Catching On

Published June 26th, 2007 in Emergence, Branding, Non-Profit Branding and Aesthetics. 0 Comments

Great article on the shift towards emergence in branding.

It?s official. The age of the static brand is coming to an end. Organisations, companies, institutions, even charities are realizing that having identity schemes that ?flex? and adapt to circumstances are more appropriate in the multi-channel, multi-lingual world that brands now inhabit.

Over-controlled brands are starting to look stiff and old-fashioned, but not all clients (and certainly not all design companies) have yet woken up to this latest shift.

Causing a Stir

Published June 8th, 2007 in Emergence, Branding, Aesthetics and Ambiguity. 0 Comments

London 2012The London 2012 official logo was unveiled about a week ago and has caused quite the commotion. Most reactions have been negative, many verging on being violently so. Some are calling for its immediate withdrawal, while others are certifying it as a failure…5 years before it will be able to show any success.

I can see where the detractors are coming from - it is a major departure. However, I feel that there is a great deal of short-sightedness and reactionary thinking going on. Why am I sticking up for this design? Because of this one short paragraph in the brand mission statement that I think everyone dismissed as meaningless fluff:

“The new emblem is dynamic, modern and flexible. It will work with new technology and across traditional and new media networks.”

The Olympics already has a logo - the 5 rings - that is instantly recognizable and crosses all linguistic and cultural barriers. It is fixed, unmatched and untouchable. A steadfast rock. Conversely, the London 2012 logo looks like a frenetic Keith Haring figure (see the pink one on the right, below) - ambiguous, vague, and meant to change and adapt. It is pure attitude and personality.

Keith Haring

I have the feeling that this “icon of the games” is just the tip of the iceberg, and that it’s real value will emerge through the branding system. Given the history and ethos at Wolf-Olins, it is a very real possibility that the logo will take on an entirely different purpose and not behave like a traditional logo at all. Instead I can see it being a highly adaptable, emergent vehicle for the spirit of the games.

My prediction is that this branding system will grow on people and continue to evolve as 2012 draws near.

Tax Time

Published April 17th, 2007 in Emergence and Aesthetics. 0 Comments

Tax Code

The Tax Map

Chaim Kirby visualizes the US tax code just in time for tax day.

How to Pick a Fight

Published April 8th, 2007 in Branding, Non-Profit Branding and Sustainability. 0 Comments

Bruce Nussbaum goes for the throat:

“In the name of provocation, let me start by saying that DESIGNERS SUCK. I’m sorry. It’s true. DESIGNERS SUCK. There’s a big backlash against design going on today and it’s because designers suck.”

Well, this should be fun.

Harry Potter & the Multi-Aesthetic Cover

Published April 4th, 2007 in Emergence, Branding and Aesthetics. 0 Comments

The latest and last book covers for the Harry Potter series were recently released:

US Cover:
Harry Potter - US
UK Children’s Cover:
Harry Potter - UK
UK Adult Cover:
Harry Potter - UK Adult

Why would a book series with so much notoriety need to differentiate its look & feel? Would adults really not buy the book if it didn’t look like every other adult fiction novel? I mean, if you switched out the name and title for that of a Stephen King novel no one would be the wiser.

Does a book like this even need a cover?

It strikes me as absurd that the final installment in such a noteworthy series would bend to the stylistic whims of the publishing industry, but nonetheless, it does show how static content can take on multiple aesthetic styles to communicate to particular audiences. While the adult cover is most noticeably different, the contrast between the two children’s covers is more subtle. The illustrative style, subject matter, and layout tell a lot about how the Harry Potter series is viewed in the public consciousness. In a way they form a mirror that reflects the attitudes and values of certain groups (in this case the children of the US & UK) through aesthetic choices.

So which one of these covers is the right one? Is there a definitive Harry Potter cover?

In the (RED)

Published April 3rd, 2007 in Communication and Non-Profit Branding. 0 Comments

Bono - Product Red

Lessons learned:

  1. You only have one chance to make a first impression…make sure it’s authentic, and
  2. Don’t EVER spend $100 million on promoting a CHARITY.

Joga Bonito

Published March 29th, 2007 in Emergence and Aesthetics. 1 Comment

joga bonito?

Once again, Rafael Fajardo surpasses my ability to articulate:

“My friend and colleague Bill Depper has told me he continues to play soccer and hockey for the flow experience. He means it in two senses. Both in the sense of pursuing a state of optimal performance, as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi proposes; and, in the sense of an organic and dynamically emergent gameplay experience shared among a group of players. One could argue, I realize as I write this, that both senses are manifestations of the same experience. I haven’t heard many talk about the former sense as a shared experience. Instead I’ve only heard it spoken of as a deeply subjective experience. Perhaps the shared manifestation can be described by the same sense of collective flow.

I posed to Bill - who also has coached for his children’s soccer teams - the question of how to teach the latter dynamic flow. Soccer has developed a set of vocabulary terms that are necessary, but that I find insufficient to the task of developing this collective sense of spatial and temporal awareness. ‘Move to the open space’, ‘follow your pass’, ’square pass’, ‘wall pass’, ‘through pass’, are all descriptors that - combined with appropriate actions - should help build this embodied knowledge. Children who play in the streets of latin america figure it out (perhaps I idealize here). The knowledge I seek here is an aesthetic one. The brazilians have called it ‘Joga bonito’, or beautiful play. How can I share with kids the idea of beautiful play.”

Having played hockey for most of my life (and soccer for a number of years), I can attest to this sense of aesthetic flow and emergence. As a goaltender it was my job to assess the other team in relation to the puck - to evaluate plays in real-time, determine the possible outcomes and decide which ones were most likely in order to quickly react when they happen.

Play seems to materialize out of nowhere, things come together and break apart. Passes, shots, dekes, saves and checks all have optimal states that are considered “beautiful.” There are beautiful goals and ugly goals. Every so often a play combines many beautiful elements to produce a moment of beauty that is greater than the sum of its parts - more than the beautiful save that lead to the beautiful pass that lead to the beautiful one-time shot and goal. This moment of strong emergence provokes the human spirit into wonder and amazement. It is the kind of harnessed serendipity that the game is set up to produce.

Perhaps all aesthetic systems share the concept of “joga bonito”?

Art in Antarctica

Published March 23rd, 2007 in Non-Profit Branding. 0 Comments

I found this in my inbox today. I would love to go hang out with the penguins, but unfortunately I am stuck here in the desert.

Artists and Writers Sought for Antarctica Project

The National Science Foundation wants to send artists to the South Pole. No, it’s not a punch line to a joke, but a program to support greater understanding of Antarctica.

“The purpose of the Antarctic Artists and Writers Program is to enable serious writings and works of art that exemplify the Antarctic heritage of humankind,” noted a recent program description. “In particular, the program seeks to increase public understanding of the Antarctic region, including the continent and the surrounding oceans, as well as the associated research and education endeavors.

“The Antarctic Artists and Writers Program provides opportunities for professional artists and writers to travel to Antarctica — at research stations, field camps, and aboard ships — to make the observations necessary to complete their proposed projects. While the majority of award recipients are established artists and writers, the program also seeks to support early career artists and writers in an effort to broaden participation.”

For more information, see the extended program description and application as a PDF. Deadline: June 6, 2007.

Interestingly enough, DesignObserver has a post with more information about the International Polar Year, although I don’t think they have the art program link.

Madness

Published March 19th, 2007 in Emergence and Branding. 0 Comments

I was watching North Dakota take on Minnesota in the WCHA Final Five championship game last weekend (an unbelievable game, btw) and it reminded me of the other NCAA tournament going on at the moment. Yes, that one. The one that is overshadowing all other sports at the moment, including kick-ass college hockey as well as an intense NHL playoff race, but I digress…

While I personally can’t seem to get into March Madness, I do have to marvel at the sheer amount of complexity it generates. First of all you have the ranking system that determines who gets into the tournament. Like other college ranking systems it includes both statistics and speculation, although it’s much easier to understand than the BCS ranking system which is halfway between differential calculus and voodoo.

I was watching North Dakota take on Minnesota (hey there, Doug Woog!) in the WCHA Final Five championship game and it reminded me of the other NCAA tournament going on at the moment. Yes, that one. The one that is overshadowing all other sports at the moment, including some kick-ass college hockey as well as an intense NHL playoff race, but I digress…

March Madness is, as the name implies, maddening, and it is a perfect example of complexity and emergent behavior. To start, there is the game of basketball (or any sport for that matter) which is a complex mix of rules, playing systems, physical skill and emotion. Games can hinge on an individual performance, a bad call by the referee, or the psychological effect of having a home crowd. Then there is the tournament itself, which is complex in its sheer number of possible outcomes: 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 (or 2 to the power of 64 for the mathematically disinclined). On paper, you would have a FAR better chance of winning the lottery - 1 in 80,089,128 for the US Powerball - than predicting the outcome of the “Big Dance.” Feeling overwhelmed?

Yet, this impossibly dense environment of complexity spawns highly emergent behavior. The creation of office betting pools is the most recognized example of emergence. Each office pool is a network of individuals, all playing games on top of games - it is a system formed by a system, and it is influenced dynamically and in real-time. In addition, local economies are established within these office pools to handle betting and/or any side wagers. Rituals and traditions are often established among the people participating, both individually and as a group. Every year one of my co-workers brings in his little portable black and white TV each day of the tournament even though he fills out brackets and gets updates online. Now, even though it just takes up desk space, he sticks to his tradition year after year.

Why do people around the country form office pools? Given the odds, shouldn’t predicting the outcome of the tournament be an exercise in futility, a fools errand?

People expect serendipitous phenomena. We expect upsets, Cinderella stories, big wins, and close calls. When we are confronted with a complex system like the tournament, we look for conditions where these phenomena are likely to occur. Our intuitive ability to think this way gives people who can easily recognize favorable conditions a competitive advantage.

More importantly, people desire serendipitous phenomena. This is what generates responsive emergent behavior in the form of things like office pools. If there weren’t any Cinderella stories, there wouldn’t be betting against each other to predict the outcome - it would be too predictable. A certain amount of noise (risk/unpredictability) in the system is, in fact, highly desirable.

So how does this relate to branding, design and aesthetics? March Madness should teach us that complexity is a good thing, and that it can generate emergent behavior and serendipitous phenomena. Indeed, since it happens every year, March Madness should show us that complexity and emergence are not simply random states and they can be effectively managed - not micromanaged, but cultivated, influenced, and adjusted to varying degrees. For example, the NCAA cannot condone or encourage betting on the tournament, but you don’t see them actively discouraging it (beyond within the teams themselves), do you? The NCAA also has some control over the initial bracketing of the tournament, giving them the ability to seed the system favorably.

Brands should not fear complexity, for it has the ability to lead to strong emergence. A website where people post their stupid videos gets bought for a billion dollars. A posterized image of Andre the Giant becomes the icon for an entire subculture. A 30-second commercial about a caveman spawns a TV series. A Cinderella team makes it to the Final Four.

All because of Madness.

Links:
Top 10 Sweet 16 Upsets Since 1996
Betting on March Madness
March Mathness: fun facts on college basketball from the world of numbers

FOCUS

Published March 16th, 2007 0 Comments

It’s a new year, I’m 24 - the age at which Alexander the Great was conquering Egypt, Julius Caesar was taking his promised revenge on the pirates who kidnapped him and Michealangelo was sculpting his Pietà…and for me it’s time to get focused on EMERGENCE.

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