I’m taking part in this project. You can too.
Twan Verdonck is Number 1 and here are more of his design works.
August 31, 2009
Talking about books #1
“Who can concentrate anymore?” she said, stirring her coffee. “Who reads? Do you read?” (I shook my head.) “Somebody must read, I guess. You see all these books around in store windows, and there are those clubs. Somebody’s reading,” she said. “Who? I don’t know anybody who reads.”
‘Menudo’. Where I’m Calling From, Raymond Carver.
August 30, 2009
Clarity equals more sales
Stockholm Design Lab created these paper-packaging designs for Japanese mail order company Askul. The project aimed to ‘distinguish these products in a clear and graphical way: clarity equals more sales.’
I really admire SDL’s multidisciplinary philosophy when creating identities for their clients. Concepts are visualised through a mashup of science, architecture, communication, advertisements, design… all driven by the belief that ‘the perception of a brand is dependent on its slightest components.’
A gallery of the Askul work is here.
August 28, 2009
Cures what ails ya
Sometimes I get headaches. Sometimes hayfever. Sometimes blisters (long night out in too new shoes).
Treatments are always samey: boring old pills. long lists of malicious sounding ingredients. tongue ache from ‘must not taste the Paracetamol dust’ contortions.
Which is why I cheered when I heard about Help Remedies. Lovely product concept with quirky design. Labels I actually want to read.
Help says:
“Our packaging is made of molded paper pulp and a bio plastic made primarily of corn. We use these materials because they are interesting to look at, and they are compostable—which means one day, they might become part of a large tree. Maybe you can cut down that tree and make it into a speedboat.
Visit this space daily to experience the ongoing struggle of “help I have a headache” as it attempts to biodegrade.”
You can also check this out for more pics.
I feel better already.
August 15, 2009
Useful for clarification
by xorsyst
My love affair is with writers who are handy with a trusty parenthesis.
Dramatic and blistering, like a hard slap that forces you to pause, think and rethink. Beats an uninterrupted ampersand every time.
Nabokov and Woolf, I salute you.
My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was three… – Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
(…but Mrs Ramsay having died rather suddenly the night before, his arms, though stretched out, remained empty.) – To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
August 12, 2009
Thanks or no thanks?
Nietzschean chic seems to be making a comeback in brand communications.
According to the Harvard Business Review and Blair Enns, companies and service providers should think twice before thanking people who actually buy their product or service. Apparently, communicating genuine gratitude transfers power in the relationship from brand to customer. Saying thank you is seen as a sissy cop-out, an embarrassment to ‘themes of stability and strength’. In other words: A VERY BAD THING.
Is it just me or does this seem a pretty outdated, Übermensch way to approach B2C communications? I really believe that, whether you’re a global brand or a regular person rambling through life, lasting relationships are created through connection, never conflict.
Thank you is a simple but meaningful way to acknowledge a positive interaction between brand and customer. Thanks can be social, personal and make you smile. And the great news for those brands embracing opportunities to turn customers into advocates is that a well-executed thank you makes people feel good about buying your product. It’s a feeling that wants to be shared.
In celebration of saying thanks, I therefore present exemplar instances of two very different brands – Southbank Publishing and Griffin Technology – thanking me for a purchase (in good old fashioned note version and online). I will definitely be going back for more.
Southbank say thanks
@griffintech's thank you via twitter
July 23, 2009
Trace buster buster
As a bonus supplement to my last post, here’s a classic on all things meta-meta-meta from The Big Hit.
Disclaimer: this clip is probably not work safe. And also not safe if you’re shy of profanities. My apologies. It is great though…
July 23, 2009
Are we meta yet?
When I used to nose through manuscripts for a living, I got familiar with two types of novelists.
One set would write about a defining experience. You could tell the author had heaped up all this gripping experience and now it was somehow ripe for getting out into the open, onto paper. Their author questionnaires were about things – sometimes really unexpected delightful mind-blowing things – fuelling this whole creative process. Stories came from real life but the whole affair was shaped into fiction, like an autobiographical purging executed with artistic flair. You could learn from it.
The other set wrote about writing.
Those were the ones we didn’t commission.
Writing about writing is hard to be remarkable at. It’s hard because the decision to go meta is made by three types of writers:
Ones who have been doing it forever and can talk with depth about their craft. Usually after struggling for years though piles of shitty first drafts. They earned it.
Ones who have just started out writing and the whole thing’s so new and fantastic that they can’t pause to think about anything else. It’s usually a phase.
Ones who love the idea of being writers but actually have bugger all interesting to say, so they feed on writing as a topic in and of itself. They still want to come over as expert artistes but without the graft and awareness that comes from being driven by passion.
Unfortunately, there seems to be more of that last set around than the other two.
@gapingvoid
A lot of tweeters tweet about twitter. Not all, but a lot.
A lot of bloggers blog about blogging. The ‘isn’t it ironic I’m talking about blogging on a blog’ posts. Not all, not all the time, but a lot.
I named this blog the thinking marketer. And I’m a marketer. So I must think and blog a lot about marketing.
Very meta. But (tough question) how can I make sure that I’m really adding value?
Everything comes back to being a practitioner – I don’t think you can fake genuine experience. And I don’t just mean in the ‘30 gazillon years in the business’ kind of way. It comes screaming through in your writing and in the way you talk about a subject. It’s about bringing your own perspective to the table. And that, too, is hard.
I’m not knocking meta. Meta can be powerful. Meta can turn out to be very insightful. Meta done well can move you beyond the obvious.
If you want to go meta just make sure you’ve been physical first. Is all I’m saying.
