I'm a designer working for an international branding consultancy.
@joshualeigh
I’ve decided I like Tumblr better than Br&’s old home at Blogger, so I will be migrating content here which might explain lots of posts all in one day.
A nice fresh start for March. I will continue my original objective – to write original content on branding related topics, not just re-blogging other people’s articles without insight.
For re-blogging without insight, please see my twitter feed:
Water. We all need it to live, it’s as simple as that. A basic human necessity.
For most, a simple glass of tap water is enough, a look into my local water board shows me that its treatment processes are enough to keep me happy that I’m getting clean drinking water delivered to my home, for a small amount per day.
Then there is the lucrative mineral water market, making people feel that this pure mountain filtered volcanic water is better for you, even though technically it contains more ‘non water’ elements (ie elements and compounds that aren’t H2O).
This market has existed for a long time and seems to show no sign of slowing down. On the contrary, if anything it is expanding into new and ever more stupid areas, testing the limits of human misunderstanding, preying of the most ill-informed members of society.
I’m talking not of soda, soft drinks and the like, but the new ranges of products that use and abuse the word ‘water’.
These products actively use the word water for its healthy connotations with names such as ‘Vitamin water’ and ‘Skinny Water’.
Of course as you might imagine, these products are anything but healthy.
Lets have a look at the nutritional information on these products and see what they contain, bearing in mind that water contains nothing nutritionally, 0 calories to be precise.
Vitamin water (591ml):
Let’s just break down that table, and see some of the tricks at work here.
Firstly, one of the typical tricks used, the nutrition table is listed by ‘Serving’. Of course, the bottle contains 2.5 servings. So even though you buy a bottle of ‘water’ you’re supposed to only drink one third of it. Let’s assume, like most people you drink the whole thing in one sitting, rather than save it over the course of 3 days.
You would take in 13g of sugar per ‘serving’ which in the whole bottle would be 32.5 grams of sugar. Doesn’t seem like such a healthy product now does it?
‘Skinny water’ is as you would imagine much lower in sugar, I mean, it’s called skinny water. But take a second to think about that name. Water is ZERO calories, so what could be more ‘skinny’ (ie low calorie) than no calories?
Well according to the nutrition information on the bottle, 9 calories is! Yep, skinny water contains 9 calories more than regular water, so how exactly is that skinny?
That brings us onto the Volvic ‘A touch of’ range. Presumably marketed at those who don’t like the neutral taste of regular water, and want a chemical flavoured concoction.
To me this is the worst of the bunch. It’s placed alongside the mineral waters in the fridge. It looks as close to the Volvic mineral water range as it can, and rides on the back of the healthy Volvic volcanic water campaigns. The drink is clear, not brightly coloured like, say, Vitamin Water (which is at least a clue to it being bad for you).
The big difference is that Volvic A Touch Of… contains a staggering 23 grams of sugar per bottle!
I’m sure there must be people out there drinking this drink, imaging it’s actually good for them, which is why it’s such a terrible piece of marketing.
So next time you’re feeling thirsty, why not just go for some tap water, it’s bound to me more healthy than this lot and let’s not even get started on the environmental cost of transporting water around the world!
Why do we need more green stuff?
The last thing the world needs right now is another product, we don’t need more stuff. We need less.
If you really care then don’t buy needless new products, re-use what you have and give money direct to charities who can more efficiently make some real change. Don’t feel the need to get a ‘thing’ in return for your charity, that’s just a selfish way of giving.
It seems like there are so many ‘green’ products out there, but the problem is, they are still products which are made in factories and have a carbon footprint. They’re not helping anything.
How many excess canvas bags are there now in the world, because some genius decided to produce tons of them, poorly produced, probably made in china somewhere. They only last a few months, but definitely not a lifetime. A decent quality rucksack would be a better choice and was already on sale.
Come on, all of these (a small sample from Google) can’t be needed, they cancel eachother out. which is my problem with most ‘green’ products:
In the UK there used to be lots of cancer charities that all competed for donations and did separate reseach, especially the two major ones. Then they decided that they had a common aim and should merge and share their research and work together, they formed Cancer Research UK funnelling more funding to one charity would help them all work to cure cancer. Now they are the world’s leading cancer charity and do great work.
The same idea should happen with green products. One organisation curating green products, making sure they are truly green and produced in the best possible way. They should only sell the bare minimum number of products with the aim of reducing emissions with all money going to verified good causes.
A competitive capitalist market is really the enemy of the green ideal, we don’t need lots of choice, just one good option. The ‘green industry’ is one market that would be improved by limited choices and less competition. A coalition with the same aims would be so much better.
So, nice bags, t-shirts, water bottles etc but I won’t be buying, I have enough tshirts. I may donate to the gulf cleanup and other causes directly. Just remember that every product you buy announcing to the world that you are ‘green’ is still manufactured and will probably become tomorrow’s rubbish.
Saul Bass, couldn’t have put it better myself.
Recently the iconic DKNY mural in NYC’s SoHo distract was removed :
Some don’t realise that murals like this are still painted by hand in a minority of cases.
What used to be the main method for applying large-scale advertising is now a small industry of a few remaining practitioners.
This great documentary posted above interviews a few of these painters and reveals how it’s all done
Edit: here’s a great site from the History of Advertising Trust called Ghostsigns, it’s an archive of photos of old and fading hand-painted signs from around the UK. I’m glad someone is taking stock of the huge number of these old adverts that are still visible before they fade away completely.
This week here in the UK sees the release of Pixar’s 10th feature film UP.
Reviews, as with the other 9 of their films are already glowing with praise. In Hollywood terms Pixar is untouchable, no other studio has had 10 consecutive hit movies from its inception. So far (and long may this continue) they haven’t made a dud yet. Only 2006’s Cars slightly underperformed, but even that grossed $462 million worldwide. Their most popular film to date has been Finding Nemo which grossed $866 millon. This explains why all their trailers begin with ‘From the people that brought you Finding Nemo’.
It is often said that the reason they get it right every time is because their formula is simply that of telling captivating stories. Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter comes from a traditional animation background (he started his career as an animator for Disney) and although he was one of the pioneers of computer animation it’s not what drives his approach. Pixar produces cutting-edge CGI but it’s never for the sake of technical prowess, it only ever serves to enrich the story telling. This is something that rival studio Dreamworks could learn from.
This cartoon perfectly sums up my feelings toward Dreamworks
(click to enlarge):
From a brand perspective Pixar are now in a very enviable place. They were originally backed by Steve Jobs of apple in the early days, he is still the majority shareholder. In 2006 Pixar was bought by Disney for $7.4 billon since their traditional animated output was failing badly. Jobs is now Disney’s largest individual shareholder with 7%.
Since the buyout, John Lasseter has been made chief creative officer of Disney in general and Principal creative advisor for Disney Imagineering, this means that essentially he is now the creative director for all of Disney’s output, including things like their themeparks, so we can expect all of this to improve greatly over the next few years.
After laying to rest their traditional 2D animation output in 2004 with Home on the Range, Disney is now reviving this due to Lasseter’s new role. Maybe his enthusiasm comes from his heritage in hand drawn animation. This Christmas Disney will release a new 2D animation called The Princess Frog.
I think this proves what Pixar have known all along, people want great storytelling, it’s not about the medium it’s only about the communication. We’ll see in a few months how the public responds to the return to the 2D approach, after the general trend for releasing movies animated in 3D, with 3D glasses it might be a welcome change of pace.
If anyone can oversee the change back it’s Lasseter, as well as being a leading light in computer animation he is also great friends with the ‘Japanese Disney’ Hayao Miyazaki and has producing credits on several of the english language releases of his films such as Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle.
One of my favourite things about Pixar films is their attention to detail. I suppose when you work on one project for 3 or 4 years you have the time to add nice touches, in fact it probably maintains your interest in the project.
Here’s a great article about all the hidden references in Pixar films:
http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/archive/2007/12/09/a-special-where-s-wall-e-edition-of-why-for.aspx##
The Toyota Pizza Planet delivery van from Toy Story apparently appears in every subsequent Pixar film.
Given that Pixar productions overlap in their timelines, it is also possible for them to make hidden ‘forward references’ to future movies. Such as the boy in the waiting room in Finding Nemo reading an Incredibles comic book:
All of which brings us to the people and the culture of the company. It’s widely known that they have slightly unconventional offices. Animators are encouraged to create their own space in which to work, feathering their nests with anything and eveything that inspires them, so they become immersed in their work:
In fact I noticed that even their offices’ lobby has been the inspiration for the set of Monsters Inc. Notice the similarities?
Some of the many artists, animators and designers have blogs about their work and you can read interviews with Pixar artists here:
http://www.pixar.com/artistscorner/index.html
It’s obvious that Pixar care a lot about their output, their people and the stories they tell. I’m just glad that this has lead to the success it deserves, hopefully their approach will be good inspiration for the correct way to run a whole range of creative companies.
I’ll end this post with Pixar production designer Lou Romano’s website. His colour treatments for UP are wonderful, and a great reminder of the many artists behind the scenes that contribute to a movie’s look and feel:
http://louromano.blogspot.com/
(the first image in this post is by him too)
Google has made every page of every issue of LIFE magazine (from mid 1930s to 1970s) available online in their Google books.
Great to read through, not just for the photography and articles but all the old adverts are fascinating
http://books.google.com/books?id=N0EEAAAAMBAJ&source=gbs_all_issues_r&cad=2
The Yale University Press has, this week, updated their identity. Gone is Paul Rand’s quirky asymmetrical slab-serif roundel and in its place is a simple piece of type set in Matthew Carter’s Yale Typeface.
This move has been seen by some designers as sacrilege, because one should never redesign one of Rand’s designs. Indeed the replacement has none of the charm or quirkiness of the original but I can see the strategy behind the change.
Before, while they shared the name Yale, there was still some ambiguity as to whether they were indeed related, or to how related their content was.
In general I think consistency is a useful thing, but in this case it’s a shame to lose Rand’s design since he taught at Yale himself for 30 years. Strategic alignment is one thing but let’s hope we don’t lose our sense of history and individuality completely.
[Article on Yale Daily News site]
Paul McCrudden, from my old employer Imagination, has started to invoice brands that he has interacted with for his time as a customer. A really interesting idea, the concept that we as regular, long term customers are of great value.
He has received payment from the the founder of Pret A Manger already for £62.
Read the full article on Paul’s blog:
http://www.paulmccrudden.com/sixweeks.htm
