This Post is Brand New

Last weekend, we had the opportunity to attend the first annual (we hope…) Brand New Conference hosted by UnderConsideration. Unlike most conferences with “something for everyone” programs, this one was specifically focused on creative brand development.

Branding humor.

To say our day in New York City was incredible would be an understatement. Kinda like saying that Bobby Jones was a decent golfer or a that getting a root canal can be uncomfortable. Listening to some of the world’s greatest creative minds talk about their experiences and approaches to brand development; and hearing about the challenges they had to overcome in developing brands for The City of London, The Metropolitan Opera, Saks Fifth Avenue, Virgin Atlantic, Walmart and [the infamous] 2012 Olympic Games among others was far more than incredible. It was truly inspirational.

Session 1: Michael Johnson, Johnson Banks
Michael Johnson, Creative Director for London’s Johnson Banks, had the unfortunate task of corralling 500 heavily caffeinated design enthusiasts and kicking off the conference. He did just that. Discussing work done for Think London, BFI and Science Museum in London, Michael quickly grabbed everyone’s attention, sharing what went into creating some absolutely brilliant brands.

Tips for creating great brands:

• The Thumb Test: Take an ad and put your thumb over the logo. Who’s ad is it?
• On Branding: Day #1 do a Google image search. Cross out everything that comes up on the first page.

Things Michael has learned:

1. Be brave
2. Design should make a difference
3. See constraints as a benefit
4. Identities can be flexible
5. Use words early, not late
6. Look in front of your nose
7. Use some occasional pragmatism
8. Everything is dissectible

Session 2: Michael Lejeune, Metro
How do you shift perceptions of traveling in the Los Angeles metro area away from this? Tough job, but it’s what Michael Lejeune does every day with Metro, the internal agency for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Using every touch point at their disposal, from bus stations to train maps to privacy fencing, Michael and the team at Metro have made huge strides in improving perception and increasing use of public transportation in Los Angeles County.

Michael’s goals when creating:

1. Be one of a kind
2. Know the business
3. Let the ponies run
4. Design for quantity, and for quality
5. Control a lot, give a little

Other interesting thoughts/ideas:

• Make sure your logo is 100% ownable and recognizable. Copyright everything.
• Consider context. Where will your brand be seen? What is your audience really looking for when they’re involved with it?
• Use your brand to celebrate others. Ex: Metro’s brand is used to celebrate Los Angeles.

Session 3: Michael Bierut and Paula Scher, Pentagram
The third session of the day was a panel featuring Michael Bierut and Paula Scher from Pentagram. For a room full of designers, it simply doesn’t get much better than this. Between the two of them, Michael and Paula are responsible for creating some of the world’s strongest brands including Sak’s Fifth Avenue, The Metropolitan Opera, Citibank, Guitar Hero, Truvia, United Airlines, The Museum of Sex…the list goes on and on. Their discussion with Armin Vit of Under Consideration revealed down-to-earth, honest insights into the brands they’ve created and their experiences at Pentagram.

Conversation highlights:

• Seymour Chwast via Armin Vit: “If you’re digging a hole in the wrong place, making it deeper doesn’t help.”
• Scher: “All designers are strategists. We just don’t charge for it.” Bierut: “It’s a gift with purchase.”
• Bierut on working with local clients: “If you make a mistake, you have to live with it.”
• Scher: “You need to bring something more to the brief, which is personality, which means some people aren’t going to like it.”
• Scher: “It is good to be scared and not know how to do things. That leads to chances and risks, which are good for the work.”
• Scher: “Selling a brand is difficult. It is like asking people to wear clothes they didn’t buy.”

Selling to the decision maker:

1. Who is God? Find out and get to them fast.
2. Sell down
3. In the end, it comes down to personalities

Session 4: Christian Helms, The Decoder Ring Design Concern
Founder of The Decoder Ring Design Concern in Austin, Texas, Christian Helms has put his unique illustrative approach to design to work for a myriad of clients. From corporations such as Toyota and AT&T to bands including Modest Mouse, Wilco and Spoon. When he’s not doing brilliant design work, you might find him helping out at Frank, his Austin hot dog and beer joint. Hot dogs, beer and great design work. Yep, we liked him.

Quotes and advice from Christian:

• If there’s something you really want to work on, life’s too short not to.
• Take the ideas you’re excited about and do them. Don’t wait for clients and the opportunities to just come along.
• Work can be more interesting if you redefine the problem and challenge what’s handed to you.
• If you have fun as a designer, the public will have fun too.
• Promise big and then work really hard to deliver on that promise.
• Showing clients you really, really care will often inspire them to really care too.

Session 5: Tom Dorresteijn, Studio Dumbar
Joining us all the way from the Netherlands, Tom Dorresteijn focus was on the strategy behind several incredible international brands including University of Twente, Mondiale and the Dutch Chamber Choir. Tom not only showed examples of outstanding creative, but also how they were presented and ultimately sold to clients.

Highlights of Tom’s presentation:

• On Strategy: “As much as needed but as little as possible.”
• On Clients: “You need to protect clients from what they want.”
• Is “design” the right term to use? Or should we be concerned with “visual branding”?
• Companies that pay attention to design achieve 90% more profits than those who don’t.
• “Don’t go for the brains, go for the heart—it’s the only place you’ll have success.”

Tom also posed the question of the conference: Is identity dead? Identity = Sameness. Personality = Uniqueness. “We share identity with others. Personality is unique. Should we be 
personality, not identity designers?”

Session 6: Connie Birdsall, Lippincott
Next up was Connie Birdsall from Lippincott. While many of the brands she discussed in her presentation were somewhat conservative in their execution, they fit the personality of the clients they serve perfectly, and their success is undeniable. From Walmart to AT&T, Delta Airlines to Samsung Group, Connie shared great examples of the strategic thought and creative process behind some of Lippincott’s largest clients.

Key takeaways:

• “Left and right side of the brain equally important.”
• “Keep your story simple so other people can tell your story for you.”
• Brand stories have three components: a hero, a conflict and a goal (and money is not a big enough goal)

The best brands are built on:

• Authentic Stories
• Inspiring Experiences
• Signature Cues (visual, touch, shape, smell, behavior–the more you have, the greater the potential impact)

Session 7: Jordan Crane & Karl Heiselman, Wolff Olins
The second panel of the day was with Jordan Crane, Creative Director, and Karl Heiselman, CEO of Wolff Olins. As the moderator, Armin covered a number of topics, but the conversation seemed to continue to come back around to the controversy that surrounds Wolff Olins’ work—controversy they embrace rather than try to avoid. (Remember the uproar over the logo for the 2012 London Olympics logos? That was them.)

Highlights:

• On their controversial work: “If you’re not getting noticed your clients aren’t either, and everyone loses.” Karl
• “You’re probably not doing the best work of your life if everyone is ‘OK’ with it.” 
Jordan
• “People come to work motivated, our job is not to unmotivate them.” Karl
• “We don’t push our clients. We work with like-minded folks.” Karl
• Definition of Business Creative: combining creativity with strategy
• Branding is not just about visual identity. You have to apply design to the entire business and it’s product lines
• “If we’re not pissing some people off, we’re probably not doing our best work.” Karl

On their rebrand of AOL:

• It was Wolff Olins’ job to help them tell a new story. To get away from the old story created when they merged with Time Warner.
• The new brand symbolizes what an ever-growing content universe would look like.

Session 8: Erik Spiekermann, Eden Spiekermann AG
Someone had to close out the day. And who better to do so than type designer Erik Spiekermann? For 45 minutes, he gave one of the most schizophrenic and brilliant presentations ever presented. Covering everything from work done for Bosch and Berlin Transit to the design of their office space and creative environment, not only was he funny and slightly offensive, he was able to show real-world examples of typography serving as the foundation of many of the world’s strongest brands.

Highlights:

• “Keynote is for real people, PowerPoint is for 99% of the people.”
• Every good design is based on one simple idea.
• “Type designers all look like they wear overcoats, but they don’t.”
• People pay 25% more for a brand name: “Same bloody machine, different logo. There you go. That’s branding.”
• “Corporate design needs patience, dedication, and diligence. It’s hard work. Tough shit.”
• “Corporate design is only as successful as people make it…and a decent typeface is a good start.”
• “Good design is often less-vandalized. If you give people a decent environment, they will respect it.”
• “We do not do unpaid pitches ever, ever, EVER.”
• “They want us to design a brand so they can sell their shit for more money.”
• “Designing a typeface is like writing a pop song. Others are going to sing it. Naked in the shower or on the toilet, not in tune…”
• “The coasts are where they buy typefaces; in the middle they use Arial and Comic Sans.”

Related Articles to check out:
A few of our photos from the Brand New Conference
The Johnson Banks Thought for the Week: One of our favorite speaker’s thoughts on the conference.
Diego Guevara: Great summary with amazing photos!
UnderConsideration: Our lovely host, and a wealth of information on branding.