. 2. Assign a note-taker. 3. Carve out micro-meetings. 4. Hold office hours.
5. Discourage politics, use data. 6. Stick to the clock. [via: supervolatile]

A Product is not a Brand

A Bain & Co. survey notes that 80 percent of CEOs believe that their product is differentiated, but only 8 percent of consumers agree. To truly stand out in the market, a product must embody the characteristics of its brand. (…) The first to market position is a market opportunity, not a brand strategy. A product is not a brand.

The Experience, stupid.

“Design beautiful experiences, not beautiful artifacts. Stop asking “what” and start asking “why”. Start with experience, end with experience. Genius will fail, wisdom will succeed. Become wise. Keep it simple. From design thinking to dynamic thinking. Let iteration direct your process: Work more rapidly, change more frequently. Have fun. Adapt your process to your design goals, not the other way around. Preserve the experience, not your own competency.” The Experience Imperative: A Manifesto for Industrial Designers by Ken Fry.
Plus: “Experience design is not a remedy that turns products into miracles that everybody likes. It will help you speaking more efficiently to your target group. To that end products needs to be simplified. The simpler the product the more character it has, the more likely it is to be rejected or accepted by a group of customers. To that end you need to know your customers and you need to test your designs with your customers.” iA: Can Expierience be designed?

On Designers

“Designers care. This is not always a good thing, and can, in fact, be annoying. Designers obsess so much about their work that it’s a wonder they ever let any finished project out the door. And they’re just as tough on everyone else’s work.” I feel excused now;). For other equally accurate features read: Four Things I’ve Learned About Designers by Warren Berger.