May 2, 2012

Architectural Signage

AN OBSESSIVE COMMENT ON TYPOGRAPHIC HISTORY

Each day as I drive home, I pass a corporate business office complex named the Old Mill and most every day I think about the same thing as I pass. Now, I’m the first to admit that designers can obsess about innocuous things that the general public could care less about, however I’ve got to get this off my chest—but first a little history in typography.

Roman letterforms are named such because they came from Rome. And I’m not talking about just the city in Italy; I’m talking about the Roman Empire. You know—when Caesar was the big man on campus about 2,000 years ago. The Romans perfected the thick and thin stroked serif letterforms named after them. (For the uninitiated, serifs are the little “feet” that terminate at the end of a stroke.) They carved these letterforms with perfection into Roman columns and monuments, and even adjusted the letters to compensate for optical aberrations when viewed by sandaled citizens strolling underneath.

Roman typefaces continued to be developed during the Renaissance through the 1700’s with many variations, but they still retain the same thick/thin/serif characteristics that define the category to this day.

About 100 years ago, the first sans serif typefaces made their appearance. As their name implies, they lack serifs. They have a more uniform stroke width. Sans serifs project a more modern look and are of more recent origin. Helvetica, the most popular sans serif—so popular that a movie was made about it— came out in 1957.

When choosing type, as the eminent typographer Robert Bringhurst said, “Choose a face whose historical echoes and associations are in harmony with the text.” Which gets us back to the Old Mill, the corporate business building I mentioned earlier. The building is a postmodern example of contemporary architecture, with interesting curved forms, column details and flying buttress-like features. Salt Lake-based VCBO Architecture designed the office complex for high-tech business use.

I don’t know who designed the logo for the Old Mill, but the thing that bothers me is the incongruity of logotype and the building itself. The logo uses a Roman typeface in caps and small caps, with a dropped initial “O”. The typestyle and layout are very traditional. The design is perfectly acceptable and would not seem out of place in the correct context. But if you’re choosing typefaces and designing a logo for a modern building, you should choose based on harmonious associations. Thus the use of a Roman typestyle, particularly with the idiosyncratic dropped “O”, seems completely out of character with the modern architecture.

Undoubtedly the logotype designer was influenced by the name of the building itself, which references an historic structure not far from the office complex. For myself however, it doesn’t justify the incongruity. I just want to see something more modern on that modern building. Yeah, I know this is obsessive. – Randall Smith

March 30, 2012

Human Emotions Connect People, Things & Brands

FUNCTION AND FORM ARE NOT ENOUGH

I’ve been a designer my entire career, but only in the last 10 years have I mixed strategic consulting together with creative services. It started in 2001 when I read the book, Emotional Branding by Marc Gobe. Subtitled “The New Paradigm for Connecting Brands to People”, the book was groundbreaking for the industry, and to me personally. I was particularly intrigued to learn that the author was a designer. I had somehow thought that designers didn’t write books on theoretical subjects like branding, instead, that they stuck to creating things.

The premise of Gobe’s book is that successful brands connect with people by harnessing the power behind human emotions. Since the book was written, the opportunity for dialogue between brands and their customers has increased dramatically. And yet emotional connections go way beyond the use of social media. Gobe says that in order for brands to become emotionally engaging, the following changes will need to take place:

10 Commandments of Emotional Branding by Marc Gobe

You can evaluate successful brands or designed artifacts and identify Gobe’s commandments one at a time. I remember the first few years after the iPod came out I found myself in New York City frequently. The cultural impact of that device was huge, particularly notable in a crowded urban environment. White ear buds stood out, especially in the subways and marked you as an owner of Apple’s newest product. The iPod provides value not only for its intended purpose—to play music, but with its recognizable ear buds, as a signifier (Commandments 2, 6) and also for its experiential value, as a user feels part of the iPod community (4, 5, 8). The device becomes a means to enhance the perceived value of the user by giving them an identity and a brand experience (2, 3, 7).

Even architecture has moved away from strictly functional and aesthetic purposes and is now being recognized for the renewal of cities, and is seen as a vehicle for transforming economic growth (1, 2, 8). Such is the case with major public works by “staritects”, who convert buildings into items of brand equity. Downtown Los Angeles is not a major tourist destination, and this fact certainly influenced the selection of Frank Gehry as architect of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Located in right in middle of downtown, Gehry’s building takes your breath away (at least it did mine). It’s not unlike the Salt Lake Public Library, designed in 2003 by Moshe Safdie and local VCBO Architecture, although it’s not quite as ostentatious as Gehry’s building. Today, architecture can be evaluated by its economic potential to heighten the perceived value of its owner—whether a city, a corporation or an individual (5, 7).

Clearly the prime branding tools of the day, Web sites, social media, identities and advertising have the obligation to connect emotionally with their intended audience. As Gobe says, “This strategy works because we all respond to our life experiences and we naturally project emotional value on to the objects around us.”

February 29, 2012

The Chairs Architects Design

The meaning lies somewhere between status and utilitarian

Historically, some of the most coveted modern chairs have been designed by architects, not furniture designers. The reason may have something to do with the simple accessibility of creating a chair. “You’re much freer designing furniture than a building,” said a contemporary architect. “You don’t have to worry about public safety issues, or keeping the rain out. It doesn’t demand a huge team, and lots of meetings.”

I teach design history. Graphic design, specifically, but we talk about architecture and product design as well. I’ve always been interested in chairs. The best chairs reveal something about their designer. They have a story to tell. For Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona chair or Le Corbusier’s LC2 chair, both designed in the late 20s, they are elegant and functional, but also a representation of a new architectural style emerging in the first half of the 20^th century, and the experimentation with innovative materials and construction methods. The early modernists had to design their own furniture to match their architecture; there weren’t other options available.

Like any designed object, chairs have been endowed with meaning. For the chairs of architects, the meaning lies somewhere between status/luxury and strictly utilitarian. Chairs designed by architects have multiple definitions of their purpose. They provide seating, but they are also a fashion accessory for the home or office.

Bauhaus designers claimed to want functional furniture, produced in high quantities for the working class masses, but Mies’s Barcelona chair was expensive to make and difficult to mass produce. It was, in fact, custom created and produced for the King and Queen of Spain. Today the chair is produced by Knoll and will run you around $6,300, making it as much a piece of art as a piece of furniture.  Gerrit Rietveld’s 1919 Red and Blue chair, made simply of painted wood and not as well known, (but still very much an artistic statement) fairs better at Cassina for $2,000.

The Italian architect and editor of Domus magazine, Ernesto Rogers made a famous statement in 1952 about the significance of design in the modern world. He said that it is possible to examine a spoon and understand the kind of city that the society that had produced it, would build. The slogan “from the spoon to the town” described the claim that an architect is able to switch effortlessly from tableware to skyscrapers in a heartbeat.

Whether that’s true or not, there’s no doubt the architects name is useful in selling their product. Look at how Design Within Reach includes the name and photo of nearly every product they sell, from contemporary designers back to Mies himself. The idea of branding designers’ products with a name and photo has even made it down to Ikea’s level of furniture.

What were once anonymous, modest, albeit useful objects have turned into designs of high desirability on the basis of the architect or designer’s name. The most obvious example is the remarkable output of the post-modernist architect Michael Graves, who had a 13 year collaboration with Target (ending this year), creating everything from spatulas to toilet plungers, most of them in his trademark blue color, with his photo on the package—certainly a brand in every sense of the word. You sometimes wonder what, if any, impact it has on the reputation of a respected architect to lend his name and image to such a wide output.

Complaints that architects’ chairs focus too much on form and too little on function are easy to find. One comment on blog post said, “Architects often make uncomfortable chairs. They want you to look good but you have to sacrifice comfort. Actually I think most architects who design these chairs prefer if you did not sit in them at all. Messes up the aesthetics.”

Despite the questions of comfort and questionability of personality branding, I am no less a consumer than anyone else, and I own or covet the very same things. At least I can claim to know what I’m getting into.

January 31, 2012

Simplify your Company’s Message

By Derek Boman

Recently I was on the phone with a man trying to explain my credit score. After one particular point of nonsense, I complained about the obvious complexity and backwardness of the system. He said, “I know, but that’s just the way it is.” The ridiculous conversation reminded me of a TED talk I once watched. Alan Siegel, of design firm Siegel+Gale, described a challenge issued by President Obama after signing the Credit Card Bill of Rights into law. The President challenged the credit card industry to create a consumer-credit agreement that everyone could understand and that took up only a single page. Siegel found the concept compelling, locked himself in a room, and designed the one-page document. He claims it has been tested and is legally sound.

Siegel calls on companies to use greater simplicity in their language. Visual language, including graphic design and branding, is as much a part of this language as verbal language. In fact, because images are experienced first they are arguably more important.

I’m currently working on a brochure that explains complex algorithms and formulas for a network-marketing compensation plan. We realized most people will not want to know all the nitty-gritty details, however a small minority will. By simplifying everything to visual metaphors and quick statements that are easy to understand, the result is a breathe of fresh air in a complex, over-hyped industry.

Our approach applied two lessons learned from the Internet.

1) A lot can be said in only 140 characters.
Messages about your company and its offerings must be made shorter and shorter or fewer and fewer people will listen.

2) Those who desire can simply click “learn more.”
Make the information accessible to those who really are interested but don’t lead with it. Ever. Make it available on your website somewhere but keep it indexible. No PDFs.

Steve Jobs once said, “It’s a very noisy world and we’re not going to get the chance for people to remember much about us. No company is. And so we have to be really clear about what we want them to know about us.”

Strong brands are easy to understand. Toms Shoes, Apple, Google, Nike are built around simple concepts; “One for One”, “Think Different”, “Don’t Be Evil”, “Just Do It”. Each stands out in their crowded industries. If you want people to pay attention to you, you need to be the breathe of fresh air in your industry.

Simplicity, though, is much easier said than done. Sometimes “simple”, when it has nothing of substance to say, is just boring and is easily dismissed. The trick is not to have simple ideas, rather complex ideas presented simply. Oliver Wendell Holmes is attributed to saying, “I wouldn’t give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity; I would give my right arm for the simplicity on the far side of complexity”. All industries are complicated and if you can be the one you can present complex ideas at their most basic level, you can be powerful.

January 13, 2012

Branded Environments

Up the emotional response by creating a brand space in 3D

A couple years ago our traditional biggest client, YESCO, asked us if we had any suggestions for them about new lines of business that they might logically pursue. YESCO stands for Young Electric Sign Company and as their name suggests, their primary business is custom electric outdoor signs. After some thought, I went back and said, “Branded Environments”. All right, maybe my answer wasn’t quite as succinct or elegant, but that’s what I meant.

Branding was traditionally defined in two-dimensions, with logos, typography, symbols and advertising, but now it penetrates the way we perceive and design spaces. Although branded environments as a field of practice grew out of interior design in the 1990s, a strong case can be made that it began with the Walt Disney Company in the 1950s. When they opened Disneyland they created the prototype for a completely immersive experience in a constructed brand environment. Every ride, each store—everything supports the brand and brand stories associated with the company. The experience of the user is paramount in such an environment, rather than the style and aesthetics of the architecture. The objective is to use space as a physical embodiment of the brand, to create a “brand space”.

Wikipedia sums up the practice nicely: “The practice of designing branded environments is often a research effort led by an interior designer or an architect, and may include a multi-disciplinary team of strategic consultants, brand development experts, marketing and communication consultants, and graphic designers. Particularly effective for retail, museum and exhibit design, branded environments can support the success of many organizational types, from corporate to institutional and educational. The designed environment can reflect or express the attributes of a community or the competitive advantages of a company’s product or service.”

Some architectural firms promote branded environments as a distinct discipline and claim “increased productivity and a better understanding of firm mission, vision and values.” The application in corporate environments isn’t quite as obvious as it is to retail environments. And yet the new proposed campus for Apple, at one of the last public appearances of Steve Jobs, undeniably fits with the corporate culture and attributes of the design-centric company.

The suggestion I made to my client YESCO didn’t allege quite that much, but I remember shortly thereafter sitting at lunch inside a Jimmy John’s restaurant. I tweeted about it, saying, “Jimmy John’s is just a Subway with better branding.”  The fast food company does a good job of taking the brand experience beyond outdoor identification, and I mentioned that to my client. A freestanding Jimmy John’s location nearby has been painted entirely flat black. The design inside picks up on the slab-serif typography of their logo and projects a retro feel in the choice of materials and color. The black color is used inside on menu boards and branded packages. Vintage-looking metal signs project a little attitude with “Do’s and Don’t’s”. Sandblasted glass proclaims “Gourmet sandwiches since 1983” and neon signs promote “Free Smells.”

You can argue that phony-retro-looking signs or materials are not real and such is the case with any staged environment, whether by Disney or Jimmy, but the resulting emotion in the user is very real.

December 6, 2011

Cars Are Little More than Brands on Wheels

The customer experience in the purchase of a new ride

I bought a new car a few weeks ago. Making purchasing decisions about vehicle brands is an interesting mix of personal and marketing forces. You consider, consciously or subconsciously, much more than just what car will get you from point A to B.

New cars offer surprisingly similar features and benefits. And further, we’ve come to expect near perfection in quality standards, no matter what we’re looking at. It’s like what Bernard Schmitt says in the book Experiential Marketing, “What they want are products, communications and marketing campaigns that dazzle their senses, touch their hearts and stimulate their minds.”

Being a designer, I obsess over details—cockpit controls, the musical interface, materials. The salesman looked at me a little weird when I told him I didn’t like the interior wood paneling, even it if was real. Design details like these, whether functional or not, are intended to provide a cue for an emotional response to the object.

Attention to detail is an integral part of up-market product design. But as Deyan Sudjic says in The Language of Things, “When cars perform equally well at either end of the price spectrum, the unintended consequence is that the key aspect in making the difference for a $40,000 car can be the $75 needed to make the driver’s iPod compatible with the car’s entertainment system. Amid all the work that has gone on in wind tunnels testing aerodynamic forms, on the fuel efficiency of the engine and on the lightening of the structure while retaining the car’s road-holding and crash-survival characteristics, the music system my seem little more that trivial. But it’s the details that create the sense of luxury.”

In the search to replace my 10 year-old car, I found myself engulfed in the customer experience, which of course was exactly what the marketers wanted to happen. I built customized cars online, I devoured the $6 brochures I had picked up from the dealer (without a test drive—at least at first), I reviewed the displays in the showroom, and I talked to others about their experiences.

It came down to two quite different car brands, but both owned by the same company: the Mini Cooper, and BMW. The Mini Cooper is a British icon of the ‘60s, with a form distinctive enough to successfully create a new category of object, which others eventually came to imitate. BMW bought the Mini Cooper brand and in 2001 and introduced a re-designed vehicle that has been marketed brilliantly, with unconventional, award-winning advertising and smart design.

The parent company, BMW, was one of the first carmakers to realize the importance of building a strong brand through different communication experiences. As Schmitt says, “They are not just selling a product—they are selling a whole complex of feelings and associations and experiences.” In 2001 and ’02 BMW introduced a series of short online films, produced by famous directors, which broke new ground in branded entertainment. This month the German automaker is pairing up with Paramount’s Tom Cruise movie Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol on TV, print, radio, Internet and dealership ads.

A friend of mine recently returned from Europe, and told me about his experience buying a new Beemer at BMW World. As explained by Alina Klingman in the book, Brandscapes, “BMW World was designed to be a holistic attraction where customers are immersed in an interactive brand experience and where they are encouraged to test-drive the latest models of BMW or pick up their newly purchased car. Effective both as a brand experience and as an icon, due to its unique architectural expression, BMW links its corporate identity to good design and high cultural values. BMW has had a long history of reflecting a certain vision and attitude through architecture and design.”

I told my modern8 associates that the BMW was the design history equivalent of the International or “Swiss Style” while the Mini, with its quirky looks and graphics was obviously Post-Modern. Although the Mini was undeniably fun to drive, in the end, I reverted to my International Style education and bought the BMW (one without wood paneling). Many would suggest that it is more appropriate for my age anyway, but I’d never let that stop me.

October 17, 2011

Caught-up in our own Web

Modern8 launches new website

Today marks the public launch of our new Website. It’s a complete overhaul and a dramatically different design strategy. With the recognition that we are living in a mobile, always-connected world, we created the site in a grid-based layout that changes automatically to fit different monitor sizes, whether on a smartphone, tablet or desktop.

On the desktop, the site neatly displays content in a columns that travel well horizontally using right and left arrows. The layout is a new way of visualizing web content that allows complexity to be hidden behind a clean grid. Some suggest the approach as a shift toward a more horizontally oriented Internet. The layout is also responsive to the size of the browser window. The new site serves our own marketing goals, but also reflects emerging trends and technologies that we use to solve the communication needs of our clients.

All the content of the site, whether blog, portfolio or our process, is now organized within a single, searchable, database-driven system. We designed and programmed the site entirely in-house with contributions by current and former employees. The design is dominated by our trademark chrome yellow color. The home page and portfolio emphasize our traditional focus on professional design service firms like architects and engineers.

A few samplings of what you might find on our new website. We chose wood type styles and layouts (Knockout, for you typophiles) for major headlines and relied on standard web fonts for sub-heads and body copy. In reference to the 30 years that Randall Smith has run his own design firm, the site shows off a selection of logos that go back to the 70’s. We used whimsical drawings to illustrate the vital 5d Perception Branding process, by which the design moves from strategy to physical reality.

September 13, 2011

Authenticity in Design

If you change perceptions are you being authentic?

Authenticity in design is an interesting concept. All design, by its very nature, is an exercise in persuasion. As someone once said, asking a designer not to persuade is like asking a fisherman not to fish, it’s what we’re trained to do. According to David Berman, author of Do Good Design, “Designers tend to underestimate how much power they have. They’re culpable.”

Authenticity is the hallmark of the brand platform recently approved by a new client of ours. We’re now in the middle of developing an identity. What’s our responsibility in designing a new logo for a company who defines itself using the word “authenticity”? Are we being authentic if we change perceptions as a result of what we do?

Last month I wrote about the importance of authentically reflecting the core values and culture of your organization in your brand—being true to who you really are. This is more accurately about our responsibility as creators of the brand experience.

A major new downtown shopping mall is being developed just one block away from our office. It’s replacing two former malls, which, when they were built, effectively destroyed the downtown shopping experience — currently there are no stores on Main Street. I’m all for the new mall, the city needs downtown shopping options. But I’m hoping the food court isn’t like you see in some new shopping malls where they try to duplicate the appearance of an authentic downtown with stuck-on Styrofoam architectural details.

I’m a fan of TED talks. (Who isn’t?) Recently I watched a speech by Joe Pine, co-author of Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want. He argues that consumers are yearning for authenticity, that in a world where you have to “confirm” whether friends are really friends on Facebook; where most of the e-mail you get is fake; and where it’s so difficult to reach a real person via an 800 number, that we had to invent a heretofore-unnecessary-phrase—real person—to describe the entity we are trying to reach. Pine suggests three rules regarding authenticity:

1. Don’t say you are authentic unless you really are authentic

2. It’s easier to be authentic if you don’t say you’re authentic

3. If you say you are authentic you’d better be authentic

Our client suggested that he liked the attitude behind Chipotle’s brand position, “Food with Integrity”, and it appears national media have also recognized it. Chipotle says they support and sustain family farmers and use meat from animals raised without the use of antibiotics or added hormones.

I asked at the beginning of this article if we are being authentic if we change perceptions as a result of what we do. I’m not sure I have an answer. Hugh Graham, a designer focused on people-centered design says “you can’t keep talking about managing the ‘customer perception of authenticity.’ Real authenticity is not about managing perception; it’s about engaging in the pursuit of real innovation.”

The identity we are creating for our client is only one of many parts of the brand that will determine its authenticity. It is an important part, one that will set the foundation on which an authentic brand can stand—and while we can’t come right out and say this is “an authentic brand”, the identity must not be incompatible with authenticity.

We’re still working on the project. Check back with us in a few months and we can have another conversation.

July 28, 2011

Dressing the Part of Your Core Values

Your authentic identity reflects your culture, values and beliefs

Stop reading this right now, switch over to a word processing app and describe your firm in no more than 50 words. Save it. We’re coming back to it.

What are the core values that drive your firm? Perhaps you address your core values in your mission statement, but if you’re like most companies, you don’t remember your mission statement because it’s not distinctive and it has little relevance to your core values.

I am indebted to my friend (and client) Tim Williams, a professional services consultant with Ignition Consulting for the idea that you should replace your mission statement with an articulation of your firm’s purpose. Why does your company exist? Many answer that question by saying, “To make a profit”. As management guru Peter Drucker said, “Profit is not the reason for a business to exist. It’s just a test of its validity.” Profit, people, nor even your client are truly at the center of your business. At the center of your business should be a bold reason for being. Successful firms have a purpose — like you’re contributing to a greater cause, rather than simply responding to profit goals or your competitors. Tim Williams suggests you ask yourself the following questions:

1. Why does this company exist?
2. Besides making money, why are we in business?
3. What inspires us to come to work each day?
4. What is the meaning in what we do?
5. What significant contribution does our firm make to the industry, the profession, or the world?
6. What would we want to achieve if we knew we could not fail?
7. What kind of difference do we want to make?
8. What kind of legacy do we want to create?

Your purpose and values are part of your identity and if you’ve determined your purpose for being, then your identity is authentic—true to the values and purpose that drive the company. Your brand resonates with authenticity when your external actions align with your internal culture. Your external actions are anything from your Web site to the charities you support, to the employees you hire. When those external actions align with your culture, you are authentic and believable. As Marty Neumeier says, “If a brand looks like a duck and swims like a duck, then it must be a duck. If it swims like a dog, however, people start to wonder.”

When we begin a new client relationship we always visit the offices of our new client early in the process. You can tell a lot about their culture by being in the office. Everything from the furniture to the stuff on the walls of the cubicles suggest what’s important. Who are your idols and what do they say about the values of the individuals in your organization? What attracts your best employees? And what about your best clients and partners? The teams you put together are like tribes—they share the same values. One of our best clients subscribes to the same magazines and reads the same books that we do. It’s no wonder we have a good relationship.

What are the stories that are told and re-told around the office or in every presentation and what do those stories reveal about the priorities and culture of the firm? (I’ve written before about a powerful story of our client BrainStorm.) Pay attention not only to the plot, but also to the words used to describe the story. Our clients are often unaware the power of their own natural, less formal communication. We’ve often asked for a sales presentation from the best salesman at the company and used it as the basis for home page or brochure copy.

What are the defining moments in the life of your company? Why was the business started, what made you seek out an important recruit, what was your response to a big loss or a big win? How you react to such challenges and choices define your core values and your authentic identity.

Look at the 50-word description you wrote when you started reading this article. Pull out a copy of your latest proposal and find your mission statement. Do they both reflect the core values and culture of your organization? You can project your authentic identity in three ways: strategically, culturally and through brand identity—strategically, through your purpose for being; culturally, through your values and beliefs; and lastly, through the brand expressions of your logo, Web site and literature. If the review reveals a gap between your true identity and the way you express your identity—it’s time for a change.

July 5, 2011

Delivering the Art of Brand Design from the Science of Brand Strategy

A Presentation to the Utah Technical Council

In introducing our firm, I often use the phrase, “We bring together strategic and creative services to achieve a shared goal.” I was asked to speak last week at the marketing forum of the Utah Technical Council on the subject of Delivering the Art of Brand Design from the Science of Brand Strategy, which seemed tailor-fit to our distinguishing position. I’m sharing with you some of the main points of my presentation.

I started with the story of the Intel Inside campaign—a textbook case study of tech branding success. Before 1989, almost no one knew, or more importantly, cared what kind of micro processing chip their computers contained. And they certainly didn’t know who made them. But as personal computers gradually became more common with consumers, Intel recognized an opportunity to brand its processors. They were really a B2B business, selling their component parts to IBM and HP, but they decided to focus on the end user. It’s not unlike today’s pharmaceutical companies, who market directly to the end user, even though you need a doctor’s prescription to buy anything. The Intel Inside branding campaign was developed locally, by Salt Lake advertising agency DahlinSmithWhite. And my good friend Steve Grigg designed the original Intel Inside logo. The initiative was very successful. Not only is Intel a leader in semiconductor manufacturing today, but also the awareness of other chipmakers is remarkably low. I asked at my presentation how many could name another besides Intel. Only a handful responded.

The importance of C-level management support for branding initiatives cannot be over-emphasized. Bruce Law of Sprout Marketing, and former director of Intel’s national advertising, told me that Andy Grove, the CEO of Intel, personally approved Intel advertising, demonstrating its importance to the man that oversaw a 4,500% increase in Intel’s market capitalization from $4 billion to $197 billion during his tenure.

The problem is that in most companies, brand strategy is separated from creativity by a wide gap. On one side you have the strategic thinkers, MBA types, who are numerical, analytical and logical. On the other side of the building are the designers, with funny clothes and hair, who think visually, intuitively and emotionally. Too frequently the creative right brain never joins up with the strategic left brain. Following are three brand-building disciplines to help bring the two sides together.

Differentiation is the first discipline. Here’s a test: read a paragraph from your web site about what you do, to a random employee at your company. Then read a similar paragraph from the website of one of your competitors. Can they tell the difference? Often they can’t. You need more of the first discipline: differentiation.

Who are you? What do you do? Why does it matter? When we are engaged for brand strategy, we conduct executive interviews and we always start out with these same three questions, no matter who were talking to, no matter what the industry. If you want to stop a business meeting cold in its tracks, ask these three questions. If you can’t answer these three questions succinctly, particularly the last one, you need more focus, the second discipline.

What is your brand promise or position? Do you promise the “Ultimate Driving Machine” like BMW? Do you “Think Different” with Apple? A brand can only have one true promise or position. It explains why customers should buy and use your products and services and not your competitors. And it defines why you meet their needs better than the competition. Establishing your brand promise is the third discipline.

When defining and differentiating your position, it’s helpful to think more abstractly about, who you are, what you do, and why it matters. We use metaphors, images and adjectives in our process. Images are more emotional than words. They elicit feelings. Go to an online stock photo agency and gather images that are aspirational and inspirational—that represent where you are or where you’re going. Don’t look for images that are literal photos of your industry, but rather those that might resonate on some deeper level with the true meaning of your brand.

With a group of 5-8 others from your company, choose the images that make emotional connections. Pay attention to the conversations surrounding the selection process. Look for relationships and patterns in the images selected. What do the selections tell you about your brand and where it’s going?

You can do the same thing with adjectives. Select 60 adjectives that are positive attributes about your company. Have 5-8 your executives independently narrow them down to the top 20. Select the top 5 adjectives. Look for patterns and relationships between selected adjectives. Compare results between executives. What kinds of consensus patterns emerge? Compose a statement about your company using the adjectives. Craft a paragraph or two and use that adjective rich statement as a guiding philosophy on your Web site, marketing collateral and sales presentations.

Don’t try to be something you’re inherently not. Be true to your character. When I’m working with a new client, I like to understand the company culture. I look at what employees hang on their cubicle and who their heroes are. It’s all an insight into company culture and should be reflected in the brand message.

It often takes someone from the outside to help objectively find and articulate what is already there—someone who is an experienced creative and strategic thinker, but you should not let others do your job for you. A good firm can assist in developing a holistic brand approach, but they are not the ones tell you who you are, or what your company is about. That’s your basic responsibility.

May 26, 2011

Worth the Paper It’s Printed On

Could the design of the almighty dollar affect the economy?

The mightiest trick of any print designer is to imbue the object of his creation with value beyond the paper it’s printed on. And there isn’t a more important document anywhere than paper money. Of course, at one time, the US dollar was backed by silver and gold, but now it’s literally just a piece of paper that proclaims “Believe in the brand called United States of America,” (and fortunately, most do. Thank you China.)

The United States’ has taken a beating lately and some have suggested that it might be due to the design of our currency. For years I have complained about the look of American currency in the design history class I teach at the University of Utah. Particularly compared to European currency, and particularly lately.

The historic design of the dollar bill has been very traditional, based upon certificates and steel engravings, partly to suggest value, and partly to discourage counterfeiters. The overall effect, as Michael Beirut said, “is a cake that has been decorated to within an inch of its life.” In recent years, the design of the American dollar has moved from a symmetrically balanced layout, with traditional serif typography, to an off-kilter design incorporating a giant purple Helvetica number on the reverse side. The integration is terribly out of sync.

I have always been fascinated with quasi-religious iconography and in this regard, the US dollar doesn’t disappoint. In the words of one commentator, the inclusion of the all-seeing eye and the pyramid make the dollar “look as if it was the product of some kind of semi-divine revelation.” The all-seeing eye graces everything from Mormon temples to Masonic aprons and certainly gives the dollar some potency in branding the ubiquitous power of the USA.

The design of paper money usually attempts to evoke the national identity of the country. Compared to the United States, Europeans often strive for modernity and are more successful in integrating traditional and modern forms in the same solution. The Swiss even turned their banknotes on their side, in a vertical format and they include non-political portraits like modernist architect Le Corbusier. There is really an infinite range of graphic possibilities and no limits—except the designer’s imagination—shown in these dramatic examples of the new banknotes project for the Swiss National Bank.

Europeans actually hire designers whereas in the US, it’s the work of a 147-year-old government agency called the United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing. The agency employs 2,500 people, and has an annual budget of $525,000,000.  Now if only there was a United States Bureau of Design and Branding.

April 27, 2011

Launch Your Brand Internally First

How a great story can turn your employees into brand ambassadors

Brands are expressed in many ways, including in the actions and behavior of your own people. In fact, employees are crucial to the brand experience, particularly in the B2B space. Inasmuch as a brand is the totality of all your perceptions about a business, obviously, employee actions and attitudes have an impact—everything from answering phone calls promptly to product knowledge. But it goes beyond customer facing employees. Employees don’t just represent the company, they are the company. The depth of understanding each person has about brand values and purpose is reflected in productivity. The workers of strongly branded organizations literally “live the brand”, giving them focus, motivation and a guiding direction.

Great stories have the power to strengthen brands internally. We learned about a powerful story when we created the brand identity for BrainStorm, a software training company. In the Discover stage of our Perception Branding D5 process, more than one employee told us about the 30-hour flight to Scotland. On a Thursday afternoon in 2003, they learned that the product they had shipped to Scotland would not arrive until Monday afternoon—but their client needed it Monday morning. Eric Farr, co-founder and champion of the importance of exceeding customer expectations, boarded a flight for the “milk route” to the northern most country of the United Kingdom. Meeting their dumbfounded client at the airport Sunday evening, Eric delivered the product, spent an hour visiting with him and then boarded the plane for the return trip.

According to Rudy Vidal, former Chief Customer Officer at inContact, for whom we designed a new brand identity in 2010, “A dissatisfied customer, once rectified, is more likely to remain a loyal customer than is the customer who was never dissatisfied in the first place.” The herculean effort of BrainStorm turned what would have been a very dissatisfied, one-time customer into a recurring, top-ten customer. The story continues to resonate internally within the company because it captures the values and identity of the brand, while adding elements of emotion and aspiration.

Communicating the values of your brand internally is the highest form of brand management. Making certain that employees understand these values, turns them into brand ambassadors of your company and its products and services. If the brand is clear and well-defined, employees operate from a position that directs the decisions they make in the workplace. The net result is a company that is self-directed and differentiated from competitors.

Our clients are typically anxious to show off a new brand identity we’ve created—print up those business cards, revise the home page—but we are more hesitant. In nearly any launch, the first most important audience is the company’s employees.

March 21, 2011

The Drive Downtown & the Fake Eyes

How our subconscious minds influence our behavior

My office has always been located in the downtown area of Salt Lake, despite my home being some 20 miles south in the suburbs. Sure, the drive is pretty familiar after 30 years, but one morning a few months ago I arrived at my office parking spot somewhat surprised. My mind had been preoccupied and I was amazed that I had driven the 20 miles without a single conscious decision about where I was going or what I was doing. In fact, I remembered absolutely nothing about my drive downtown. It was as if I had been teleported from home to my office without any effort on my part.

According to Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post science writer and author of The Hidden Brain, my story of the drive downtown is a perfect example of how our subconscious minds can manipulate us without our awareness.

In a public radio broadcast, Vedantam relates how a ten-week test revealed differences between unnoticed visual stimuli. At an office beverage counter, an on-you-honor sign asked you to pay for whatever soft drink or coffee you consumed. In the first case, the eye-level sign was adorned with innocuous flowers. Subsequently the image of the flowers was changed to a pair of watching eyes. In the end, no one even noticed the pictures, flowers or eyes—and yet they had a dramatic effect upon behavior. Contributions to the honor system were much more likely to be made by those who were being “watched”, even though they were not real eyes.

Such is an example of our subconscious mind at work. The author explains that our hidden brain is a dumb system: that we act unaware, whether making decisions about driving a car or contributing to an on-your-honor cup of coffee.

The work of designers often operates within the hidden brain. We find the means to communicate to an audience about our message—both subtly and overtly—through the use of form, color and typography.

I have written before about the minute nuances that shape a typeface and how it communicates unconsciously with everyone, regardless of your familiarity with the vocabulary of typography. The language of design suggests an object’s gender and reflects authenticity or its opposite: crass salesmanship. Design is the language that helps to define, or to signal value. It creates the visual clues that signal whether something is precious or cheap.

Enhancing perceived value is one of the primary goals of corporate design. This becomes very important if your product or service is not the low-price leader. Seth Godin recently commented on his friend who wanted to buy Dr. Dre’s $300 headphones. Any audiophile will tell you that they sound like $39 headphones. As Godin points out, “But of course, that’s not the question. It’s not what sounds better, it’s what’s worth it.” And what it’s worth is subjective, depending on many factors. As the on-your-honor test showed, visual stimuli have a remarkable affect, even if you are unaware. And if it weren’t so, we probably wouldn’t be in business.

February 24, 2011

Branding 101: Your Logo Isn’t Your Brand

And other brand myths dispelled for B2B companies

Last week I gave a presentation to the Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) entitled, “Your Logo Isn’t Your Brand”. If you subscribe to the modern8 newsletter or read the blog, the subject may not be new, but it is worth repeating.

We can quickly dispense with the obvious myths. Your logo isn’t your brand, your identity, your product or service. You’re not even the brand owner. It’s owned by your customer. A brand is your customer’s gut feeling about you. In the immortal words of Marty Neumeier, “Your brand is not what you say it is. It’s what they say it is.”

A brand is the totality of perceptions that you see, hear, read, know, feel, and think about a business or service. A brand holds a distinctive position in your customer’s mind based on past experiences, associations and future expectations. A brand is a short-cut of beliefs and values that differentiate and simplify our decision-making process. Lastly, a brand is a promise of value to be received.

When talking about brands most people think about Coca-Cola, Apple, Starbucks and Harley-Davidson. These are good examples of B2C (business to consumer) branding. Hardly any companies neglect the importance of branding in B2C.

But in B2B (business to business) things are different. B2B companies think it’s not relevant, that they are in a specialty market, that their customers already know a lot about them and they are chosen through objective processes, based on facts. The reality is that we are emotional beings both at work and at home, and we make our choices the same way, regardless of where we are.

Some of the world’s strongest brands are B2B brands, like IBM, General Electric, Intel, FedEx and Boeing; and like FedEx, many are primarily service businesses.

Big companies brand for the same reason that you should: to get more people to buy more stuff for more years at a higher price. But it requires an investment. In the short run, it is more probable that you will see a decline in profit. Brand building is aimed at creating long-term, non-tangible assets, not for boosting your short-term sales. If the company, especially the people at the top, is not convinced that it is the right thing to do, it won’t work.

Branding has immense value, but it’s not simple and it’s not your logo.

January 20, 2011

You Don’t Name Your Kid “A Blue-Eyed Boy”

Picking the right brand name

Back in early ‘90s I designed the logo for Associated Foods—the “cart in the A”—that you see on big trucks throughout the Intermountain West. So I was quite interested when Associated Foods adapted my logo for the identity of the Albertson’s chain of grocery stores that they acquired in 2009. The company-owned stores were named “Fresh Market using the “cart in the A” inside an apple. They didn’t ask for my design help (I certainly wouldn’t have put it inside an apple.) Nor did they ask my opinion on the name.

When you’ve been in design as long as I have, you become jaded by the ubiquity of mediocre design. Perhaps that’s why I’m bothered so much by their choice of name. Fresh Market doesn’t even seem like a name. It’s a description. Albertson’s is a much more memorable name. For some reason, clients feel their name must be descriptive. RIM had been leaning toward “EasyMail” before the naming firm Lexicon came up with the hugely successful “BlackBerry”. Intel had wanted to call the Pentium “ProChip,” and some at P&G had wanted to call the Swiffer “EZMop”.

Admittedly, it’s hard. You want something unique, protectable and almost impossible these days—available as a URL—restraints that often lead to creative misspellings and syllable combinations. Such was the case when we were recently engaged to create a name and an identity for a new client. They liked our design ideas, but stuck with their own misspelled naming choice.

The printing industry has been going through shrinking revenue and consolidations. A company which we have used for years, PrintTech, has been acquired or merged and changed their name to Advantage Utah, an easily-forgettable name with yet another swoosh-like logo.

There are plenty of enormously successful companies with forgettable names (Walmart, General Electric), so clearly, there is much more involved than your choice of names. But in this over-communicated society that we live in today, why make it harder?

December 23, 2010

How Branding Stole Christmas

And why, like it or not, it’s not prone to change.

According to NPR, you can now follow through with the empty threat waged at children worldwide during the holidays. “You’re going to get a lump of coal for Christmas.” A company called CoalGram is offering to ship a lump of 100 percent pure anthracite coal to the transgressor of your choice. And you needn’t limit it to naughty kids. The company suggests your boss who didn’t give you a raise, your boyfriend who forgot your birthday and the politician who is driving you nuts. Each specially wrapped chunk of coal will cost you ten bucks.

You can actually buy several wheelbarrows full of coal for $10. But of course they’re not specially wrapped and branded with the CoalGram logo. Ah, yes — the power of good design and branding. It just makes you wonder how far people will go. A new study in the Journal of Marketing says people will go to great lengths to afford their favorite brand.

If you love Frosted Flakes for example and have eaten it since you were a kid, it’s probably because it’s meshed with a lot other experiences and memories, according to Joe Priester, one of the authors of the study. “You not only like Frosted Flakes, but you sort of consider it part of yourself, you probably think about it unprompted.” “Not having your favorite brand around is just like losing your good friend and can lead to a kind of emotional distress,” says Priester.

Your favorite brand of frosted flakes is probably Kellogg’s, but try as they might, “frosted flakes” is just a description, not a brand. Perhaps that’s why Kellogg’s has considered individually laser etching their logo onto each and every cornflake, just to make sure you know whose flake is on your spoon, and to avoid any unnecessary emotional stress.

I bought my first Mac in 1984. I even have it sitting on display, kind of museum-like—on the bookshelf. Even though Macs cost more, even if there’s a recession, I can’t imagine the thought of buying a Dell computer. Priester acknowledges my problem. “When you start having to cut back, it’s the brands that you’re really attached with, those are the ones you’ll try to hang onto as long as you can.” Would I buy a Dell with the exact same performance specifications as a Mac? No. Just like that lump of coal, it’s not packaged the same and it doesn’t have that Apple logo.

November 22, 2010

Stupid Questions

How many designers does it take to change a light bulb?

When we are engaged for brand strategy, our first step is the interview — which is typically one on one, between the client and myself. We always ask to interview the CEO, the marketing department and a few others. We start right off by asking stupid questions. We’re sitting in their offices and the company name is proudly displayed in the lobby or on the door and the first thing we ask is “Who are you?”

That question is followed by another, seemingly obvious question, “What do you do?” These are the kinds of queries that challenge assumptions in such a fundamental way they can make us sound a little naïve. The first thing that comes out may in fact, be obvious—but it can get deep very quickly. “Well, we’re Young Electric Sign Company, and we make electric signs—of course we also make non-electric signs, and we do lighting as well, and we also sell billboards, and we also manufacture electronic components and sell them to our competitors, and technically most of our signs aren’t really sold, their leased, and…”

Designers are known for asking a lot of questions. Whether a designer offers strategic services or not, for most, the starting point in the design process is to confront the norm in a given industry with stupid questions. Apparently, the practice is so common, that there’s even a joke about it. How many designers does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: Does it have to be a light bulb? As design author Warren Berger says, “When designers ask whether ‘it has to be a light bulb,’ what they are doing is reconsidering and re-framing a familiar problem in an unconventional way. In the case of the joke above, the problem of having to change the light bulb may be reframed as a need to bring more light into the room without constantly having to change the bulb. This, in turn, may lead to putting a window in the roof to let the sunshine in.”

Everyone can and should question the status quo. “We’ve always done it this way” is a stagnant answer. “What if I tried this?” and “Why do you do that?” can lead to new products and processes. The designer behind OXO kitchen tools begat an entire company based on questioning the conventional form of the potato peeler.

As I wrote in a previous blog post, questioning is one of the five skills of innovation, a fundamental habit of creative thinkers in all fields. But questions don’t end with the client. Good designers question themselves throughout the creative process. Why am I using this color? Why this shape, this material, this look? Should it be traditional or modern, simple or complex? Should it be bigger, smaller? Is this solving the client’s problem?

By asking stupid questions the designer identifies the audience and purpose and pushes the creative output to the highest level. It doesn’t make you a stupid designer to ask stupid questions. Bruce Mau, the audacious Canadian designer said, “The fear for so many people is that, in asking these kinds of questions, they will seem naïve. But naïvety is a valuable commodity in this context. Naïvety is what allows you to try to do what the experts say can’t be done.”

October 14, 2010

That Typeface Just Spoke to Me

The language of the designed world and what it says.

I’m reading a new book. Only through the first chapter, but when I was driving past the mall on Friday and looking at their sign, I immediately connected with something I had just read.

The book is The Language of Things by Deyan Sudjic, a treatise on the meaning of man-made things. In the intriguing first 40 pages the author connects such diverse design luminaries as William Morris, Jonathan Ive, Raymond Lowey, Dieter Rams and Philippe Starck.

The author, who is also director of the Design Museum in London, relates the following:

There is something to understand about objects beyond the obvious issue of function and purpose. It suggests that there is as much to be gained from exploring what objects mean, as from considering what they do and what they look like. Design is the language that a society uses to create objects that reflect it purposes and its values. Design is the language that helps to define, or perhaps to signal, value. It is the language of design that serves to suggest an object’s gender, often though the most unsubtle of means, through color, shape, size and visual reference. It is design that reflects a sense of authenticity, or its manipulative opposite: cynical salesmanship.

Most of the examples from the book deal with consumer products—from cars to calculators—but to make the point that even the most subtle of designed forms carry a message, Sudjic refers to the medium closest to a graphic designer’s heart: typography.

When a designer picks a typeface he chooses from a bewildering array of choices, extensively multiplied since the dawn of the digital era. Categorizing and identifying typeface selections is a full-time task at type foundries. Typeface design has been an important activity since the Roman Empire and capable designers are aware of the historical and psychological context of any particular choice.

Typefaces are primarily utilitarian—the copyright office considers them exclusively so. They are, after all, just symbols representing spoken sounds. How then, do they carry so much meaning? Why does one typeface look appropriate for a wedding invitation and another for a hair metal band?

As Sudjic says, “Partly through association and memory, partly through the emotional triggers and resonances it brings, a typeface expresses an endless range of characteristics, even wider in its scope than handwriting. But, while it takes a graphologist to decode individual signatures, typographic design can communicate on a conscious or unconscious level with everybody, whether aware of the vocabulary or not.”

The language inherent in the form of those simple 26 alphabetic symbols is remarkable. All of it beyond what the letters actually mean as words.

So it is for all man-made artifacts. All designed objects carry with them a language and meaning far beyond their utilitarian aspects. Decoding that meaning is central to understanding the man-made world in which we live.

Notes on the logos and typefaces in the sign:

Macy’s uses Avant Garde Gothic, designed by Herb Lubalin in 1970. The lightweight version of the face and the use of all lower case, adds to the 70’s feel, not unlike other department stores, Bloomingdales and the recently redesigned Belk. Macy’s has always used the star in their logo, in some form or another.

JCPenney uses Helvetica, the de facto standard for corporate cool, created in the mid-50s. The logo was designed by the corporate identity firm, Unimark, co-founded by Massiomo Vignelli in 1964. The firm also designed identities for Knoll and American Airlines, both of whom also use Helvetica.

Forever 21, in this example, uses a Neo-Grotesque font substantially similar to Interstate, a wildly popular font since it debuted in 1994. The font is based on the signage system used on US freeways. Forever 21 doesn’t seem to have any standards for displaying the company name, as it appears in different forms in different uses.

Dillard’s uses ITC Garamond Condensed designed by Tony Stan in 1977. The font is loosely based on the typography of Claude Garamond from the French Renaissance in the 1500s. Designers have frequently criticized the typeface as an unpleasant bastardization of the original Garamond due to the extreme x-height of the lowercase letters compared to the capitals.

September 15, 2010

The Perception Gap

The distance between seeing and understanding

Last week we presented design proposals for the packaging of a new retail product. While discussing the relative merits of one design concept compared with another, I was asked by the client about the value of intrigue in design solutions. The client was wondering if design effectiveness was enhanced by certain amount of ambiguity in the solution, which sets up a cause to be interested, or curious.

In response, I mentioned the concept of the Perception Gap, an idea that I believe I first heard about from Milton Glaser, (I can’t recall whether it was from his writings or speech). The Perception Gap refers to that period of time between seeing and perceiving. When we are presented with a new and intriguing visual attraction, there is often a period of time between observing it and understanding it—what it is, or what it is for.

That gap of time is important. If the Perception Gap is too big, we ignore it. We don’t have the time or interest to devote to understanding it. However if the gap is just right, the extra mental energy used in understanding the gap has a profound effect—we remember it. In our over-communicated society, remembering any promotional message is huge. (Of course our interest is greater if the message sender is important. A note written in lipstick on a napkin may be very hard to decipher, but well worth the effort.)

The Perception Gap is used by designers and artists of all visual mediums to engage, delight and inform viewers. The trick of course, is knowing when the gap is too big. At modern8, we often ask Tara, the Office Manager, to come and look at something. She’s typically not involved in the creative efforts and therefore a more neutral gauge of the size of the gap. If she walks away, saying, “What the hell is that?” we figure the gap might be getting a little wide.

It’s a constant battle to propose solutions that are on the cutting edge creatively, where we are pushing the gap to the maximum size allowable, while at the same time meeting the client/project/cost objectives. We must intrigue, but as Charles Eames said, “Design depends largely on constraints.”

August 17, 2010

Personal Brands

Recently we met with a successful entrepreneur who had sold his company to a competitor in a related industry. He is now employed by the acquiring company, but it isn’t going well and he is leaving 90K on the table to jump ship and restart his old business again. He told us, “This time I’m going to do it different. I don’t want to be as big as before. It’s really all about me anyway. I’m the rainmaker and the one with the technical skills.”

Springing off from our client’s comment, we began a discussion of personal brands. Corporate brands are not alone anymore. Sure, corporate brands will rule the world for the foreseeable future, but we’ve each got a personal brand as well. And we’ve got the tools that allow us to build our brands. Social media provides powerful vehicles unleashed first (and still primarily), by individuals. Corporations have only recently tried to take advantage the tools.

Seth Godin, a good example of a personal brand, firmly believes that everyone is a brand. Just like in the corporate world, you’re not your brand owner. You’re branded by others, really: marketers, politicians, colleagues, and your boss. “You have to take control of your brand,” says Godin. “Many of us are taught to do our best and the let the world decide how to judge us. I think it’s better to do your best and decide how you want to be judged. And then act that way.”

The concept isn’t really new. I still remember the Tide-like Fast Company magazine cover from 1997, the first time I ever heard of the personal branding concept. The article was written by Tom Peters, the well-known business author with a strong understanding of design and branding. When Peters reprised the article again in 2004 he bluntly said, “You have to constantly spin-doctor.  If you don’t, you have what I call an engineer’s mentality—and I’m an engineer by training. People with an engineer’s mentality believe that truth and virtue will automatically be their own reward. That’s a crock, no matter what you do for a living.” He wrote that the same year Facebook was launched for Havard students, a year after LinkedIn started, and long before “tweets” had a distinctive meaning. It seems so much easier now.

As Chris Brogan says, “The trick (now) in a personal brand is that there’s a big difference between being known, being known for something, and also being able to turn that into a business. No one wants to hand you money just because people know who you are.”

Perhaps the key to becoming personally known for something, and then profiting from it, is the concept pushed in Malcom Gladwell’s book, Outliers: The Story of Success. I heard him speak on the subject a couple years ago, and he convincingly made the case for mastering something and the 10,000 hours of practice it takes to do it. Now you’ve got something to tweet about.