Thursday, July 23, 2009

Memories of the Moon Landing

The 40th Anniversary of the moon landing has spawned a stream of backward looks to that era. What did those times look like? The New York Times published a photo-essay of the year 1969.

Polaroid SX-70 advert

In 1972, Polaroid introduced the SX-70 camera with this aesthetically striking ad. IMHO, neither the ad nor the art images shown are dated. Only the voice, reminiscent of the "Twilight Zone," gives it away. In the last few years, advertising has been so trendy that you could easily date it within a six month period. I wonder whether it is time to bring back "classic" aesthetics to marketing, or is time just moving too fast?

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Berlin Wall graffiti inspires fashion

In the sixties, Color Field artists like Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollack, Frank Stella and others expressed the contemporary zeitgeist with the minimalism of their abstract art. Today we are surrounded by clutter - our thoughts, communications and "things." So it is not surprising that artists and designers express what is around them, as graffiti becomes both the medium and the message.

Daniel Libeskind at TED

If you are involved in the built environment, it is instructive to watch one of TED's latest uploads, Daniel Libeskind on "The 17 words of Architectural inspirations." Worth every bit of the 18 minutes of your time it will take to watch.

"Fashion" comes to the Laptop or Denim is Forever

Apple may have brought "style" to the laptop; but LG, not particularly known for computers, is bringing fashion in a special edition notebook of 2,500 units that will be available in Korea for only 28 days. The style is the globally iconic, but so American denim, with a sketch on the notebook itself and a cover in the actual material.

LG has become a formidable player in appliances by placing themselves front and center of the industry. It looks like they are planning to do the same in computers.

Friday, July 17, 2009

The Winner in all Categories

Read the story in Fast Company of how an underdog won all categories at the International Cannes Advertising Festival. Who knew when those viral emails came across our desktops that "The Best Job in the World" ad campaign was really conceived by the Queensland Australia Tourism board to boost interest in their market as a vacation spot . Brilliant!

The article lists 6 lessons that can apply to all businesses.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Charm - the missing element returns to home goods


Enough of black lace undies hanging from chandeliers! Charm, not irony is today's new currency. I saw hundreds of light fixtures at ICFF this year, and not a single one was as simply charming as this birdcage by Mexican Studio Peca. Here's hoping that this is the future of home goods; I even left the music on their website up longer than usual.

Singular aesthetic vision beats the "team" everytime

You may have thought that Michelle Obama put J. Crew on the map, but without Jenna Lyons this would never have happened. After so many years of watching executive egos and teams being arbiters of a company's aesthetic brand presentation, I am reminded of Barbara D'Arcy's heyday at Bloomingdale's when it was the go-to place for home furnishings trends because her vision permeated the store. Admittedly, I haven't been in the flagship store in years but my last memory is of all the aggressive "spritz" girls on the cosmetic floor. I am certainly not the only person that no longer sees Bloomingdales as THE go-to place for home related products.

A recent story about
Jenna Lyons in the LA Times explains clearly why Michelle Obama selected J. Crew fashions in the first place. She is the arbiter of all aesthetics at J. Crew. Besides designing the clothes - according to the article, "She also oversees the catalog, website and store design." Jenna is the face of the clean, fresh, casual and fun new J. Crew that captures our times perfectly. It is an undated traditional look that now makes even the ever-popular "Ralph Lauren look" appear to be dated. Not to mention the direct competitors of J. Crew, some of whom can't even get basic design principles such as proportion right. I am often tempted to speak up, but the memory of many years in corporations reminds me that most executives' egos get in the way of facing fact.

The aesthetic gurus that I have encountered in my career have ALWAYS had strong personalities, so few corporate management types have the stomach for them. Those that do are always rewarded at the bottom line.
The right on-trend vision for the times that carries from product development to presentation will always win out over a team's mishagas and it takes a superior executive to recognize that.

Monday, July 13, 2009

"The Long Tale"


Led by Anita Elberse over at the Harvard Review websites, an inconclusive debate has been raging over the existence of "The Long Tale" precipitated by the book by that name by Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired magazine. The discussion and rebuttal research is much about the music and book marketplaces.

Despite the economic downturn, marketers continue to cater solely to the young demographic. With boomers still in control of of 1/2 of all discretionary spending, the Long Tail has to happen - it is just a matter of putting customer and product together, and as Anderson states, the Internet does that well.

Large corporations - particularly in music, movies and fashion, no matter what the age of the executive, continue to produce promotions and products that appeal to the under 40 set. Movies are a succession of chase scenes and formulaic chick flicks. Even the venerable Bond brand has been turned into one long incomprehensible chase scene. The boomer demographic has "been there, done all that." Again, a Long Tale has to appear, but how is it possible, if nothing else is being made by the major players.

I have finally witnessed how this will work in movies - in the same old-fashioned way that indie films
have always been made. The long tale doesn't need studios or big budgets to make delightfully entertaining movies - after a lifetime of viewing subtitles, now they are even in English. Last week I went to see Béla Fleck, Throw Down Your Heart, the famous banjo player's search for the roots of his instrument in Africa. Although Sony had originally committed to the film, they wanted star power, so Fleck ended up self-funding his film. With today's technology self-funding is more possible than it has ever been in the past, allowing for a personal story to be told without corporate compromise. Every seat in the theater was taken, mostly by boomers, with only a few young groupy musicians in the crowd. I am happy to discover that the Long Tale holds the potential to entertain boomers for years to come.

What does this have to do with interior finishes? While it is true that the bulk of the marketplace will continue to want exactly the same thing -ie. cherry cabinets and verde granite one day, the "As Good as it Gets" look in kitchens the next - these very items quickly become commodities with hyper-competitive prices offered in the marketplace. It continues to be important to find those niche Long Tale items that fit your customer base and marketplace to appeal to all your potential customers.

PS: While leafing through a July shelter magazine, I realized that we have moved on from the "Good as it Gets" kitchen - painted cabinets with black granite top to the impossible to maintain white painted cabinets with white carrara marble countertops. Every single kitchen featured in the July issue showed that exact combination. Even I, who saw this coming years ago, am surprised at how strong this trend towards the use of carrara marble on kitchen counters has become. I put carrara marble on a bath vanity 20 years ago and have regretted it ever since. One knife cut into the best of sealers combined with one spill will leave quite a mess. I can't recommend it to anyone that would be upset by stains on a counter. For a similar look use Corian® Rain Cloud instead, (Image above top) a product that I had recommended for several years before its 2008 introduction.

Morphing the Web

While salesmen can pick up clues about a customer's preferred communication style, websites usually come in a "one size fits all" version. Interior furnishings require visual presentations and are frequently sold via the web. For building materials, it is another matter entirely, they are rarely sold on the internet and often require lots of functional information when introduced and presented on websites.

To add to the problem, IT people prefer one kind of communication, while graphic designers prefer another - and these are the two groups most involved with the creation of websites. Finally there is insight on this issue - how can websites best engage their customers whether they are actually direct sales tools or just informational tools. The MIT Sloan School magazine shows how advances in technology allow the web to be more effective by personalizing the information to fit each customer in real time in an article entitled
Morph the Web to Build Empathy, Trust and Sales
.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

The "Fun with Dick and Jane" of Brand Building Online

Open publication - Free publishing - More branding


Introducing a quick read of what brand building is and is not,
along with a new website called
issuu that publishes magazines to be read online.

Happy 4th of July


I was recently able to feed my interest in photography and my fascination with graffiti and how it continues to influence our culture at the same time. One of the locations for the photography course that I took, offered by Naturescapes Photography Workshops (with a focus on the Lensbaby camera lens) was Cameron, NC - a remote tobacco farming community that is being resurrected as an antique center.

The location is an intersection with an abandoned house and about 10 tobacco barns, that were painted several years ago by a group of prolific graffiti artists that call themselves the "barnstormers." You can see more of their work on a fun you tube clip.

And...don't forget to enjoy Maira Kalman's charming art/essay piece "And the Pursuit of Happiness...Time Wastes too Fast" on Thomas
Jefferson in the New York Times in honor of the day!

So Happy 4th y'all.

Story Trumps

With the down economy and continued proliferation of product, at this year's Coverings, I presented the importance of telling "your story." Today, I found the perfect "story" for a finish product - Interiors and Sources Magazine has a story about the design of Parterre Flooring Systems' product called "Scrapyard."

The story told may or may not be the way the product "happened" but it works as both a believable and memorable story. In the product cycle, it is a catch-up product, as I remember making one of my clients walk back through the full length of
CERSAIE in 2004 just to see what would become one of the most popular and trend-important porcelain tile looks - Tau's new product "Corten." We had seen numerous real metal floors in the booths, and I wondered several times, when the tile equivalent would show up - and of course, there it was in the Tau booth. Italy may own the technology for the entire tile industry, but Spain is always a step ahead on gorgeous finishes. They have a history of glazes that harks back to the centuries of Moorish influences.