The cobbler’s kids have no shoes for the same reason a brand design firm takes so long to update its own brand. While we absolutely live and breathe to shape and steward our clients’ unique brands, it’d been almost 14 years since the launch of our previous brand identity and 4 years since our last major overhaul of pbdh.com. So last August we got a new client: us. We knew that was the only way to make it happen, even though we knew we’d probably end up being the worst client we’ve ever had. We started where you’re supposed to start: brand positioning. Creative firms are notorious for being positioning-less, since most are willing to be whatever clients want them to be. Also, a lot of firms end up being havens for undiagnosed ADHD sufferers, so focusing on a long-term positioning strategy for the firm itself—without the wonder and sex…
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I regularly teach a workshop at the School of Visual Concepts (SVC) on writing creative briefs. I always set up the workshop with what I believe is the fundamental tension within creative briefs: being comprehensive versus being concise. And while a big challenge in writing a creative brief is cramming a whole bunch of important information into a one-page document that should also be inspiring and…well, brief, this tension goes way beyond just creative briefs. This tension is at play in all communications, especially brand design. This is the set-up I use: If you were mugged at the ATM, you might end up at the police precinct to give a report and offer your description of the villain. While it’s unlikely for (just) a mugging, a sketch artist might be brought in and the two of you might go back and forth with the charcoal pencil and sketch pad, endlessly…
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A short history of transparency The restaurants George Orwell described in his 1933 novel Down and Out in Paris and London were not places you’d want diners to see. A wall separated the dining room’s calm ambience from the chaotic grime of the “cold, filthy kitchen.” Architecturally, the wall between these two interconnected worlds was a good thing, and important for both sides. For the restaurant, it concealed the ugly frenzy behind the scenes. For the diners, it preserved a shinier belief in what they were buying. The model that Orwell experienced persisted for six more decades before restaurateurs and their architects in the early 1990s—mostly in the Bay Area—did something unexpected: they brought the “back of house” front and center, putting chefs and line cooks on display to diners. This was done primarily as a means of demonstrating spotless kitchens and the use of fresh ingredients. Arguably, this design…
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