Have You Heard?

A big thanks to my friends, Kirk Visola and Andy Kurtts, for having me as a guest on their latest episode of The Kirk + Kurtts Design Podcast.

There are a lot of designers out there, but packaging nerds are a much smaller club. It’s a joyful thing when I get to speak to either one of these guys. Check out Kirk’s work at MIND THE FONT, and see what Andy has been up to at Buttermilk Creative.

Mostly, I want to thank the guys for making me forget that we were even being recorded, and to apologize to the listening public for any profanity. I had a great #@©%!^& time!

The Death of Twitter

I recently heard an interview with a designer who has some level of claim to the original "Larry the Bird," Twitter's ubiquitous (and now former) logo. He made a very gracious case for the necessity of rebrands. And what else could he do? Any other response would have come off as sour grapes. He was right about the necessity of rebranding in general, but I honestly can't wrap my head around this one.

I can't count how many times a client has asked mixtape marketing to help them develop a name for their company name that will become a verb. Candidly, it's almost annoying. And just between you, me, and the rest of the internet, the reason it's annoying is because it's a really great idea to aspire to. But also because it's incredibly difficult to pull off. I'll leave it to the English majors to provide a concise explanation of how words become both nouns and verbs at the same time. Suffice to say that it doesn't work with most words, and trademarks on anything besides nonsense words are getting a lot harder to come by—but that's a whole different rant.

The best example might be "Uber." I can take an Uber (noun). Or we can Uber somewhere (verb). Better yet, these days people tell you to Uber somewhere when all they really mean is "don't bring your own car." It's like when someone asks for a Kleenex™ when they mean a tissue. In the marketing world, that's the brass ring. It just doesn't get any better. Sorry-not-sorry, Cottonelle. Nice try, Lyft.

Why, then, would anyone want to change "Twitter" to "X"? Twitter was synonymous with social media itself, and widely regarded as the world's largest and most (small "d") democratic resource for free speech—criticisms of more recent examples of censorship notwithstanding. A "tweet" (noun) and "to tweet" (verb) have literally made their way into the dictionary. In fact, dictionary.com has more definitions about Twitter and social media than the original meaning of the word "tweet." That's astounding. On the other hand, X is a symbol of censorship, caution, and anonymity. X has a thousand meanings—and maybe that's the point? But I still can't imagine anyone talking about an "x" they read. And, while I'm not an attorney, I can't see any way that "X" could possibly be trademarked.

R.I.P., Larry the Bird. We really, really knew ye.

Timelessness

I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of “brand promise” lately. Every brand is different, but distilled to their most basic purpose, all brands promise us something we’re supposed to want: comfort, happiness, security, entertainment, success, beauty, status… the list is endless. What I’ve noticed is that marketers are obsessed with projections about the future, while consumers seem far more concerned with the past.

It's not that current events, industry trends, or new product releases aren't important. It's that a brand's past colors how they respond to the future. History offers consumers a measure of confidence at each step: from trial; to re-purchase; all the way to brand loyalty.

Deep backstories are why we love rich fantasies. Think George R. R. Martin, J. R. R. Tolkien, J. K. Rowling, or any number of other monogrammed authors. They all build around a "how did we get here" narrative.

A history is absolutely priceless. The Norman Rockwell Coca-Cola ads aren't just about nostalgia. They're also about reminding you that they were around back when Norman Rockwell was still painting. And yet those brands are still here, and they're not going anywhere anytime soon. The implicit message is that they'll never go out of style. It's the reason why so many brands state the date of their establishment prominently on their store front window, their website header, or their product label. They’re not just bottling a beverage, they’re bottling a timeless story.

Projecting an image of reliability can be particularly challenging for new brands. At its core, branding is an attempt to project a "who we are" story. Telling that story properly takes more than a list of facts in the form of a paragraph. It takes careful consideration of every consumer-facing facet of a brand. It means crafting a voice. It means using thoughtful materials in production. It means being conscious of consumers’ experiences, both past and present. If a brand's words and actions don't jibe, even the best "who we are" risks sounding more like a "who we're trying to be."

I'm interested in your take. Has it ever piqued your interest when you learned that a brand is more than 50 years old? Have you ever scoffed at a brand for printing "Since [less than two years ago]"? I know I have.

Style In an Age of Digital Expediency

As a creative director, I occasionally find the word "style" to be slightly terrifying. Is my work getting predictable or sterile if my clients or peers have "my style" pegged? Or, worse yet, what if a client only wants to see trendy, flavor-of-the-month work? We can tell ourselves that there's no accounting for taste, but I suspect I'm not the only designer who has found myself in the unenviable position of trying to recreate a look that is completely unfamiliar territory.

Ken Burns describes style as "the authentic application of technique." I find that to be an astute definition, but what are we to make of it in an age where technique is largely limited to pointing, clicking, and typing the occasional hot key? (Incidentally, there is no hot key for the Ken Burns Effect in most video editing software.) Moreover, we live in a society which often seems devoid of authenticity. We build wood-framed houses and adorn them with faux siding or decorative stone façades. We create social media personas for ourselves (and our pets) which are performances, at best.

And yet, authenticity is at the very core of my craft. It doesn't matter if I'm creating a visual identity, writing a headline, or sculpting a new beverage container. Authenticity is the currency of branding.

When I need a canvas, I tend to work in Adobe Illustrator. I find it to be an effective tool for achieving the miraculous act of transferring an idea from my brain or my sketchbook (which tends to look more like notes and diagrams) into images that I can easily share and discuss with others. It's a common enough practice, and you might even call it expeditious. However, at some point in the process, I usually find myself striving to recreate a "handmade" look — precisely because I feel the need to separate my work from what is easy and common and, well... expeditious.

So, this is my advice to my fellow creative types: embrace the terror. Even if a fancy new look turns out to be a flash in the pan and has no chance of seeing the warm glow of your portfolio website, you'll probably expand your toolbox in the process... you might even learn a new technique. Ken Burns would approve.

I want to know what other creatives think. Are you interested in mastering one style that your clients and peers will identify with you? Or, do you strive for cultivating a wide array of techniques in order to stay flexible?

Flooding Down In Texas

In 2005, while I was studying at UT, Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans on an unthinkable scale. I can remember seeing new faces pop up in several classes almost immediately. They were displaced students from schools that were literally underwater. (Side note, I know that Texas wasn't the only college to grant immediate transfers and waive tuition in order to assist hurricane refugees at the time, but this still makes me extremely proud to be a Longhorn.)

Meanwhile, my cohort in the Design program was utterly inspired by the Hurricane Poster Project, which gathered the work of dozens of talented designers to raise money for the Red Cross. The work was absolutely stunning. Better still, there was no "client," at least not in the traditional sense. By then we had all studied amazing commercial and political design, both past and present. We had all seen incredibly powerful artwork made in response to bygone historical events. This was different — it was contemporary design work that reflected our society's emotions about a subject that we were still witnessing at the time. Despite the somber subject matter, this was an exciting moment for a class of young, impressionable designers.

This week, Hurricane Harvey dredged up a lot of those same emotions for me. This image is a tribute to anyone who is hurting right now. I especially want to acknowledge those Katrina refugees who found their way to Houston while trying to rebuild their lives not so long ago.