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Designers Have It Better
BY
Ninart Lui
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page
1
by Ninart Lui
It’s really fallacious to believe that the concept of design in advertising is relatively modern, even though its introduction into advertising award campaigns can be considered a fairly recent development. The celebration of good design has always been an elemental part of advertising, surfacing its all-encompassing head in categories ranging from traditional print, billboard, and poster, to the increasingly burgeoning interactive, integrated, online and innovative media categories.
While incorporating a design category may well serve to legitimize the entire industry’s importance in advertising, it is also interesting to note the type of entries commonly received to be judged under the umbrella of design – the usual suspects in poster and print overlap with more traditional categories, of course, but there is also a noted emphasis on package and environmental design, logo, and corporate identity, as well as agencies submitting self-promotional work instead of work done for clients.
Through these findings, we are in a manner able to witness how the role of design in advertising has graduated from the purely aesthetic, to become a crucial differentiator in reaching out and communicating to consumers in the language which defines brands as the powerful messengers that they are today.
“The role of design is to make the complex clear and useful—but great design elevates the spirit too. This should always be the goal, to surpass expectation and make work that’s meaningful and responsible. For those who believe that design’s value is in beauty, they are right, so long as the beauty emerges from utility—usefulness and usability always come first.”
To paraphrase Richard Grefe’s thoughts in “2015: A Design Odyssey”, a designer would have seen his/her role evolve dramatically over the past 20 years, from being mere “makers of things”, schooled in the tangible, towards becoming a creature of collaboration in multidisciplinary approaches, capable of conceiving, executing and communicating ideas in a myriad of manners to audiences over time, space and in a variety of mediums.
The Not-So-Classic Dichotomy
We are at a critical junction where the need to find a cohesive language between advertising and design is more pressing than ever. Take the below example, for instance. At a recent event in Singapore, keynote speaker Shelly Lazarus pronounced during her speech: “Almost all great brands are built on big ideas…Brands live in the hearts and minds of people – and they are impossible to kill.” Which begs the question – how much of the heart of the brand consists of the product?
At the same event, designers Richard Seymour and Dick Powell also elaborated on ideas, but in the context of its essentiality to create a truly innovative product (which in turn creates the brand), as a good product is sufficient to sell itself. The audience was then shown many examples of highly innovative products which have not yet been picked up for mass production.
While these examples may appear an absurd contradiction, especially to practitioners in either industry, it might be better understood in the context of a quote from Steve Hayden in an interview he gave us recently – what is known as “biting the karmic wienie”, which means trying to pretend a product or company is something it’s not, because “doing so is the fastest way to put a client out of business”.
A Marriage of Ideas
In other words, sheer marketing can only take one so far if at the core is a product that one cannot believe in in the first place. At the risk of borrowing from an oft-cited cliché, perhaps one needs look no further for an example than the phenomenon that is Macintosh to witness how successful a good product, coupled with a stellar advertising campaign, can create immovable brand loyalty which other companies have yet to achieve today. It was a huge gamble which paid off on Steve Jobs’ part to insist on hardware and software confluence and conformity to a strict set of pre-determined criteria, which immediately creates identification of any singular new product to be uniquely that of Apple. Combining interactive and interface design continued with the Macintosh publicity blitz, which began with the unforgettable “1984” campaign. While only shown in its entirety once to a Superbowl audience, this ad nevertheless resonates as one of the most successful campaigns in history.
As a designer, a simple idea can give rise to a good product – one which is innovative, creative and ultimately deigns to make the world a better place. Yet no product, no matter how useful or perfect, can ever hope to stir our imaginations the way a good story can. So let the product be at the heart of the campaign, which, through the ideas of advertisers, creates powerful branding which develops and extends the personality and reach of the product by tapping into the emotional cores of people. Only then, can the combined ideas of the designer and advertiser, through the marriage of product and campaign, truly take flight and the brand come to life.
A Happy Communion
Designers and advertisers alike need to recognize that the users and consumers of today are also co-creaters in the entire creative process, and who provide valuable insight and feedback in allowing healthy interaction when it comes to designing the type of products they need and desire. Where formerly the creative process was relatively linear, from conception of product by designer, to execution of publicity and branding by advertiser, to the resulting purchase of the product by the consumer, design and advertising has rapidly become intuitive in a way that requires a multi-sensory, holistic approach from practitioners of both industries.
Interactive media and the internet have served to accelerate this process, with YouTube and Yahoo! communities reaching out to the masses in ways previously unimagined. The influence on the advertising industry is apparent in campaigns like Red Bull Art of Can, Dove Real Beauty, and Microsoft’s wildly successful Halo 3. Virtual worlds and real communities are brought to life to create a sense of belonging, identity and exclusivity to consumers which is necessary to establish the irrevocability of the brand/product in their daily lives.
This is bigger than how to sell an alien product in an unfamiliar market, or how to convince die-hard fans to pledge allegiance to a rival brand. This has more to do with considering what advertisers and designers have in common and also to identify and embrace our differences. In doing so, we will be able to unlock value systems of today which determine design and branding decisions and the strategic roles these play in today’s fragmented global paradigm. As our roles become even less well-defined in the foreseeable but unpredictable future, it is imperative that we work together to enable comprehension of the diversity of the world through the sharing of information, technology, experiences and – more importantly – through ideas.
NINART LUI
Editor
TAXI Design Network
This article was originally published in The Cannes Daily newsletter and is republished with the kind permission of The Cannes Lions International Advertising Award Festival
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© 2003 - 2008 by TAXI Design Network. All rights reserved.
It’s really fallacious to believe that the concept of design in advertising is relatively modern, even though its introduction into advertising award campaigns can be considered a fairly recent development. The celebration of good design has always been an elemental part of advertising, surfacing its all-encompassing head in categories ranging from traditional print, billboard, and poster, to the increasingly burgeoning interactive, integrated, online and innovative media categories.
While incorporating a design category may well serve to legitimize the entire industry’s importance in advertising, it is also interesting to note the type of entries commonly received to be judged under the umbrella of design – the usual suspects in poster and print overlap with more traditional categories, of course, but there is also a noted emphasis on package and environmental design, logo, and corporate identity, as well as agencies submitting self-promotional work instead of work done for clients.
Through these findings, we are in a manner able to witness how the role of design in advertising has graduated from the purely aesthetic, to become a crucial differentiator in reaching out and communicating to consumers in the language which defines brands as the powerful messengers that they are today.
“The role of design is to make the complex clear and useful—but great design elevates the spirit too. This should always be the goal, to surpass expectation and make work that’s meaningful and responsible. For those who believe that design’s value is in beauty, they are right, so long as the beauty emerges from utility—usefulness and usability always come first.”
To paraphrase Richard Grefe’s thoughts in “2015: A Design Odyssey”, a designer would have seen his/her role evolve dramatically over the past 20 years, from being mere “makers of things”, schooled in the tangible, towards becoming a creature of collaboration in multidisciplinary approaches, capable of conceiving, executing and communicating ideas in a myriad of manners to audiences over time, space and in a variety of mediums.
The Not-So-Classic Dichotomy
We are at a critical junction where the need to find a cohesive language between advertising and design is more pressing than ever. Take the below example, for instance. At a recent event in Singapore, keynote speaker Shelly Lazarus pronounced during her speech: “Almost all great brands are built on big ideas…Brands live in the hearts and minds of people – and they are impossible to kill.” Which begs the question – how much of the heart of the brand consists of the product?
At the same event, designers Richard Seymour and Dick Powell also elaborated on ideas, but in the context of its essentiality to create a truly innovative product (which in turn creates the brand), as a good product is sufficient to sell itself. The audience was then shown many examples of highly innovative products which have not yet been picked up for mass production.
While these examples may appear an absurd contradiction, especially to practitioners in either industry, it might be better understood in the context of a quote from Steve Hayden in an interview he gave us recently – what is known as “biting the karmic wienie”, which means trying to pretend a product or company is something it’s not, because “doing so is the fastest way to put a client out of business”.
A Marriage of Ideas
In other words, sheer marketing can only take one so far if at the core is a product that one cannot believe in in the first place. At the risk of borrowing from an oft-cited cliché, perhaps one needs look no further for an example than the phenomenon that is Macintosh to witness how successful a good product, coupled with a stellar advertising campaign, can create immovable brand loyalty which other companies have yet to achieve today. It was a huge gamble which paid off on Steve Jobs’ part to insist on hardware and software confluence and conformity to a strict set of pre-determined criteria, which immediately creates identification of any singular new product to be uniquely that of Apple. Combining interactive and interface design continued with the Macintosh publicity blitz, which began with the unforgettable “1984” campaign. While only shown in its entirety once to a Superbowl audience, this ad nevertheless resonates as one of the most successful campaigns in history.
As a designer, a simple idea can give rise to a good product – one which is innovative, creative and ultimately deigns to make the world a better place. Yet no product, no matter how useful or perfect, can ever hope to stir our imaginations the way a good story can. So let the product be at the heart of the campaign, which, through the ideas of advertisers, creates powerful branding which develops and extends the personality and reach of the product by tapping into the emotional cores of people. Only then, can the combined ideas of the designer and advertiser, through the marriage of product and campaign, truly take flight and the brand come to life.
A Happy Communion
Designers and advertisers alike need to recognize that the users and consumers of today are also co-creaters in the entire creative process, and who provide valuable insight and feedback in allowing healthy interaction when it comes to designing the type of products they need and desire. Where formerly the creative process was relatively linear, from conception of product by designer, to execution of publicity and branding by advertiser, to the resulting purchase of the product by the consumer, design and advertising has rapidly become intuitive in a way that requires a multi-sensory, holistic approach from practitioners of both industries.
Interactive media and the internet have served to accelerate this process, with YouTube and Yahoo! communities reaching out to the masses in ways previously unimagined. The influence on the advertising industry is apparent in campaigns like Red Bull Art of Can, Dove Real Beauty, and Microsoft’s wildly successful Halo 3. Virtual worlds and real communities are brought to life to create a sense of belonging, identity and exclusivity to consumers which is necessary to establish the irrevocability of the brand/product in their daily lives.
This is bigger than how to sell an alien product in an unfamiliar market, or how to convince die-hard fans to pledge allegiance to a rival brand. This has more to do with considering what advertisers and designers have in common and also to identify and embrace our differences. In doing so, we will be able to unlock value systems of today which determine design and branding decisions and the strategic roles these play in today’s fragmented global paradigm. As our roles become even less well-defined in the foreseeable but unpredictable future, it is imperative that we work together to enable comprehension of the diversity of the world through the sharing of information, technology, experiences and – more importantly – through ideas.
NINART LUI
Editor
TAXI Design Network
This article was originally published in The Cannes Daily newsletter and is republished with the kind permission of The Cannes Lions International Advertising Award Festival
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 | Francesco Mugnai was born in Florence, Italy. He has always had a love for all things related to computers and computer science in general. When he was still in university (he graduated with his first degree in Communications and Multimedia), , he began his career as a freelance graphic designer.
Click on his picture to read more about him. | |
| Creative Florence Contributor |
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Read ARTICLES on THE DRIVER SPEAKS
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© 2003 - 2008 by TAXI Design Network. All rights reserved.