Last week I saw my friend Becca’s film Four Months & Ten Days: A Journey Through Palestine. It is the kind of film that hits you in the gut and shakes you out of your small world. It brings tears to your eyes as you are reminded once again the level of suffering that people can and do endure on a daily basis. It also reminds us of our complicity in the evil that others undertake with our tax dollars. There is no simple message, no easy way out. And while I understand that many would just as soon remain unchallenged by uncomfortable aspects of the world, I am grateful to her for reminding me that I am part of a larger whole and forcing me to pull my head out of my daily routine and contemplate what it means to part of humanity.
Been thinking a lot lately about visual identity and its role in branding. Increasingly it is evident that a thoughtfully conceived visual identity is a necessary foundation for any branding effort. The three legs of the stool that must be in place before one can begin discuss branding and brand strategy are:
Only then can one begin talking about the experience that surrounds the use of the product or the community or tribe of users. Or, as Scott Bedbury put it:
The best brands never start out to build a great brand. They focus on building a great—and profitable—product or service and an organization that can sustain it.
Somehow the fundamentals seem to get lost in the quest for the ever-sexy cool brand. It appears that some professionals are beginning to understand that design is currently undervalued in its ability to help define strategic thinking and illustrate ideas. Even more to the point, Marty Neumeier points out that among the halllmarks of a charismatic brand are a clear competitive stance, a sense of rectitude, and a dedication to aesthetics.
Why aesthetics? Because it’s the language of feeling, and, in a society that’s information-rich and time-poor, people value feeling more than information.