What makes "It" it?

I was reading a review of the upcoming movie “It” (Stephen King) which contained the following line:

Muschietti (the film’s director) understands the Spielberg-ian rule that creating a recognizable and convincing backdrop makes the payoff moments of coulrophobic terror and supernatural awe feel tangible and believable.

— Peter Hartlaub

It’s a bit of a reflection back on the discussions we have in our classes — specifically branding classes where students are challenged to recast the mythos of an existing brand — about the role of the believable being the foundation of the unbelievable is a good thing... or if you tell a far-fetched story, having ties back to things that are tangible and recognizable today can help to engage your audience a good bit more.

In the fashion world, we learned this at Gap, too, in the early-2000s when we decided to change the entire product line and then the shopping experience to a more “Diesel-like” assortment of hunt-and-find. Our customers rebelled — they couldn’t recognize us… and we had not done the pre-work to earn the Diesel customers over beforehand. Our sales plummeted. Our stock tanked. I remember Mickey Drexler at a shareholder meeting admitting failure “We changed too many things at once — people didn’t know who we were.”

At Gap, my first manager, Randy Saunders, used to say: "Progress before perfection" which echoed the above a quite bit. At IDEO, Bob Adams used to say similar things about the idea of interjecting the idea of sustainability into our projects. The common thread: If you build it at the right pace with enough there to be familiar, digestible, and actionable, you might veer to success rather than failure.

In design — and probably in life — you’ll probably find that change happens one of two ways: evolution and revolution. One is a bit gradual — and perhaps sustainable. I takes root and thrives. The other is more abrupt — and too often leaves room for doubt... for resentment... for the next revolution.

That said, we often do need a revolution to shake things up a bit — and that's certainly not something to be discouraged when it's called for... but not everything shouldn't, needs to be, or can be revolutionary. Don't aim low, but don't go in looking for a fight either.

Good design and storytelling can be evolutionary. Unfortunately, that often doesn't make for good click-bait headlines and keynote speakers at conferences, so it often goes overlooked... which is one of the reasons I found the film review above so refreshing.