I heard some nice one-liners on the last conference I went to.
"Mass Communications has become so expensive that design is a much better priced alternative." - If design is used as a tool to communicate, and not as a sauce. Design in this sentence means design thinking. Unusually simple solutions with talk value.
"It's faulty if a door handle needs to have a push or pull label. [It should be self explanatory]" - Oscar Peña, head of Philips Design. Mr. Peña called great designers 'translators' since they translate an idea into shape and material. They express the product identity in material qualities. And the best translators, translate ideas so powerful, they change society.
"I know I've designed an icon when I don't get the discussion about marketing etc. when launching the product," said Erik Tjepkema. I guess all designers wish they'd design icons all the time... Erik went on to compare design to Jazz (it's a similarity I've seen before). He didn't go into details but I think there are comparable concepts.
song theme = brand&identity
improvising = assocaiation, creating new outings
groove = ambiance
scales/chords = input, brainstorm methods, aesthetic rules of thumb
Erwin van Lun said "Brands love to build relations with people, but if you ask them people don't want relations with brands!" Still he demonstrated that relation building is an automatic process whether we want it or not. People build relations wih aibo dogs, electrical dinosaurs, tamagochis and their iphone. The core of a relation is relevant responses. If you have to explain your name address and occupation time and time again: no relation. If you are recognised, treated as a person and get relevant reactions, responses in your own language, a relation starts to build. With all the emotions that go with it. This is a double edged sword since those relevant answers should be accompanied by enough trust or you get the Orwellian Big Brother feeling.
His presentation is online for download...
Jean-Pierre Raes started off with a small statistic in the room: "Where did you have your latest brilliant idea?" Nobody mentioned the office. :D He went on talking about the creation of new new business going from Insight to Idea to Plan to Business. The hard part is getting relevant insights, you can do research for that or talk a lot to your friends about what they run into. I believe the best insights come from people solving their own problems like the people at 37signals or someone with a Seth Godin-style otaku. If you need to do research, qualitative and observative is best in my opinion. Statistics aren't usually very inspiring. Although a friend of mine who recently discovered pivot tables and used that to ask questions to a huge dataset said the opposite was true.
Jean-Pierre's own personal insight was that many people have a lot of ideas, but they fail at writing and implementing a healthy business plan. He set up his own company to help them.
Erik Kessels showed some work with a lot of humor and great communication power. I should book a night at citizen M at Schiphol, the pictures look great. He collects peculiar photo albums from flea markets. They contain really funny stories and some great amateur photography. He explained how he looked for funny details, authenticity and the man in the street for inspiration. To illustrate that he showed for years of ad campaigns for the Hans Brinker Budget Hotel and some really funny videos. My favorites are these: Goal! and Rugby.
H&M had a pretty monotonous presentation about their history, way of working and all the great names they worked with. To find out what they are experimenting with, check out their concept stores at Collection of Style.
All in all this was some good inspiration again.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
If everything seems under control...
"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough." Although Andretti was a successful Formula 1 and Indycar pilot, the same holds true for organizing a design practice and playing jazz music.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Purple Cow
Many of my friends were talking about it, I had noticed many of them as successful innovation, and now I finally read it: the Purple Cow by Seth Godin.
The book hammers down one key point: just good doesn't cut it anymore. A product can't be sold by advertising. It should sell itself by being remarkable. Or as Mr. Schurman of Herman Miller says: "The best design solves complex problems but if you can weld that to the cool factor you have a home run."
Simply put: Safe is Risky and Very good is boring. I you design something that appeals to the general public you won't be able to sell it, since they are very good at ignoring you. You have to target the lead user, the niche, the people craving for the new, the better and the remarkable. The sneezers who start spreading the virus, who can create critical mass.
The good thing is that not many people will try to launch purple cows, so the playing field is all open. In good times, they say: "Safe is good enough." In bad times: "Let's play it safe in these bad times." We should take a break to produce a classic. Sit there don't just do anything. Marketing departments want to justify themselves.
So what I will implement in my design practice is this:
- I will devise a process or service to help clients find lead users
- I will use purple cow examples to convince clients to divert money from advertising budgets to the design budget, because it will be the better investment.
- Purple Cow questions are nice triggers in brainstorms: "How do we make this idea so remarkable it gets on the news? On leading blogs? How do we make this idea collectible? What would happen if we told the truth, like McDonalds France?"
- In my design practice we also have ambassadors, people who love our work. I'll invite them for brief sessions in strategic meetings and give them my home number if they're on to some business...
- Since remarkable products come from otaku's (some kind of deep fascination) I will be more alert on them and the people who have them, so I can call them for advice. I'll start with finding out all about the otakus of my collegues.
- I'll invite a couple of marketeer guest speakers to introduce our designers to the marketing practice.
- I'll set up a product or service teaching our clients 'design thinking' or visual thinking. It should help them identify better opportunities and it will help them to work creatively with the identities and websites we design.
- We also need a smart way to do research, since focus groups are a waste. How can we release prototypes to the interested public? How can we find them? How can we create an incentive to talk back to us? A point saving system?
The book hammers down one key point: just good doesn't cut it anymore. A product can't be sold by advertising. It should sell itself by being remarkable. Or as Mr. Schurman of Herman Miller says: "The best design solves complex problems but if you can weld that to the cool factor you have a home run."
Simply put: Safe is Risky and Very good is boring. I you design something that appeals to the general public you won't be able to sell it, since they are very good at ignoring you. You have to target the lead user, the niche, the people craving for the new, the better and the remarkable. The sneezers who start spreading the virus, who can create critical mass.
The good thing is that not many people will try to launch purple cows, so the playing field is all open. In good times, they say: "Safe is good enough." In bad times: "Let's play it safe in these bad times." We should take a break to produce a classic. Sit there don't just do anything. Marketing departments want to justify themselves.
So what I will implement in my design practice is this:
- I will devise a process or service to help clients find lead users
- I will use purple cow examples to convince clients to divert money from advertising budgets to the design budget, because it will be the better investment.
- Purple Cow questions are nice triggers in brainstorms: "How do we make this idea so remarkable it gets on the news? On leading blogs? How do we make this idea collectible? What would happen if we told the truth, like McDonalds France?"
- In my design practice we also have ambassadors, people who love our work. I'll invite them for brief sessions in strategic meetings and give them my home number if they're on to some business...
- Since remarkable products come from otaku's (some kind of deep fascination) I will be more alert on them and the people who have them, so I can call them for advice. I'll start with finding out all about the otakus of my collegues.
- I'll invite a couple of marketeer guest speakers to introduce our designers to the marketing practice.
- I'll set up a product or service teaching our clients 'design thinking' or visual thinking. It should help them identify better opportunities and it will help them to work creatively with the identities and websites we design.
- We also need a smart way to do research, since focus groups are a waste. How can we release prototypes to the interested public? How can we find them? How can we create an incentive to talk back to us? A point saving system?
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