What’s In A Brand?

This past weekend, I became engaged in a conversation with several friends on Twitter regarding Nabisco’s apparent redesign of the Oreo and Ritz brands’ packaging. I was not too surprised at my nearly irrationally vehement reaction against the redesign, for both aesthetic (i.e., “ZOMG the redesigns are sooooo flat and soulless and hideously awful!”) and purely practical (i.e., “Why was this necessary?! WHY?! Were they broken?!”) reasons. My reaction reminded me rather a lot of my reactions to the Peter Arnell-orchestrated rebrandings of Pepsi and Tropicana in late 2008 and early 2009 (although I will concede that those two reactions were far more vehement than mine to Nabisco’s recent foible). The discussion got me thinking not only about the reasons why and when a particular brand chooses to even entertain the (always costly and usually risky) venture of rebranding, but also about our relationships to brands (and even the very concept of brands) in general, as a society and as individuals.

Perhaps not coincidentally, this weekend also saw the resurgence of a particularly thought-provoking blog meme started last year by advertising industry blogger Jane Sample, who published a humorous and engaging graphic representation of all of the major brands with which she came into contact throughout the course of one day. The piece was published one year ago to this day, and I remember reading it last May (and reading the ensuing comments and plethora of other advertising and media industry bloggers’ versions of their own Brand Timeline Portraits) and placing it as a line item on that List Of Fun Personal Projects That Atherton Bartelby Somehow Never Seems To Get Accomplished. This weekend, however, thanks to a revival of Sample’s original post by the Rocketboom blog, and an additional mega-boost from a reblogged mention by Linkage King Jason Kottke, the “Brand Timeline Portrait” meme has been, as Alan Wolk noted today, entirely reanimated.

So I brushed off my epic “To Do” list and recorded my own Brand Timeline Portrait today.

Brand Timeline Portrait Of Atherton Bartelby

I’m really glad that I took the time to do it, and to reflect on how it looks, on what it says about me, and also on what it means about brands in general. Because not only does it tell me a lot about the differences in my life now versus if I had completed it when I first saw it last year, but it presents me and others who see it with a timeline of my experiences, a visual narrative of not only my daily life, but of me as a person. In some ways, the brands represent me more individually than do the color of my hair or my green eyes; in others, they evoke a striking sense of community, i.e., they’re not only my brands, but those of my agency’s colleagues who share my work space, of the other New Yorkers who take the same forms of branded transportation as do I, or even, for that matter, of those who live in the same branded city as do I. Brands are, or can become, as much of an integral part of our individual and collective consciousness as our experiences, or of our very memories. So I don’t suppose a vehement consumer reaction to a seemingly unnecessary rebranding, that has at first glance been executed with little or no thought given to the previous brand experience that has been shared by so many different individuals, is really so very surprising.

Obviously, much thought goes into any rebranding initiative or redesign. I in no way mean to imply that all rebranding campaigns are executed with no thought whatsoever paid to the brand and to how its consumer base will receive its new identity, beyond the initial studies of profits or the eye-roll-inducing evangelizations of the “Personal Branding Experts” on Twitter. But I do think that, more often than not, rebranding initiatives get a bit too caught up in themselves, a bit too blinded to the products’, well, connections to a vast group of other human beings, a bit too ignorant of the hearts, souls, and experiences that consumers have invested in the brands themselves.

Because brands are not just products, or logo artwork, or packaging, or pixels and vectors and typography arranged nicely (or not so nicely) in space and time. Brands represent shared experiences. And brands (and rebranding) shouldn’t always only be considered from a profit standpoint, or from the standpoint of failed artists who are now ad men and attempting to impose their own aesthetics on products that are not only parts of their own experience, but parts of the collective experience of the rest of the society that consumes them, as well. Because brands are not just about profit (or shouldn’t be); they’re about hearts, souls, and memories, as well.

It turns out there’s an awful lot in a brand. And it would behoove a lot of people, particularly those who are directing and manipulating them, to keep this in mind.

Filed under: Blogging, Design, Editorials, Personal , advertising, Brand Timeline Portrait, branding, history, identity, Jane Sample, linkage, memes are beneath me, memories, Nabisco, Oreo, packaging, Pepsi, Peter Arnell, representation, Ritz, Tropicana, twitter

In Praise Of The Pixel Pushers

Design by Hannah Ljung - Grafisk Utbildningsfonden - Uppsala Sweden

I first became aware of the significant importance of visual communication the day I helped banish all art on my college campus.

It was during my sophomore year of my undergraduate schooling, when, as a member of both the lesbian, gay, and bisexual student group, as well as the AIDS awareness student group, I assisted in the implementation of Visual AIDS‘ Day Without Art, in observance of World AIDS Day. Launched on the first day of December in 1989, the observance (since renamed “Day With(out) Art”) was intended to make the public aware that AIDS can touch everyone, and in order to inspire positive action, some 800 art and AIDS groups in the United States participated, shutting down museums, sending staff to volunteer at AIDS services, and sponsoring special exhibitions of work about AIDS. On my college’s campus, we raided the theatre department’s stash of black fabric, and covered nearly the entire campus with it, draping every sculpture, every art installation, and every painting (even the portraits that were displayed in the administration building of our college’s founder and of his wife, our school’s namesake) in the heavy black cloth.

On a campus such as ours, noted for its art and artists, it was a visually arresting display of how much a part of our daily lives art actually was; it was profoundly compelling, to see all of those expansive swatches of black fabric obfuscating the art that was all around us.

Years later, having graduated from college and fallen rather unexpectedly into a career of graphic design, the importance of visual communication was made abundantly clear to me once again, upon my first reading of what is still one of my most treasured essays on the practice of graphic design, by designer Jessica Helfand. Although excerpts from this essay appear in many places throughout this blog, it seems fitting to repeat them here, again, today, on the anniversary of the founding of Icograda, the International Council of Graphic Design Associations, and on the 15th annual observance of World Graphics Day.

Graphic design is everywhere, touching everything we do, everything we see, everything we buy: we see it on billboards and bibles, on taxi receipts and on websites, on birth certificates and on gift certificates, on the folded circulars tucked inside jars of aspirin and on the thick pages of children’s chubby board books.

Now, as a jaded designer who has practiced the craft of graphic design for nearly fifteen years, this passage may read like a no-brainer. Of course graphic design is everywhere, all around us, communicating its messages to us either explicitly or, if it is done very well, implicitly. However, as a designer who was relatively new to his field when he first read this essay, its message was one of awesome importance; it is not every day that one realizes what a profoundly privileged place one inhabits, when their career is entirely about the effective communication of messages, both textually and visually.

This realization was almost as powerful for me, if not more, than the realization of how profoundly important art was in my everyday life, on that first Day Without Art of years before.

Graphic design is the most ubiquitous of all the arts. It responds to needs at once personal and public, embraces concerns both economic and ergonomic, and is informed by numerous disciplines, including art and architecture, philosophy and ethics, literature and language, politics and performance.

It is this power, this special, ubiquitous nature of graphic design and visual communication, and its ability to effect change in the world around us, that Icograda’s World Graphics Day celebrates. Informed by and informing countless disciplines and practices, design and its designers wield the power to effect change in equally countless arenas of daily life. We see this power in TEDTalks that link design to technology and innovation; in the branding and rebranding of corporations, products, and services; in the efforts of designers to practice their crafts with gazes toward the future, and sustainability; and in the work of experience designers, designing to effect change in the way in which an audience interacts with content on the Internet.

Graphic design is a popular art, a practical art, an applied art, and an ancient art. Simply put, it is the visualization of ideas.

Ideas that, when executed effectively, may facilitate real change. Everywhere. And all around us.

I am aware, on a nearly daily basis, of how fortunate I am, and of how proud I feel, to be able to call myself a designer, and to practice the art that I practice.

But it is on this day, every year since I first became aware of this design “holiday,” that my pride swells just a little bit more than usual.

Happy World Graphics Day!

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NOTE: The above-quoted passages are excerpted from Jessica Helfand’s stellar essay, “Paul Rand: The Modern Designer,” which appears in Screen: Essays on Graphic Design, New Media, and Visual Culture.

Filed under: Art, Books, Design, Editorials, Events, Personal , defining moments, egreetings, history, Icograda, Jessica Helfand, linkage, memories, needful reminders, World Graphics Day

Oh My Ears And Whiskers

Tod Kapke Foto Illustration Design - Bunnies

Very early this morning I remembered an Easter Sunday tradition in my childhood home. My mother would put some beautiful, moving piece of music on the record player (usually, in honor of springtime, Clément Philibert Léo Delibes’ Lakmé, and in particular its Sous le dôme épais section), and spend an hour or so introducing me to artists and art movements from her impressive collection of art history books, in the morning sunlight of our sitting room. This was not, of course, the only time of the year my mother did this, but for some reason, for me, it was always the most memorable. (Perhaps this had not a little to do with the anticipation of her expansive culinary presentation of the family’s Easter brunch, immediately following the seemingly endless Episcopalian Easter Sunday liturgy that always occurred after our early morning art history lessons.)

So I was delighted to stumble upon, this morning, while attempting to continue my little family tradition all by myself, the work of Denver-based illustrator / photographer / designer Tod Kapke, via one of my favorite art blogs, My Love For You Is A Stampede Of Horses. (Perhaps not only coincidentally, I discovered Kapke’s portfolio site just as Delibes’ Sous le dôme épais began playing on my Last.fm radio station.) Of course I knew immediately that the dark tones of one of Kapke’s “Bunny” pieces would be an excellent eGreeting from Curious Affairs for a, well, a “curiously” happy Easter to those who celebrate it. But I was also deeply impressed by Kapke’s creative process, which he illustrates in great detail on the Process page of his portfolio site. I always enjoy discovering fellow visual artists whose process is as involved as my own, so even Kapke’s process sketches were a joy to wander through.

It was a lovely way to spend this very early Easter Sunday dawn: continuing traditions begun seeming lifetimes ago.

I wish all of you the same kind of inspiration this morning, whether you celebrate Easter, or, like me, will once again be skipping the seemingly endless Episcopalian Easter Sunday liturgy, yet enjoy revisiting the traditions and memories that are invoked by the day, all the same.

Filed under: Art, Design, Music, Personal, Photography , bunnies, delibes, egreetings, family, history, linkage, love each day, memories, needful reminders, opera, process, tod kapke

10 Design Thinkers To Follow On Twitter

Not Your Average Twitter Listicle

I was inspired recently by GrainEdit’s curated list of designers to follow on Twitter. I admire it because it not only includes the “Design Rock Stars” as one would expect (@ilovetypography, @DesignObserver, et al.), but also highlights some truly amazing designers who are currently doing some truly awesome work. So, for this week’s #followfriday phenom on Twitter (in which I do not usually participate, and when I do attempt to do so it seems, to me, to be entirely awkward and therefore inorganic), I thought I would put my own spin on recommending designer-ly types to follow on Twitter.

I employ the completely made-up term “designer-ly” because not all of the individuals on my list are graphic designers. But since, as a designer myself, I always gravitate toward those thinkers and designers who speak on a variety of topics (because, really, design inspiration can come from anywhere), I decided to highlight those individuals whose content inspires me. I also tried to select “designer-ly” Twitterers who maintain impressive blogs and / or websites, as well, and whose Twitter streams augment their excellent thoughts on design, art, or technology as presented in their forums that go well beyond Twitter’s 140 character confines. Lastly, I sought to focus on those thinkers who tend to be more engaging with their followers on Twitter, and not only follow / engage with the “Twitter Design Elite”; I am not criticizing those who do this, but I personally get more out of following design thinkers when they actively engage with their audiences.

With that, I give you my top choices for the “10 Design Thinkers To Follow On Twitter”.

@brainpicker

Maria Popova of Brain Pickings

I have been a huge fan of Maria’s for awhile, and have written of my admiration of her blog before in this space, but my love of her content bears repeating. Brain Pickings “picks culture’s collective brain” for innovation, inspiration, and brilliant ideas, and Maria’s Twitter stream follows this up with bite-sized bits of brilliance on art, culture, design, photography, sustainability, technology, and, of course, all things TED. She is an awesome resource for inspiring some very heavy “outside of the box” thinking about design, innovation, and the inter-connectedness of ideas.

@changeorder

David Sherwin of ChangeOrder

David Sherwin’s ChangeOrder is an amazing resource because it focuses on the business and process of design in a way that makes its content truly accessible to all designers, not only to Creative Directors or Principals. His articles never fail to inspire thought concerning the business side of design, and allow one to see the design process not only from the design side, but from the all-important client side, as well. All of this amazing insight is, of course, nicely supplemented by David’s Twitter stream, which is a resource I could not imagine being without.

@darrylohrt

Darryl Ohrt of Brandflakes For Breakfast

As the most recognizable online voice from the greatest agency in all of the land, Plaid, it would be an egregious error on my part if I did not include Darryl’s Twitter stream and Plaid’s blog in my list of most valuable Twitter design resources. With a sense of humor, frankness, and shockingly accurate eye for detail and all things branding, Darryl consistently delivers the best of what internet culture, pop culture, good design, and branding trends have to offer. Pair that with an amazing attention to how (and how well) companies are using social media to their (dis)advantages, and you have, well, one of the greatest Twitter streams in all of the land.

@hellyeahdude

Patrick Algrim of Hell Yeah Dude

I remain a longtime fan of Patrick’s Hell Yeah Dude, which was initially launched as a forum to which young authors trying to break into the design world could contribute their own thoughts, beliefs, and topics concerning design and the design process. Hell Yeah Dude has, through numerous incarnations, retained this contributory, collaborative focus, and it is one of my top go-to sites for fresh design ideas and perspectives. Patrick’s Twitter stream is an excellent supplement, focusing on design, art, Chicago, and the web with refreshing insight.

@jackcheng

Jack Cheng of JackCheng.com

I first began following Jack Cheng’s work and ideas back in October of 2008, when I read his article, “I am my own boss (and so can you!),” published on his site. A former copywriter and UX / web design lead, Jack has an amazing talent for conveying innovative ideas concerning design, writing, working, and living in a way that I find very engaging and useful in my own life and work as a designer and thinking visual artist. His Twitter stream also never fails to give one pause with its ideas and textual images painted in less than 140 characters.

@jomc

Joanne McNeil of Tomorrow Museum

The Tomorrow Museum is a collection of images and speculative essays exploring how technology, science, and economics are affecting the fine arts. Curated and written by science and technology writer Joanne McNeil, the original essays themselves, as well as the curated links in the blog’s “Asides” column, always inspire one with their observations of how technology, science, and the web inform the processes of creative thinking and artistic production. Additionally, Joanne’s Twitter stream augments the blog with a characteristic wit and keen eye, and should definitely not be missed.

@kitsunenoir

Bobby Solomon of Kitsune Noir

I discovered Bobby Solomon’s rather excellent blog collection of links to and ruminations on all imaginable goodness related to art, design, fashion, film, and music via the previously-referenced list of top Twitter designers compiled by GrainEdit, and I am so glad I did. Bobby has an amazing eye for all kinds of visual and aural awesomeness, and presents them with a wit and candor that make reading and seeing them all the more enjoyable. One should follow his equally engaging and informative Twitter stream to remain abreast of all of the action occurring on Kitsune Noir.

@michaelSurtees

Michael Surtees of DesignNotes

I cannot imagine anyone remotely related to design being unfamiliar with Michael Surtees’ DesignNotes, but if for some unexplainable reason one is, one should rectify that immediately. Michael writes widely on graphic design and all things visual with a candor and frankness that I find refreshing in the arena of design writing. He has a unique eye for finding interesting sites, projects, and events online and in New York City (and chronicles them in his impressive weekly Link Drops), and can always be counted on for unique, innovative content, both on his blog and in his Twitter stream.

@rbtlshow

Aaron Heth (@aaronheth) and Matt McInerney (@mattmc) of Read Between The Leading

One of the great new resources that I recently began following is Read Between The Leading, a podcast that focuses on graphic design and typography, and produced by two extremely passionate design students at the Savannah College of Art & Design. The two designers have produced some amazing episodes thus far, including interviews with Glenn Garriock of FormFiftyFive and John Boardley of ILoveTypography, and never fail to direct thought-provoking questions toward their interviewees or other design topics. Their show’s Twitter stream is a must-follow resource for anyone interested in design on any level.

@serial_consign

Greg J. Smith of Serial Consign

Greg’s truly amazing site and more casual yet still truly amazing Twitter stream are in my top list of immediate go-tos for design brain candy. A designer and researcher interested in media theory and digital culture, Greg’s work focuses on how “contemporary information paradigms affect representational and spatial systems”. What this means is that one can always be inspired to think about design in vastly different ways once one reads Greg’s take on design as manifested in illustration, information design, visualization, and writing. Another definite must-follow.

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There are many, many other impressive designer-ly thinkers on Twitter, to be sure, and I follow a lot (but by no means all) of them. Do you follow anyone on Twitter (“designer-ly” or not) who you consider to be a “must-follow”? If so, leave some tips in a comment so that I and others can check them out!

Filed under: Art, Blogging, Design, Net Culture, Technology, Typography, Web Design, Writing , 31 days, a-list, being servicey, follow friday, linkage, listicles, lists, twitter

31 Days To A Better Curious Affairs?

Atherton Bartelby Considers Print Collateral Differently With MOO

Rather early this morning, beset, as usual, with a withering case of insomnia, I began tinkering with MOO cards, and, subsequently, with considering some things in new, different ways. As one who could be considered at times an irrationally staunch traditionalist when it comes to print design, I had never quite bought into the services that MOO offers, namely, the economical design and printing of customized business cards, “minicards,” postcards, and other collateral print products. My opinion, of course, had always been along the lines of, “I already know how to design my own materials for print, and I know how to broker a good production deal, so why should I ever require the services of a site like MOO? Pfft!” However, after working more on my blog’s redesign, to be launched in tandem with my redesigned portfolio site, I began playing with MOO this morning as a fun way to explore more economical ways of promoting my blog and brand with print media.

And I discovered that, by approaching the thought of using MOO’s services with a different perspective, I actually quite enjoyed the process of designing my pieces on its site. Now, I rather look forward to using MOO when it comes time to announce Curious Affairs 3.0 (or whatever version number it has risen to at this point, after over six years of its existence).

I realized, suddenly, that considering things from a different perspective was, in fact, a very good thing.

So it did not surprise me when, after awakening from a Disco Nap later in the morning, I read my friend and fellow blogger AV Flox’s post “Ready, Set, Blog!“, I initially scoffed, and then, following a few minutes of thinking about it, quickly registered for the challenge about which she had blogged. The challenge in question, Darren Rowse’s (a.k.a. “ProBlogger“) “31 Days To Build A Better Blog,” is a biennial challenge to all bloggers to actively improve their blogs. I initially scoffed because my opinions regarding blogging tips have very much mirrored mine regarding MOO. Much as I used to think that being a well-seasoned designer meant that I did not require MOO’s services, I also thought, “I have been blogging for over six years; I am rather certain that I do not need any pointers. Pfft!” However, I once again thought about approaching familiar things with a new perspective, from a different angle, and immediately registered for Rowse’s month-long series of theories and tasks, because, why not? As a blogger who has been toying with changing the format of his blog for many months now, and who is most certainly still attempting to decide on more focused and organized (yet still dynamic) blog content, Rowse’s instruction could certainly do nothing but aid me in my quest to improve my blog. Hopefully, his challenge will infuse Curious Affairs with some new direction, and a bit of much-needed vitality. At the very least, it should prove a rewarding way to generate some new and interesting content, and form some new and productive habits, via a “Blogging Teacher” whose innovative methods and ideas I have always admired.

So, I am “all in” for The ProBlogger Challenge.

Are you?

Filed under: Blogging, Design, Net Culture, Writing , 31 days, a-list, alucina, being servicey, darren rowse, linkage, moo, needful reminders, problogger