Welcome to Room557

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.

Nature of Identity FA16 (and SP16)... Lots of Awesomesauce

The fall of 2016 found Nature of Identity busting at the seams insofar as student count. A shift in the program meant that more students needed to take the class that semester than ever before and the seat count more than doubled.

At the same time, I had just made a major shift in the class by altering the flow and number of deliverables. The latter was great news as the change found 100% of the work the students were doing past week-1 finding its way directly into the final project in the final format — which meant no reformatting was necessary. Also, by separating the project into three smaller books (+ a website), it not only allowed for production throughout the semester, but the stack of books was a good bit more robust than a single book. It also gave more room to showcase process... as well as made the set more modular should they only want to show the process or the strategy during an interview. So, all good things... just a lot of change at once.

That said, we also had a record success rate at over 97% passing... which, for an advanced studio is quite good. Kudos go to the students who did absolutely fabulous work.

The basics of the class remain the same. We've added some exercises along the way and sharpened a few elements, but the idea that the students are looking deep into the heart of a brand to uncover what they're truly about is still a core element. This isn't a class about wingdings on coffee mugs and the students emerge ready to tackle some pretty high-level shiznit.

So, without pause, and in no particular order, let me throw some links your way: (I'll hot-link them soon... there's lots of cutting/pasting involved and there's just not enough coffee.)

Liz Lemon and The Ilusion of Choice

If you haven't seen it, the TV show 30ROCK is worth binge watching. It’s a great take on pop culture and entertainment as mixed with modern day life and the compromises we have to make.

In the 5th season (2010), an episode called Brooklyn Without Limits (BWL) features a fictional brand (think: TOMS shoes, American Apparel, etc.) that the show’s protagonist, Liz Lemon (a TV producer for a comedy sketch show), falls in love with.

A letter to a student about their future referencing my past

The below is an excerpt from a round of correspondence with a student this semester. The student was having a hard time connecting the great ideas tin their head with a way to properly communicate them through design... as well as how to get the most out of the in-class critique.

Upon reflection, I thought that some of the sentiments might be beneficial to a wider audience, so here you go:

...

"... you have so many excellent ideas kicking around in your head (and you’re so anxious to get them out) that pacing them is hard.

I know it can be frustrating when someone tells you to slow down and take your time — or worse when someone might overlook something that you think is important because cause they’re not able to dive into the details… but, as you can imagine, these are lessons hard-earned myself. As someone who was also once young and full of good ideas — and also anxious to get them out — it took me a while to understand that not everyone was on the same page.

In fact, I remember exactly when that was:

Listening to Understand

Listening is a skill. As a designer, listening is as much of a skill as picking the perfect typeface… more so, really. But when we say “listen”, we often forget that the concept has many facets.

Like George Nelson showed us in his book How to see, listening — like seeing (vs. looking) — can have very different outcomes depending on how you approach it. More often than not, we approach it from the wrong angle.

We listen to reply.

We need to listen to understand.

Keeping yourself honest

When you're working on a project, it's easy to get distracted... and even procrastinate. It's important to keep yourself honest along the way. There will always be bad days and time will slip away, but it's important to know where you are and make realistic plans. Conversely, don't try to fool yourself.

For instance, If I was a field hand and I needed to shovel 50 pounds of grain per week, I might look at it this way: If the week started out rough, Monday might be a wash. Tuesday and Wednesday might also suffer... But on Thursday, I might kick it into high gear and finish out the day ahead. For this, I feel really good about myself and the overall scope of work — and I worked hard, so there should be some satisfaction there. On Friday, still feeling good, I treat myself to a slight break... hey, it's Friday, right? I finish out the week feeling pretty good and enjoying the break I gave to myself. Sound familiar? Of course, it does... we all do it. Of course, we also fail to go back and look at the reality of the math and see that we're nearly a day behind schedule.

Brand frameworks: Circles and lines

We know that people have a need to wrap things up, compartmentalize, and see things in tidy boxes. It's how we're wired. When creating communications, we keep that tendency in mind and find ourselves boiling down complex ideas into more manageable bites, or diagrammed out via doodles... or both.

The framework of the universe that a brand creates is no different. The idea behind Mr. Clean is just as easily drawn as it is conceptualized... but when drawn, you can see how something might live outside of the "brand universe" it has created.

In our branding classes, I encourage students to "draw it out" as well. Following my mantra: If you can't draw it, you probably can't properly explain it... by drawing out how a brand presents itself (and where it lives and/or doesn't live) can help to structure it in any number of positive ways for both the designer and the audience... generally helping to frame it in the minds of both.

Genie Questions (+ the 3-question rule)

Students always have questions… which is awesome (when they don’t, we worry). As instructors, we try to help guide them to answers (and sometimes simply provide them).

This semester is particularly busy and time is in short supply. For brevity, I’ve had to qualify and clarify the idea of questions. I’ve not looked at fancy delineations like questions for clarity or questions of intention. Those are great frameworks, but, like a lot of things: what works in a textbook doesn't work as well in a classroom.

Instead, it's about: Genie Questions.

[Boom Zahramay: Do genies really deserve the bad rap?]

Gill Sans and Orange Chicken

Typefaces and their personalities can be like spices and sauces in cuisine — they can be very specific to a genre or area and give off very specific feeling. But, if you’re not familiar with the nuances and subtleties of them, you might miss quite a bit along the way.

For instance, if you’re not familiar with the varied cuisine of China you might think of Panda Express as great Chinese food… and you’d be missing the point (and minimizing a great culinary legacy by way of a mediocre chain restaurant). In a similar way, someone not familiar with Roman typography might look at sans-serif faces and consider them all basically the same.

However, a typeface like Gill Sans has a legacy in Great Britain that is tied to pride during wartime. This sentiment is not shared by their American counterparts — and late 20th century allegations into Eric Gill's personal life questions whether we can separate the art from the artist (For the record, I'm not a fan). They would have feelings towards different faces — also based on where they might have historically encountered them. For instance, faces like Franklin Gothic would make many Americans think of early educational materials like flashcards and children’s books. However, to someone with only a vague familiarity of the nuances of the two typefaces, Gill Sans and Franklin Gothic might seem pretty much the same — they’re both “Orange Chicken”.

“Keep Calm” was one of three posters created by the British Ministry of Information in 1939 in response to public concerns over Hitler’s invasions into Europe.

Brand Thinking is Diagrammatical Thinking

(or how American Apparel took over the world)

In our early classes, we look at Gestalt principles and learn that people are coded to be a bit lazy — that we tend to see things in groups, lines and structured arrangements... and even if they're not truly there, we kind of make them up simply to put our minds at ease. As communication designers, knowing these things helps us connect to our audiences more effectively. The same principle helps movie makers make more enjoyable films. It helps chefs make more interesting dishes.

When we look at brands, we can also look at these same tendencies. We can look at the sentiments of stability, trust, and comfort that these ideas bring to our minds... These are things that brands generally strive to achieve.

[Speaking of uncomfortable: When your critically acclaimed (and awesome) show is canceled, and all that's left are re-runs and bottles of cleaner on the discount rack...]

 

IN THE CLASSROOM

In GR604: The Nature of Identity, the challenge for students is to re-discover the soul of a dead, dying or defunct brand. The soul is not what a brand makes, but what it stands for.

Avon isn't about make-up, it's about women and opportunities. The soul of Mary Kay is similar, but a bit different, a bit more business-focused — and with a pick Cadillac — a lot more demonstrative. Pan Am is about cultural exchange. Maxtor is about preserving information and memories. Tupperware is about organizing the precious things in your life.

After choosing their brand and doing a lot of research, students are then challenged to envision where else their chosen brand might be able to take an offering like this. If Mary Kay was about opening doors to business opportunities for women, in 1963, that meant (to them) selling make-up door to door. What could that mean in today's context? What kind of service could they offer? What kind of educational offerings or co-branding opportunities could exist? This obviously goes far beyond the logo. This is also why this class lives at the graduate level. It's a lot of fun and yields some amazing projects. Our students can not only make pretty things, but know how things work — and most importantly why they work.

However, in the knowing of how and why, the idea of structured thinking comes into play... or as I've begun to call it in class: Diagrammatical thinking.

I often say:

"If you can't draw it, you probably can't really explain it."