Defiantly and joyfully themselves
The month of October is a sandwich, with a slice of travel at each end: a thin slice of Istanbul just gone and a thick slice of Japan and Australia to come. The meat in the sandwich is three projects that I have to finish before we head off again. I’m far from idle. So this is a scrappy post, which I link up by saying, “talking of X” more often than I should. They’re all good scraps, mind you, lovingly curated.
Talking of careful curation…
Books revisited - it matters how it looks
I’ve had some Irresistible Truth bookmarks printed. From now on, at the end of a project, I’m going to send a book to the client as a thank you gesture. I’ll handwrite a note on the back of the bookmark, which I’ll place on a page where there’s a particularly apposite passage.
I’ve just finished doing this for the three jobs mentioned above, and I’ll post the books out as each project crosses the line.
It’s an attentive process, much like making a mixtape used to be, or choosing a Secret Santa present still is: thinking about the recipient, choosing the book, selecting the quote, finding the words for the bookmark. It’s an intimate art project.
Selfishly, it’s also a joy to revisit some beloved books.
One client is getting a copy of Everything I Know about Life I Learned from Powerpoint, by Russell Davies. It feels like an ideal choice for a communication design nerd. Flicking through it again made me jealous of anyone reading it for the first time. On page 177 I rediscovered this quote:
Strategy is like food - how it looks matters.
Russell Davies, Everything I Know about Life I Learned From PowerPoint
I’ve been thinking deeply about style of late. My clients have shop window issues. What they’re selling is of excellent quality, but they struggle to attract the right kind of customers into the metaphorical shop. The job of a shop window is to entice people inside, where a sale is made as part of a conversation. This applies as much to a b2b website as it does to an actual, bricks-and-plate-glass shop window. Whether you’re selling shoes or software-as-a-service, a successful shop window is 20 percent “you sell what I’m looking for,” and 80 percent “I like your style.”
How you present your wares (style) isn’t everything, but it is 80 percent of everything. This goes for strategy as much as it goes for a high street dress shop or a professional services website. How it looks matters. How it makes you feel matters.
Books revisited - brain-to-brain miracles
From the same book, and lest we forget:
Getting a message out of one brain and into another is a miracle.
Everything I Know about Life I Learned From PowerPoint, Russell Davies
I’ve quoted George Bernard Shaw many times: “The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
This applies equally to advertising and to leadership. You’ve only communicated when your message is received and understood, which takes high-impact, high-fidelity messages and heavy repetition.
Going back to Russell’s book has given me an alternative to the Bernard Shaw quote, or maybe an additional quote to say it with extra emphasis.
Books revisited - iconic space
Another client is getting a copy of A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, by George Saunders.
My clients are all in the storytelling business and this book is literally a storytelling masterclass. So, at face value, this gift should be a slam dunk. And yet I’ve hummed and harred about this one. In pension fund risk appetite language, I see this gift as “moderately adventurous.” This is a singular book. You can’t be on the fence about it. So there’s an extra frisson to the choosing and the note writing. For me it was an absolute delight. Several people whose taste I admire were equally delighted. And this is a singular client who’s definitely worth the admittedly small risk.
On Page 1:
For the past twenty years, at Syracuse University, I've been teaching a class in nineteenth-Century Russian short story in translation. My students are some of the best young writers in America. (We pick six new students a year from an applicant pool of between six and seven hundred.) They arrive already wonderful. What we try to do over the next three years is help them achieve what I call their "iconic space" - the place from which they will write stories only they could write, using what makes them uniquely themselves - their strengths, weaknesses, obsessions, peculiarities, the whole deal. At this level, good writing is assumed; the goal is to help them acquire the technical means to become defiantly and joyfully themselves.
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, George Saunders
Creating an iconic space: isn’t that what brand strategy and advertising are all about? Aren’t the best brands defiantly and joyfully themselves? Isn’t this marketing lark a quest for this kind of charismatic authenticity?
This phrase - iconic space - somehow passed me by on first reading, so revisiting the book has been as much a gift to me as it will be to my client.
Analogue creatures
I’m an analogue creature. I do my thinking on an A3 layout pad or a physical white board. Part of the pleasure of this end-of-project gifting process is the sensual nature of a handwritten note on a specially printed bookmark placed between particular pages in a physical book that has heft. It’s all pleasingly tactile.
Talking of analogue…
I enjoyed this Eat Big Fish interview with the clients behind Polaroid’s “The Camera for an Analogue Life” campaign.
Digital technology empowers, emancipates, and democratises. But it can feel like an onslaught. Digital technology is also addictive and polarising. There’s plenty of baggage to push back against for an analogue brand with a challenger mindset.
…we're trying to remind people that the best of life is tactile – raw, unedited and unfiltered. It’s not the perfect pictures that matter, it's the moments and the emotions.
Dovile Banyte, Senior Manager of Global Brand Strategy, Polaroid
An analogue life is the advertising idea, but the irresistible truth of the brand is rooted in lean-forward connection. Polaroid is a huddle brand.
I had the privilege to meet Jim Goldberg, the documentary photographer, and I asked him, ‘What’s the difference between using Polaroid and another medium?’ And he said that he was using Polaroid as a tool to interact with people and gain their trust. He said, ‘As soon as I show them the picture of themselves, it starts an interaction with that person and opens the door for them to tell their story.’
Patricia Varella, Creative Director, Polaroid
Between two travels - abrupt transitions
I spent five days in Istanbul. Geographically interesting, culturally interesting, architecturally interesting. So much history. So many iconic spaces. Lovely people.
When people ask what it was like, I start with abrupt transitions. You go from complete tranquillity to utter mayhem in an instant just by stepping through a gate or turning a corner. There’s no option to move gently from one state to another. It’s a form of sublimation. I loved it.
Talking of transitions…
Marcus Rashford is a smart man. If you’re into football, this whole interview is worth a watch. If you’re interested in the power of having, communicating, and sticking to principles, start at 33:43, which is where the embed below should pick up. And talking of transitions, he has some telling things to say on this subject too (around 35:00.) A club isn’t in transition just because it changes its head coach. A true transition is deliberate, with a vision and a plan, and with time to see it through. Abrupt transitions work in Istanbul, but not at Manchester United.
Bring on Japan, which will be defiantly and joyfully its weird and wonderful self. And jam-packed with iconic spaces too.
Maybe try this too: Magicians and conspirators, another scrappy post on which I managed to impose some order. It’s in praise of creativity as an act of human toil, teamwork, ambition, and jeopardy.