Bad design is an inevitability, and and in one way designers should be thankful for it: for good design to be recognised as such, we need bad design.
But, for those of us who believe well-designed things make the world a slightly better place, encountering bad design can be painful.
What’s worse is when bad designs come back to haunt us. For example: weren’t NHS spectacles bad enough the first time?
Emma Booty is the Creative Director of Conran Studio, our product and brand design team, and resident brand-building expert.
Last month, she spoke at the Interior Motives China conference in Beijing – a major gathering for the Chinese domestic car design industry.
Cutting through the petrol fumes with typical panache, Emma regaled a 350-strong audience with a story about coffee.
Bear with her…
“…un piccolo momento di piacere” – in drab English, a small moment of pleasure.
As designers, we’re interested in transforming items of necessity into such moments.
But how?
Britons, on average, spend £3 a day on takeaway coffee.
£3 a day makes a £5 billion business, and a greater household expense than the gas bill.
Until 1994, the coffee shop market was relatively immature – the baristas wore baseball caps, and served lacklustre pints of weak, sweet, American-style coffee. Did you know that the French call American coffee jus des chausetttes – literally, ‘sock juice’?
Then something changed. There was an infusion of Antipodean personality into the British (and especially the London) coffee scene. An infusion of social ease. The emphasis was no longer on the utility of a caffeine fix, but the luxury of a moment of pleasure.
Coffee shops started to say something about us: bright, confident, sexy, energetic. The market diversified – not just Italian-American, but Australian, British and Scandinavian. There was a new confidence in national personality.
With it came a natural increase in quality.
The American stalwarts took note of this shift – and tried to inject a little personality of their own.
What does this mean for the Chinese car market?
“…un piccolo momento di piacere” – a move away from necessity.
Cars are more than appliances, more than status symbols. They represent a way of living.
As the Chinese car market matures, cars will evolve from necessity to lifestyle choice.
How will China influence the rest of the world?
By infusing design with Chinese personality – with themes of economy, family values and respect.
Just as Australian social ease was an authentic fit for coffee shop culture, so these Chinese values fit plumb into the new, leaner automotive industry.
“Mesdames, messieurs…” welcome to the 82nd Geneva motor show, the circus has come to town. Conran Studio were there too to view the spectacle.
Enormous show halls are filled with automotive beasts corralled into brand paddocks, each of these stands are themselves magnificent pavilions of grand architecture. The lights, noise and static crackle and we dehydrate to a crisp on entry.
Serious men with pink feather dusters tickle the final specks of dust from their show pieces. Hired women with skinny curves stroke their tamed metal brutes.
Despite the elephant in the room, a herd of them in fact – the finite oil supply, planning of car-less mega cities, markets emerging in unpredictable ways and a general global skint-ness – the first impression was of business as usual. All the biggies – Audi, Toyota, Peugeot, BMW, Mercedes, Ford, Volvo – have voluptuous spaces for photogenic concept launches. There are plenty of both cars, ideas and determination to delight.
Colour is everything this year. The recent, subversive resurgence of matt charcoal blacks for exterior finishes have become Prada-fied, via the sweet shop: silky caramels, powdery, matt hint of strawberry, fresh pale, pearly mints. Sophisticated, modern and with a (stroppy) edge. Graphic flicks and accents are bold and executed with flair, look at the red-eye of the Audi A1.
The red eye of the Audi A1
Form. The tribal nature of car brands cause a powerful kinship for consumers, the silhouettes of these cars are a masterclass in creating emotional connection through design. The sinews, scoops and flex of these muscled creatures look particularly good when you lie on the floor; so look up next time you’re being run over. The language is still diluted for the newer brands such as India based Tata, but they’re gaining momentum and confidence and an evolved language is sure to follow.
Lighting. Developments in technology and manufacturing techniques have allowed for softer and more controllable lighting in interiors. (Remember when it was a slide plastic thing that rarely worked and god-forbid if you turned it on whist Dad was driving?). On the outside, lights are swept back, arched, looming, scowling… every brand has a different twinkle to its eye, the eyes being the door to this soul.
Interiors. The knobs and dials are interactive jewels, causing an intimate dialogue between the drivers’ eyes and hands. The new Peugeot 208 exemplifies this more direct experience, for example the teeny steering wheel and a clever composition means you see the instruments above the wheel rather than peering through. The references to a broader design world are clear to see: bespoke tailoring and expert pattern cutting, combinations of textures and fabrics and stitched seam details, precision craft of cabinetry and the intersection of materials. A crossover with other trades for design and materials is nothing new (the partnership Ferrari, Poltrona Frau and balsamic vinegar, anyone?) but making these designer cues blatant to the consumer eye is evident for many manufacturers.
Interior of the Peugeot 208
One extraordinary sight was of the new Bentley EXP 9F. With wheels the height of thighs, a bullion of rock star alchemy, pleated leather tail gate and Lalique picnic set, surely this is the mark that the SUV set has finally turned the curve and will hopefully meet with steady demise?
The Bentley's tailgate complete with picnic set
Yet futurism is here. Subtle, transcending and important shifts start to show the way ahead. Starting with the back seat; the influence, particularly from China, is that the important people sit here. It could be that the head of the house is driven by their son or chauffeur or simply the car as a symbol of status where there’s no detail to compromise. For many generations it was a mostly wipe-clean area then came the nodding dogs and head rests. Now the focus is to be more comfortable and more interactive, brought to bear through lighting, ergonomics, layout and combinations of materials, your space personalised as you sit in the global traffic jam.
Epiphany for me? Electric cars look – for the first time – both attractive and relevant.
Mia Electric
EDAG 2 light car
Filed under STUDIO CONRAN
Clerkenwell Design Week came and went with the clement weather.
This year’s CDW was a merry hotchpotch of old buildings, contemporary and commercial art amid fickle shafts of sunlight and stroppy storm clouds.
The venues themselves reminded us how much as we might admire the individual pieces, none of these objects account for much until they’re in context, cohabiting in this space. None of this was designed to go together and the random coupling was strangely pleasing.
Filed under Clerkenwell Design Week, Conran and London
Swirl fuse medley knead shake turn twist concoct rotate pulp blend beat pulse – Studio Conran’s kMix promises a banquet of typographic food delight, sensation garnished by hand.
The designers at Studio Conran seized the brief with glee when invited to collaborate with the Kenwood brand by creating a unique version of the iconic kMix stand mixer in aid of an online auction for the Make a Wish Foundation. The story behind the online auction made the task even more delicious, knowing these energies will contribute to such an important cause.
Studio Conran’s colourful kMix is embellished with words that celebrate its function. The result is a culinary explosion of vibrant, food-coloured typography, applied meticulously by hand.
We very much hope our kMix will help in raising money and awareness for Make a Wish Foundation and give somebody’s kitchen an enjoyable splash of colour!
Other designers who took part in the project include Zandra Rhodes and East London duo PPQ.
Visit:
www.onlineauctions.org.uk/kenwood for more info
And for the chance to bid please visit:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160489216723
At the time of writing our kMix was up to £132. The kMix retails at £349.99 so get bidding!
Filed under STUDIO CONRAN
Everyone’s talking about them. Have you tried them yet?
Here’s Emma Booty our intrepid Head of Branding at Studio Conran on the beauty of Boris’s bikes...
The bus beeped – I fancy as a cheery toot of bonhomie – as I calmly negotiated an intricate central London junction at rush hour. My sturdy, handsome steed was unhurried almost nonchalant.
As a chancer pedestrian, an anarchistic cyclist or a stressed, ‘Oh dear, oh dear, I’m late’ driver, the tarmac of London is the stage for many operas and dramas.
This new mode of transport (I’m giving these Boris bikes a whole new category) is a welcome addition and I wonder whether the effect of this road pacifist will be to make us all more liberal and understanding of our fellow movers?
What do you think?
Check out more of Emma’s thoughts on branding in her regular post Booty on Brands
“Who really wants to see the company portfolio on a hot summer’s Friday night?” I pondered as I planned my missive for a social event, ‘Glug’, I spoke at two weeks ago… Instead ‘The impossibility of imagining the future’ was my salty bar snack.
Glug organise once monthly ‘no agenda’ gatherings of designers, creatives, makers, clients and friends at a variety of locations – an unashamed after work Friday night lashing.
The narrative was how brands have to ‘kill their holy cows’ in order to stay ahead of the game and remain relevant to their consumers, (I’ve been feeling untouched by Apple of late). How to do this takes monumental creativity and rigour. How brands must remain truthful. How the to-do list needn’t stifle creativity, citing Picasso and Dumas as two vigorous list-makers. But how ‘the big idea’ doesn’t come from the to-do list. A simple and visual plot to present, or so I thought.
Arriving at the venue on the sea front I was hit by a huge sense of déjà-vu – the aromatic mix of spliff and cider. Straight back to my art foundation course in the late 80s. A dark and dingy club humming with lots of busy and interested chat it wasn’t quite the earnest powerpoint I’d anticipated. Behind the DJ decks the projector set up for abstract VJ motion wasn’t grasping focus of our collective presentations – my ‘pertinent’ slides became psychedelic mush.
The talk itself. The audience merrily chatted through our presentations, paying no attention at all. The microphone screamed with feedback and everyone else showed their company portfolio and looked glum up on stage. I was a bit baffled as to what to do, very apparent what I’d prepared was not going to get much attention, if only I had a show-stopper vaudeville up my sleeve.
The result was I was very grateful to the dozen or so of the cider crowd who stood attentively and listened to my bar rant and said kind words afterwards. What did I learn from it? The clue was in the title, ‘Glug’. I should never have practiced or performed with the gravity of sobriety but got stuck into the cider instead.
Emma Booty is Head of Branding at Studio Conran
Filed under Conran Columns: Booty on Brands, STUDIO CONRAN
The monthly musings of our Head of Branding at Studio Conran…
From a handful of illuminated pixels, to fizzing, spluttering neon, to stadium-sized improbable tattoos, logos are increasingly prevalent, varied and fluent in our lives. These simple graphic symbols have profound effect.
I was recently sent a link by a colleague to a blog comparing Tokyo ward logos with their London borough cousins. Our metropolis has adopted a prevalent theme of the well-worn Brushstroke Approach® to convey ‘warmth’ and ‘humanity’ (NB it doesn’t). Tokyo meanwhile uses the elegant and exquisitely crafted symbols akin to their family crests. I have a whole, precious book of them at home. Ours look particularly ugly when stood face-to-face with the graphic masterclass from Japan. Nevertheless I fundamentally disagree that London would be a much better place if only the borough logos looked more like these Japanese vignettes. Whilst I don’t contend their visual poise they are also steeped in a specific cultural and historical context. They have a synergy with the community architecture of Tokyo. To transpose the serene, pared-back Japanese aesthetic into our entrepreneurial, individual-celebrating society would risk them becoming irrelevant and insignificant. Unfortunately, our current borough logo suite shows no sign of any real commitment, creativity or craft in capturing the glint in the eye, the spirit, the promise of the idea.
Logos are potent symbols that provoke endless opinion and debate. It doesn’t matter if you’re a designer, a plumber or a king, we all have a visceral response – positive or negative – to a logo that comes into your life, particularly if it is something you care (or pay) for. Just think back to the Olympic London 2012 logo launch which became a gruesome mob lynching. Or the recent Brand for London bun-fight. There’s nothing new here, every decade has a handful of these logo-tastrophies – remember Consignia? BP – pre-helios – when it went ‘italic’ in the late 80s? In 2007 the italian Premier Romano Prodi was hit by the full force of a media backlash caused by the ‘Italia’ logo launch (a project he’d publicly supported) and his troubled tenure soon came to an end. Global fame for such a humble craft. These launches go so disastrously wrong because their claim for the new reality – the signature of which is the logo – is either inauthentic, far-fetched or completely lacks connection and hope.
Italian tourism logo
2001 – 2002 Consignia was the new name and logo for the Post Office
I’m intrigued about how, once embedded, successful logos can have much more perceived value and relevance than their authors could have ever prescribed. For example, take football club crests: the visual iconography more often refers to a local tale and provenance. But for its followers it takes on a far deeper emotional meaning and becomes imbued with future hope. By contrast are the evil corporates enticing us with their Piped Piper black magic.
The movie here, Logorama, http://vimeo.com/10149605 made by the fabulous French postproduction house h5, is a short animation poking fun at this commercialism and the impact of corporate logos. It won the Oscar this year for best animated short film. But, in fact, I don’t subscribe to this conspiracy theory and the re-branding attempts of large companies – both failed and success – are borne out of genuine desire for companies to engage with their audiences. Logos do inspire an altruistic act probably more than any other business strategy.
What do logos really mean? They can be a great introduction, a flag, a signpost, but the crux is really what you do with it. Like prettiness in people it can get you noticed but unless genuine personality matches up, our eyes soon start to wander. Logos can be flirts but we ultimately seek real, lasting connections.
What do you think?
Filed under Conran Columns: Booty on Brands, STUDIO CONRAN
Every month our resident brains behind the brands Emma Booty, Head of Branding at Studio Conran, shares her thoughts and observations about the world, and how it is branded.
Brand experience and paying for lunch
Lunchtime rituals have always fascinated me. The dash from the desk has been the one constant of my working life. Soho sandwich queue days were essentially window shopping sprees in disguise, Clerkenwell was ‘provincial fayre’ and pre-pay day chips, Milan’s gastronomie conversations commenced at 11, reaching work-defying frenzy by 12.15, Tokyo provided water-cooler warning words of global womanhood: ‘rice crackers make you fat’.
Here too at Shad Thames we are in prime location for daily feasting: Pont de la Tour’s boutique sandwiches and the next door Deli cries of ‘un altro panino signora!’ are my two current favourites. So the only way to avoid the drudge of calorie limitation is to exercise in fury: morning hors-d’oeuvres is Gymbox and a one-hour spin-circuit class with an angry ex-marine.
Gymbox breaks the mould of smug, guilt-inducing, right-on fitness clubs with their 10 metre lap pools and carpet tiles. The brand is cheeky, brash and, well, kind of annoying. The underground industrial spaces have been transformed into dramatic feuding arenas. Designed by Ben Kelly they’re reminiscent of the Haçienda-days: the columns are wrapped in black and yellow stripes, railway sleepers divide the space and an enormous boxing ring takes centre stage. Not MTV, but Rocky movies projected on the concrete walls and live DJs. This brand celebrates our vanity, modern guilt is eschewed for a cuff round the ear. And I’m now Facebook friends with Millar-the-Pillar. Even on the most vicious of early mornings it can’t help but raise a wry smile.
Gymbox is a fine example of a brand connecting successfully with its customers. A great idea that holds its shape and integrity through all points of touch. Changing room mirror vinyls remind you how sexy you look, timetables tell of Stiletto Workout classes and Jamaican street dance. The hazard colour palette and the ‘Load your guns and tighten your buns’ are a morning call to action that puts me in credit at least one cappuccino and a cream-filled brioche.
On a more beguiling note I’m off to see the flock of zebra finches at their current residency at the Barbican – winged and jamming with electric guitars and amps.
http://www.barbican.org.uk/thecurve/blog/index.html
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