I just read a quote from Marc Gobé, who is a world-famous authority on Emotional Design and the author of Brandjam, along with some other branding related books:
Design is to branding as jazz is to music.
I love this statement! I am not sure I fully understand what it actually means, but I like the fact that someone finally observed the correlation between design and jazz, which is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Being a devoted follower of both concepts, I’m pretty sure there are a lot of parallels one can draw—only not here or now, maybe in a future post. I do want to talk a little bit about the title of this post though.
Gobé’s design firm Desgrippes Gobé is the creative studio behind the recent redesign of Coca Cola’s worldwide packaging (not the most recent one though, Coca Cola redesigned its packaging again, a few months ago). In an interview with the Communication Arts magazine (Jan/Feb 2007) he explains how they introduced a little touch of yellow to the label for the first time in recent history, and how the new packaging became a cultural icon in a very short time. What can be a better example of how disposable branding is these days? After only 6 months, an even newer packaging design is now all around the world, and people have already forgotten about the “yellow stripe”. (Not to go into a meaningless argument here, but I personally prefer the new flat approach much more than Desgrippes Gobé’s, but that’s just me.)
Now let’s talk about the iPod for a second. What used to be a solid product with a very focused design approach (a few years back) has now turned into an ever-changing cultural icon with a non-design attitude. I cannot keep track of the mini/nano models coming out now, and it feels like every 6 months there is a new product suite. I think Apple’s design team is more concerned about how they can change the look of their products within a very short period of time, and come up with a unique(!) name (shuffle, mini, nano, classic, touch…), rather than creating something that’s more innovative and usable. What they have once built as a strong brand, is now all over the place. I used to use the iPod as a good example of brand focus, but now it’s really not much different than Samsung, who by the way released its umpteenth mp3 player two seconds ago.
Am I being a downer here? Do you have a more positive take on what is happening to design these days? Is it actually more promising for us designers, now that design is consumed rapidly, just like anything else? Let me know what you think…
2 comments ↓
I think this is a great observation and a perfect example of how art and design is a reflection of society. Everything moves in waves, changing to reflect the attitude of the masses. To me the Coke example shows this. The branding on the can got to a point where it was maybe too lush with detail as it included everything from bubbles, light gradients, 3d effects to the left field introduction of the yellow swoosh (which I don’t think most people would even notice by the way). The change back to the simple design may have been driven by consumer feedback but just as easily could have been a choice by the design team themselves sensing that it was time to ease back and re-focus.
Apple has set a standard that I don’t think even they can keep. But even more importantly, it maybe a standard that they don’t even want to keep. Like you said, it’s too much too fast. People are bound to loose interest or just get overwhelmed. Sooner or later, much like Coke, they too will ease up and re-focus their efforts. It’s only a matter of time before they realize the horse is dead.
Thanks for the feedback Sean. I think the simpler coke design was triggered by Coca Cola’s design director Moira Cullen, and I believe I read somewhere that they had a hard time coming up with a design that doesn’t use any bubbles!
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