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I am consistently left with my yapper agape by what our fellow professionals and creative types will do to earn some extra green at the cost of their hard-built identity. Brands take serious effort to build, and only through time (and with enough money to help get the name out there), will the client see the fruits of their labor pay off with recognition.
Personally, I m the sort of humanoid that is happy to present myself to the world through the best work possible, and would never stoop to the level of off-shooting a company called theCheapanism for example, that would hock pre-made web templates or visual solutions for modest prices.
However, such was the case with a Master Chef that I admired from afar named Wolfgang Puck, who apparently has the free time to create pre-wrapped lunchtime yummies for the masses at the Jacksonville International Airport. Now keep in mind that I m not foolishly believing that the Almighty Wolf Himself prepared these sandwiches for me all by himself (I m sure spends his free time hocking his knives and spices on The Shopping Network), but he s certainly not shy about plastering his most important asset his name and his brand on a chilled kiosk, and poorly wrapped transparent wrapped sandwiches by which his foul foodstuffs were being pedaled for 9 bucks a piece.
While I realize that simply the name Wolfgang Puck itself should aurally emphasize the quality of the famous chef, I would expect that with one of the most powerful names in Chef-Ville, the food would at least be magical if not euphoric in both presentation and flavor. I was unpleasantly surprised to learn that my pre-wrapped feast of a chicken sandwich with mayo, lettuce and focaccia bread tasted no better than a generic sandwich with the same ingredients sold for 4 bucks two kiosks past the airport CD peddler.
It begins to beg the question of what branding really means to someone like Puck and his marketing minions.
When you combine tasteless presentation with equally tasteless food, does it defile the very essence of the brand it took years to build? Does it hurt the ambitions of future superstar-turned cash machines like Paris Hilton or Emeril? Or will it simply inspire folks like David Carson and Stefan Sagmeister to pedal pre-made graphic design work to an audience of new time-fearing and hungry clients?
If Puck can do it with his reputation firmly etched in our psyche, why not?
In the end, I got a free bag of jalapeño-flavored chips for my 9 bucks wasted. Crunching the spicy treats actually helped eradicate the foul taste of the chicken crapwich from my taste buds.
So, things could always be worse After a short flight from icy Newark International Airport to balmy Jacksonville, a car pulled up in front of the pickup area commandeered by none other than Carl Smith, Search and Rescue expert from , a legendary web standards design firm in town. I knew immediately, even though this meeting was prearranged weeks in advance, trouble would certainly be found with the nefarious Mr. Smith.
After a swift, yet jaunty punch in the face from Carl ( Why, Carl, why? I muttered through a mixture of tears and blood. Smith chuckled, Because I love you man ), my modest OGIO suitcase was heaved into the trunk of his mighty 4-wheeled steed and we high-tailed it to Destination 1: the Hampton Inn on 1331 Prudential Drive.
The welcome I received at the hotel was unexpected as a bevy of small, and highly unpleasant proboscis monkeys (a delicacy in the local restaurants) dressed to the nines in nothing more than Fluevog sneaks and nGen t-shirts, snatched my luggage and proceeded to drag it safely to my accommodations in the penthouse suite. Carl laughed, as this was another prearranged surprise, and he threw two bananas to the apes, who fought over the fruity treats while Carl once again, delivered a powerful punch to my face. Good to see you, man, he chortled.
I teared up again, but wouldn t respond
Once inside, Carl spoke of my mission: speak on a panel with Klaus Heech - Owner/Art Director of in Orlando, FL, and Jefferson Rall - founding principal and lead creative at in Jacksonville. Klaus is a gigantic man with equally gigantic creative skillz and Jefferson is a bit of hometown creative celebrity, signing autographs, kissing babies and alligators at every corner.
But first there was the business of meeting up with two of nGen s ninja-like henchmen (Travis Schmeisser and Joey Marchy) and discussing both the state of the creative union and bands unbeknownst to anyone the pop music world, over several pints of Dos Equis and a delightful shrimp salad feast at a local 5 Points watering hole.
We laughed, wept like children and parted ways all threatening to see each other tomorrow at the nGen Creative Bunker in the heart of Jacksonville. In true ninja fashion both Travis and Joey disappeared behind a puff of mysterious green smoke and were gone. I had no idea, but could only fear what would come next
I could hear Carl s car honking and startling the guests at 9:01am on the dot.
As I pushed my way through the furious guests that had gathered around his vehicle, I remembered Carl s instructions from the previous night like a terrifying childhood nursery rhyme: If you re either 1 minute early or 1 minute late, Carl remarked, you ll get another happy punch - this time in your eye. After Carl finished tying his blindfold tightly around my head googlers, he reminded me that if I removed it, he would kill me . I shivered, as the car travelled at breakneck speed through the streets of J-Ville, into the dark heart of nGen s Secret Lair.
They locked me in the bathroom with my laptop, reminding me that if I complained, they would all make sure I never saw the sunlight again. My fingers tippity-tapped at the keys, sending out several distress emails, which I later found out, were all not only intercepted by the nGen team, but also sent to everyone they knew in Jacksonville with LOL in the subject line.
It s time to go Monkey Boy.
Monkey Boy speak now, chortled Carl, as his henchmen (including Bruce Cooke and Varick Rosete) pointed and made hissing ape noises. Again, I was blindfolded and taken (this time at gunpoint) to the River City Brewery for the panel talk to members of The Jacksonville Marketing and Advertising Club. I thought about leaping out of the car on the way to save myself from Smiths torturous ways only to remind myself of the live alligators that roam the streets of Jacksonville, feasting upon the tourists.
I stayed put, now firmly bound with piano wire to Carl s baby seat. The only thing I can remotely recall is Smith s diabolical laughing the entire ride, occasionally drowned out by AC/DC pounding from the car speakers in mono.
The River City Brewery is located downtown, and while the sun was burning brightly in the sky, I found myself fighting to keep my composure during this ride.
We arrived and after a brief introduction to Klaus and Jefferson, I was told by Carl to speak when you are spoken to and I might not pour hot oil on your face. I obliged.
The panel discussion was a delightful experience, with the three of us trading creative blows while Carl ran the show like a Russian ringmaster with trained grizzly bears.
The audience asked questions and we responded in turn. In my newly elevated and wily state, I muttered The Big agency model is dead (more on that in another future post). Carl s black eyes lit up and the captive audience (Carl had not only locked the doors, but he also had fastened prisoner bracelets to each attendees ankle) gasped.
The panel discussion was truly a delight, and when the salad forks stopped being thrown at our heads, I ceased my Carl-induced weeping.
Next, we travelled like a merry band of rogues to . On the way we spotted two tourists being devoured by what could only be described a perverse mutated half alligator half wildebeest.
We pointed and chuckled like old pals. It s the way it is around here, Dave, remarked Carl. And if you keep looking at me, I ll feed you to them next.
I turned away and choked back the tears Again.
Flagler Beach is like combining the attraction of surf culture with the quaintness of an old Mexican town - with Pirates. We met Randy Taylor, one of the instructors at the college who is not only in charge of training today s creative youth at the wily art of client interaction, but he also hangs his hat on a massive ocean cruiser that he calls home.
In a move that could only be described as foolhardy, I left my camera back at the nGen Compound, missing out on capturing much of the beauty that is Flagler. The architecture is quite breathtaking - with Pirates. It also happens to be Jeffersons alma mater, so we were treated like kings of yore and practically given the keys to the Dean s dressing room.
The four of us chatted with captive students (Carl used the same technique on them as he did earlier in the day at The Brewery) and found ourselves fast becoming friends. We feasted on beer, mead and more shrimp at another local watering hole and discovered that we all had many yarns of client successes and nightmares to share. In an astonishing surprise, my fellow dread-pirate pal Mike Rutledge, now schooling the students in the ways of The Creative Force at the college, showed up wearing a parrot on his shoulder and grasping a tanqueray and tonic in his hand.
We spoke briefly about bars, beers and bears.
Moments later I was safely back at the hotel Hampton, my oasis away from the Flagler oasis with little knowledge of how or why I was here. I ve heard of Carl s memory altering tools, but never thought he would use them on me during our feast at Flagler.
While the majority of this tale is likely a farcical memory implanted by the diabolical Mr. Smith, I still believe that my work in Jacksonville is not done. Someday soon, I will return armed with alligator repellent and a hockey mask to deter the clobbering fists of Carl Smith
is a Founder and Creative Director of theMechanism, a maxi-media firm in New York City and London.
He hopes his memory of the event serves him correctly, and promises to write another entry about the Jacksonville trip as soon as Carl Smith s memory altering chemicals wear off.
About 5 years ago, I spoke at the HOW Design Conference in Orlando on the topic of Good Examples of Bad Design. It was a gratifying experience to be speaking at the same conference that in it s history featured such luminaries as Glaser, Carson and Mok, and from the reaction of the crowd, my endless chattering onstage about lousy design clocking in at somewhere around 50 minutes, was well-received.
So, apparently I m an expert at sniffing this kind of stuff out.
I occasionally indulge in energy drinks usually as a nectareous reward for my jaunty morning runs around Prospect Park in Brooklyn and my racing heart and instant case of the jitters on the subway is hardly a pleasing after-effect of my eager slurpage of this caffeinated nectar of the hyperactive gods. I passionately search for alternatives to Red Bull because if they still can t manage to pull their package branding together with their cartoonish television ads, I refuse to support them.
It s my creative civic duty , or so I ve convinced myself anyway
This morning, as I was browsing the available energy gulps behind the frosty glass at the bodega skimming past several fiendish looking, yet interestingly designed cans of mighty Crunk Energy Drink my eye-googlers spied one of the most undesirable energy drink can designs I ve seen.
This performance potion, disguised to be what resembles a health elixir and a death tonic at the same time, intrigued me enough to buy it simply so I could have a rant.
Now, why some nice tea company would try to make their performance drink look like capital punishment in a can by featuring the word Caution in the most visible section above the logo is a shock but I m sure that there were several marketing geniuses who fought the owners of Arizona drinks eventually getting their way, in a vicious battle to preserve creative irony.
You can decree that it worked that it intrigued and seduced me to purchase it but I d say the reasons for my cash acquisition hinged somewhere between terror, amusement and simply doing my civic duty to keep a drink, openly disguised as a poison, out of the hands of some maniac high school kid looking for a morning rush. The hearty fluid inside the Caution Can met its untimely demise by way of the sewer drain on the corner of Fulton and Clinton Ave to likely mutate and fuel a generation of super rats to wreak unholy havoc on the city sometime before the shopping season is mercifully over and the real nasty snow begins to fall slathering Brooklyn with a coat of fresh slush and preventing me from taking my morning park runs until the global warming-induced thaw, sometime in July.
is a Founder and Creative Director of theMechanism, a maxi-media firm in New York City and London.
He finished two cans of blissful Crunk Energy Drink in preparation for this rant and has been repeatedly clutching at his heart like Fred Sanford since the second paragraph.
Design is a profession that has been embraced by everyone with a computer. They may not even refer to what they do as “design.
” The introduction of the computer as a tool to produce collateral for companies from general letterheads and brochures, to interactive experiences drastically modified the industry in ways that we are only beginning to understand.
From an interface of a software application, to the design of the keyboard and the actual computer that creative people use to ultimately solve a problem, the machine has become more than simply a tool to fledgling and sometimes fleeting designers, and this fact must be recognized.
If we examine the effect of tools on our society throughout written and unwritten history from the embrace of fire, to primitive writing instruments; from the wheel to weaponry, the fact that every one of these advances in society was in every respect “designed” by someone must be accepted to understand design in the first place.
When we fast forward through centuries of design to the dawn of the computer, we can make a good argument that the speed a computer allows graphic design to be produced, has in many ways, become a detriment to the profession in general. When rubylith and typographers were left in the cold in the early 90’s by studios that employed a new crop of young professionals brought up on Atari games and arcades, equipped with quicker decision making powers, the industry changed. But only now are these jacks-of-all trades beginning to realize the importance of looking at the concept of “idea generation” as premier to any solution enhanced by the speed of a processor.
Certainly, the Macintosh, a well designed machine and GUI with a friendly demeanor, enticed creative-minded people into the world of design because it was part of a new wave. The Age of Machines , to quote Alvin Toffler, unlocked a principle of business that design traditionally avoided.
The designer, before the computer, was a careful thinker and a large-scale problem solver.
Glaser, Rand and Chwast, in their wisdom and naivety realized and defined the advertiser/designer as a Sage a person who when given time, could solve a problem. Later, when the computer became a means of producing design, the thinking was given a back-seat to efficiency and gave birth to a new type of graphic designer who mastered the techniques, but in many respects avoided the time factor required to produce truly immersive, intelligent solutions. Business owners became attracted to this new form of “mass production” design because it fit efficiently with the business mind.
No more was there a “genius” who was summoned and given the time (and budget) to think about and resolve a solution.
Microsoft, the business to end all businesses, appeared and began to advertise that corporations did not require this additional expense of a designer to bog down the means to produce a solution. They ran an advertising campaign in the early 90 s that annouced: The business owner with Microsoft-supplied tools could now make their collateral themselves, print them out on company printers and save the money involved with hiring an advertising agency and printer .
As more design “mediocre” at best came from the corporations, the expectations and money for hiring a design agency became less and less important to the bottom line.
Enter the Arpanet to the Internet. While initially a means for government agencies to share information, this information pipe was generously given to the university system as a means for doing the same thing on a college level.
Businesses tapped into the internet when information sharing companies such as AOL, demystified this magical system and brought it to the home user in the early 90’s.
Truthfully, the “dot-com” world was the opportunity for the design profession to redeem itself after a major shift in the attitudes and needs of creatives. New tools and a language (Hypertext Markup Language or html at first) was introduced and created a “super-designer” a programmer/creative type that could produce a solution that solved a problem that Microsoft could not initially deal with.
However, in time, Microsoft eventually produced Home Page, a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) program, allowing the business-person to once again take expensive reigns from the designer, and make a web site experience that looked like it was produced by a “real web agency.” The mistake is that where the advertising world had years to define itself before the computer began to change the landscape, this new dot-com world only had a short life-span before the corporations figured it out. The “dot-com” became the “dot-comedy” and the investment community turned a cold shoulder to the industry quicker than you could spout: “Change the world!
”
The computer gave new powers to the graphic designer, and the software manufacturer took it away.
is a Founder and Creative Director of theMechanism, a maxi-media firm in New York City and London. Things certainly are not as “grave” as he makes them out to be in this rant, written in 2002 as the dust settled from the dot com bubble burst.
But it s worth a revisit since he sounded like such a smarty-pants back then.
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