Google Print Ads Now Used by 225 Newspapers
Whole Foods CEO Is Caught Posting Anonymously to Financial Forums
The Power of Graphs
The Power of Animated Graphs
User Research Can Produce Great Design
Businessman Has Meltdown in Hotel Lobby
An Effective Business Meeting

And now, an IM conversation between Dave and myself.

Dave Selden: 10:11
very interesting article here:
http://www.gladwell.com/2004/2004_09_06_a_ketchup.html

Dave Selden: 10:11
I really like the “mind doesn’t know what the tongue wants” part
the fact that you can’t design a universal ketchup and please people
you have to design several ketchups that sub-groups can rally around

Thom Schoenborn: 10:14
reading:
“Try my ketchup!” Wigon said, over and over, to anyone who passed. “If you don’t try it, you’re doomed to eat Heinz the rest of your life.”

Dave Selden: 10:14
seriously
sarah and I don’t eat ketchup
I guess we would buy ketchup if it tasted better
not something I really ever thought about

Thom Schoenborn: 10:14
ketchup in australia is awesome.
no sugar.
just tomato and vinegar

Dave Selden: 10:15
wow

Thom Schoenborn: 10:15
with their bacon, which we call canadian bacon?
kick-ass.

Dave Selden: 10:15
ha
maybe I will make that next
british bacon is also awesome

Thom Schoenborn: 10:16
for sure:
“You know why you like it so much?” he would say, in his broad Boston accent, to the customers who seemed most impressed. “Because you’ve been eating bad ketchup.”

Dave Selden: 10:17
“If you are four—and I have a four-year-old—he doesn’t get to choose what he eats for dinner, in most cases,” Keller says. “But the one thing he can control is ketchup. It’s the one part of the food experience that he can customize and personalize.” As a result, Heinz came out with the so-called EZ Squirt bottle, made out of soft plastic with a conical nozzle. In homes where the EZ Squirt is used, ketchup consumption has grown by as much as twelve per cent.
Small children tend to be neophobic: once they hit two or three, they shrink from new tastes. That makes sense, evolutionarily, because through much of human history that is the age at which children would have first begun to gather and forage for themselves, and those who strayed from what was known and trusted would never have survived.”

Thom Schoenborn: 10:18
Interesting.
I like the concept of the multiple versions of perfection:
“Instead, working with the Campbell’s kitchens, he came up with forty-five varieties of spaghetti sauce. [snip]  When Moskowitz charted the results, he saw that everyone had a slightly different definition of what a perfect spaghetti sauce tasted like. If you sifted carefully through the data, though, you could find patterns, and Moskowitz learned that most people’s preferences fell into one of three broad groups: plain, spicy, and extra-chunky, and of those three the last was the most important. Why? Because at the time there was no extra-chunky spaghetti sauce in the supermarket.”

Dave Selden: 10:20
totally

Thom Schoenborn: 10:21
You can’t please all the people all the time, basically.

Dave Selden: 10:21
yeah

Thom Schoenborn: 10:21
“If I make one group happier, I piss off another group. We did this for coffee with General Foods, and we found that if you create only one product the best you can get across all the segments is a 60—if you’re lucky. That’s if you were to treat everybody as one big happy family. But if I do the sensory segmentation, I can get 70, 71, 72. Is that big? Ahhh. It’s a very big difference. In coffee, a 71 is something you’ll die for.”

Dave Selden: 10:21
totally

Thom Schoenborn: 10:21
in college, my magazine prof was the founder and editor of Guitar magazine.
about 10% of their subscriber base were bass players
they had, like, two sections of each issue dedicated to bass players.
and when they cut one of those sections, ONE SINGLE PAGE of editorial, they lost something like 8% of their subscriber base.

Dave Selden: 10:23
funny
that’s a lot

Thom Schoenborn: 10:23
in many ways, it’s about knowing not just what people like about your product — because people tend to like a lot of things about what you offer —
it’s about knowing about how passionate they are about those things.
which is a little different than this subject.
but they’re related.
We should just copy and paste this IM convo into a 72dpiiintheshade post.

Dave Selden: 10:24
do it.

I attended some event in which a group of Wieden+Kennedy dudes talked about a survey they’d done to prove the value of their creative. So they asked a bunch of media buyers and marketing folks what they thought NIKE’s annual media spend was. The average guess was ridiculously higher than it actually was. To translate: advertising experts believed NIKE was spending about twice as much as they actually were because the ads were so memorable and fantastic.

The point is that creative executions which are daring and evocative can work twice as hard as mediocre executions for the same price. Throw that little anecdote into your next pitch. Tell ‘em you read it on the Internet…

Anyway, it’s also a great excuse to link you to this non-NIKE commercial, which is %&#@$%&ing hilarious. (Thanks, Ben.)

Raul is an Interactive Art Director from Brasil who has some pretty exciting personal work in his portfolio. I particularly love the pieces where collages photographs using really interesting vector masks.

Go visit his site and file it under inspiration.

A couple of Fridays ago I attended Forward07, an American Marketing Association conference on innovation and sustainability. I’ve attended a few conferences in the past year and none were as inspiring as this one. Huge thanks to all the folks who helped pull this one together.

The Challenge

Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface, was the first speaker of the day. He told his story in a very simple and authentic way without the aid of any of the usual presentation tools. His pure honesty and passion held the room in a way I have seen very few speakers pull off. More than a decade ago, Ray was 61 years old and had no concern for anything but his bottom line. He was challenged by Interface to have a stance on the environment and a month later he approached them with ‘Mission Zero.’ By 2020 his company would not only have zero footprint on the earth, but every day of production would be giving back to the earth. He believed that his company could make this a reality while dramatically increasing their margins (‘doing well by doing good’).

Permission to Fail

Ray spoke about how giving his staff permission to fail created an environment spawned innovation. One story that particularly impressed me was how an engineer’s idea to tear down their production line and reinstall it would cut energy usage dramatically. Because they installed all of the equipment prior to running the pipe, the plant had narrow diameter pipe winding throughout the entire line. The friction created by the narrow pipe and the excessive length caused by the winding resulted in the need for high power pumps to push fluid through the system. By tearing down the entire line, running large diameter pipe first and then installing the equipment, Interface was able to use pumps that ran on 1/14 of the power than its predecessors did. The money saved by not using 86% of the energy dramatically increased the companies margins and significantly reduced their footprint (‘doing well by doing good’).

Interface could have looked at the capital cost, the potential for failure and denied the engineer’s proposal. Thi’s is just one of many stories Ray told that illustrated how being less afraid of failure inspired the innovation that has made Interface an icon of sustainability.

Looking to Nature

Interface’s designers and engineeres looked to nature to see what it does well and what they could take from it. Among other things, their designers noted how nature isn’t perfect. That while humans have a natural drive towards perfection, they dream of a natural place when they imagine the ideal. They designed a rug tile production system that produces no tile the same. This resulted in their quality assurance people not being able to find any imperfect tiles, easier installation and zero waste.

Ray said that the ‘best way to have good ideas is to stop having bad ideas.’ It sounds simple but you can tell he really means it. By expecting exactly that from his company, they are on a strong path towards their mission for zero footprint. He is an inspiration and I believe his vision will fundamentally change the way business is done. As he finished his story, the crowed roared into a standing ovation. One woman stood and shouted that he should be President. I don’t think Ray wants to do that, but I hope he inspires the next one.

The Tools

The rest of the day was filled with a panel of sustainable businesses and some motivational fun with Kevin Carroll. Kevin spoke about the importance of play and surrounding ourselves with tools that get us excited. He challenged the crowd to ditch their mission statements in favor of ‘inspirational dreams.’ I couldn’t agree more with that idea… It is my experience that you can people and companies who expose their spirit and passions are magnets. People just want to be a part their lives, projects or work.

I could go on and on about this conference and all of the amazing stories I heard. The important thing is leaving feeling energized and inspired.

I remember taking a corporate identity class my last term of college. Though it was mentioned that branding was a company’s “identity,” it was never explained that branding was more than just a logo. We spent a majority of the class designing a new logo for a company of our choosing and ways to use the logo in the environment. After 11 weeks, the only thing I walked away from that class with was the idea that you have to have a nice enough looking logo to make an impact on your target audience. Also, maybe it should look good on a billboard or a water bottle or something.

I got an A in the class. My point? (Besides the fact that I’m slightly unhappy with my Alma Mater). People talk about brands all the time, but very few people actually understand their purpose or how to manage one.

Who are you? What do you do? Why does anyone care?

A brand is not a logo. It’s not a company. It’s not the solution to any algebra problem and it’s not a product. A brand is a feeling that a consumer has about a company or a product or maybe even a service. It’s also a great Jeopardy question. In short, a brand should say: “This is who we are. This is how we’re different from our competitors.”

Your logo is just one part of your brand. Like a name is just one part of a person. There are many attributes that make someone a unique individual and it works the same for a company’s brand. It takes high quality work, dedication as individuals and team members, shared goals and hard work to create an effective and lasting brand identity. Good brand identity is not just a great logo; it’s a reputation and a level of quality that is associated with the visual “marker.”

When explaining what services they specialized most in, I heard a former employer tell a client once that their company was the “Old Navy” of web design. Let’s face it, people, if you want a great pair of running shoes to last, chances are you’re not going to get them at Payless Shoe Source. Don’t advertise what you are not or what you don’t want people to assume about you. The quality people feel about your product or your work is your company.

Rome wasn’t built in a day – so don’t expect your brand to be.

It takes a lot of: time, people, planning, experience, energy, focus, research, money, ideas, mistakes [deep breath goes here], chances, success, expertise, trials, patience and a lot of hard work to be the next Nike or Coca Cola [whew!].

How to get over the roadblock of logic vs. creativity

Q: How do you know when an idea is innovative?
A: When it scares the hell out of everybody
(Neumeier, 80)

If it were all logic we “right-brainers” would be out of jobs. No one wants logical explanations; no one wants to listen to reason. We want magic! Magic is fun and exciting and…well, magical. Unfortunately you can’t really remove logic from the equation and you can’t remove creativity. People don’t trust pure creativity because it’s not always the most practical to do that but people don’t really want rational thinking ALL the time because our best thinking depends on intuition and insight (Neumeier, 73) and also people want magic. So you have to find that happy medium of both execution and strategy that makes everyone feel warm and fuzzy. Once that is accomplished. then you can play.

Why yes! That is exactly what I want!

“Get the right idea and then get the idea right” (Neumeier, 120-121). Create your message. Send that message to your target audience. Require your audience to give you feedback. Find out what works and what doesn’t. Find out what your people want and then give it to them.

Badger! Badger! Badger!

World just passing you by?

Madonna did it. Michael Jackson didn’t. Madonna experienced musical success throughout the 80’s and 90’s because she reinvented herself and her music continually adapted to what was most popular. The last song Michael Jackson released a few years back sounded the same as the music he was making in the early 80’s. Of course I’m positive there are other “factors” that hindered his success but that is an entirely different blog post.

Success embraces change and fosters growth with the marketplace. Just like with people, brands aren’t always perfect. They have good times and bad times. They change and they grow but as long as their core attributes never change then it’s all good. If you as a person want to experience success you have to make mistakes. You have to bust tail and you have to try different avenues. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. In the end you take what you learn, apply it to your next run and eventually with enough persistence, hard work, and dedication, you will inevitably find success. Through your journey you are still the same person with the same qualities and you’ve adopted new experiences. Brands work the same way.

Does your company’s behavior match your brand? Ours does!

Alongside the business and work aspect of creating a good brand are the people who represent it. A friend told me once “Pop Art is where you hope to end up in your career as a designer.” And although I know he appreciates and admires the work we do here, it’s the people that create the company’s reputation as a whole that makes it such a desirable place to work. Our clients love us! We make business an enjoyable experience, and, as an added bonus, we create beautiful and pleasing work for them, and we love every minute of it.

A company’s atmosphere and culture are just as important as the quality of work they deliver. Pop Art has achieved success on so many levels: from acquiring prominent clients to a knowledgeable staff with a passion to educate and be educated. A collection of intelligent, creative, happy and enjoyable personalities are all part of delivering the high quality work we are becoming reputable for. This is helping shape and define Pop Art’s unique brand and indeed separates us from our competitors.

Where did I get all that info?

1. Neumeier, Marty. The Brand Gap: How to bridge the distance between business strategy and design. New Riders Press; 1ST edition, 2003.
2. Pop Art’s Annual Company Retreat
3. My Brain

1. ZeFrank is just as funny live as he is online. His comedy styled PowerPoint presentation was hillarious.
• “Do you recognize me now?”
2. “Web 1.0 was about participation being added to a web site. Web 2.0 is about participation being the web site.” - Jory Des Jardins
• World Domination Via Collaboration
• Listen to the podcast
• Jory Des Jardins Website
3. BBQ in Austin is delicious. I’m still thinking about it. The best place was Kreuz in Lockhart.
4. “Community on the web was made possible by fanboys.”
   - Henry Jenkins
• Convergence Culture: A Conversation with Henry Jenkins
• Henry Jenkins Website
5. Buy Banana Guard stock while you can. It is about to receive a upswing in sales due to free SXSW exposure.
   • Create a Campaign in an Hour
   • Banana Guard competitor
6. An interesting topic, no matter how good it is, is not enough to carry a great panel discussion
   • High Class and Low Class Web Design
   • Khoi Vinh’s post on his participation and contribution to a truly awful panel
   • Christopher Fahey’s perspective
7. If you knew how much certain web 2.0 apps cost to start and maintain, you’d be shocked.
   • Barenaked App: The Figures Behind the Top Web Apps
   • Download the presentation
8. Most of the time, presentations are better than panels.
   • Stop Designing Products by Peter Merholz
   • Download the presentation
9. It is not enough to book Dan Rather as a keynote speaker to an interactive conference. You need to plan what questions you want to ask him that are related to the web/interactive.
   • Live blog of event
   • Listen to the podcast
   • Mini review
10. If you are going to bring a laptop to SXSW and you don’t want it to stand out, make sure it is an Apple.

Today, I got a haircut. A big one. My summer chop-off. Buzzville, USA, Population: Me.

I also had a very entertaining barber, from the Bay Area. He regaled me with stories of pimped out Buicks, drug dealers, and a special summer drink his cousins used to make with equal parts Mickey’s and Gallo Sangria. Drink half a grenade, fill with sangria, and add ice. Sounds filthy, but he claimed “some very high class girls” loved it after getting over the initial hesitation. He also claimed the physical limit, “even for big dudes,” was 3 of these concoctions. I think I will take his word for it.

At any rate, before he started, he “triple-checked” that I wanted the buzz, a precaution he’s developed cutting women’s hair. But he also introduced me to a haircutting trick he called “the commitment cut.” After getting the affirmative to cut after the triple check, he does what he calls “The Commitment Cut,” whereby he immediately takes a drastic cut from a highly noticeable area, thereby commiting the cutter and cut-ee alike to the agreed-upon haircut.

I don’t think a lot of clients would go for this technique, but it’s something I think I’m going to start trying in design. With the “undo” key just a “Z” away and immense hard drives offering virtually unlimited versioning potential, I’ve seen designers that get hamstrung by safety. You can always tell a timid designer: his files end in all end with “v9-r12.” Designers like that are afraid to take risks, which I feel limits their creativity.

So I’m making a resolution. Do the “undo-able.” Make the risky design decision. Fail big, because if you’re not failing occasionally, you’re just not trying hard enough. Or, as the fine folks from Mickey’s Malt Beverages say, “Get stung.” I think it might just improve your work.

Every once in a while, I see a movie that excites me as a designer. The opening titles for Panic Room, combined with that film’s amazing camera work. Fight Club, with it’s “IKEA catalog” sequences and David Carson-like typography.

Last night, I saw another such film, Stranger Than Fiction. The great typography and motion graphics first started my design pulse racing, with a great opening sequence.

Harold Crick (Will Farrell) is an IRS agent with a boring life. He has an amazing gift for numbers, and counts everything in his day, starting with the number of times he brushes his teeth each morning.

Type onscreen gives us visual clues to what Crick is thinking as he knots his tie …

… and counts the individual dots on the knot.

It’s a great sequence visually, with simple, bold graphics that really complement the photography. The motion is extremely elegant, with precise movements orchestrated to synch with what Farrell is doing. Hats off to whoever is responsible.

Beyond that, the film has a great 1960s/70s Kodachrome look to it, with rich mustardy yellows and dirty greens. Modernist Architecture is everywhere, and extreme object macro close-ups remind me of my own corkboard. I haven’t heard a lot about this film critically, but I’d highly recommend it. The web site is pretty cool, too.

I stumbled upon Christophe Remmy’s work this afternoon while looking around for illustrators. I love his balance of organic and graphic styling. The depth in texture and field is amazing… Parts feel strong and graphic while others feel like they are melting away into fog. Very strong work!
Check it out.