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Archived entries for Design
TheDieline.com: Package Design: In Defense of Complexity
• SIMPLICITY is the worldview seen through a child’s eyes, or those of an uninformed adult; someone who is engaged mostly in his own experience and naively unaware of what lies beneath the surface of the here-and-now.
• COMPLEXITY is the ordinary, common, typical adult worldview. There’s an awareness of the complexity of life, though without a good ability to find clarifying patterns and connections… this is the state that leads to complication!
• INFORMED SIMPLICITY is an enlightened perspective on reality –– using the skills of finding the patterns within complexity, the designer then brings “order out of chaos” and creates something powerful, enduring and robust.
This more nuanced, complex approach –– written for designers of buildings –– is equally instructive for designers of brands. For FMCG marketers, and the package designers who counsel them, “Informed Simplicity” is something to consider. Or, as Albert Einstein famously noted: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
via thedieline.com
Insightful and very applicable to marketing. The whole article is worth a read.
Design Strategy + Surprising and Delighting
Paul Isakson just posted an exceptionally well done and thought provoking video by Continuum entitled Resonance. The video is worth the ~11 minutes, and while I’d rather have you spend your time watching it than reading this post, I do want to make some short comments and pull out a few key quotes.
“[Ideas win when they achieve] a resonance between what’s meaningful for people, and what’s profitable for companies.”
This (among other things) is one reason why marketers and companies are having a hard time these days. Either a) they’re marketing something that’s genuinely not useful/hopeless (it happens to the best of us), or b) they’re not thinking creatively about how to market in a way that really is meaningful (lame banners vs. genuine interactions).
“Sometimes there needs are to be surprised and delighted.”
“Surprised and delighted” are two words that seem to be quite popular. There was an excellent article on The Next Wave about Crispin Porter’s work in which the author states, “They know that advertising is supposed to surprise and delight.” Perhaps this is another reason why marketers are having a hard time, companies aren’t ready to step outside their comfort zone to market in a way that surprises and delights — especially in this economy which has unfortunately all-but demanded short term thinking (“just stay alive”).
Last comment: Isakson rightly points out that
“…it’s really about putting people at the center of the approach, rather than profit or your own desires as a company. Not only is this relevant to design, but it is also paramount to creating great advertising.”
That is the one thing perhaps this video is missing. While people are definitely at the center of this video, there is much reference to discovering what people need and designing things that meet those needs. I love this concept with one caveat: people need relationships and you can’t create relationships. You can, however, build things that help foster those relationships.
Enjoy the watch.
