Design for Different Pricing

In the Objectified documentary a designer mentioned how people would unfairly price better designs at a higher price, when it should be the opposite. However another designer mentioned that "better" or "good" designs are sometimes cheaper while others that are not "better" or "good" are priced much higher. (I agree with this as well, having been down Rodeo drive or in high end fashion bag stores where I don't understand how some designs of clothing or accessories survive in the market.) I always hate it how the functionality of the design is the exact same but the colors or aesthetic look is different and are priced differently just because of that (ie. black vs. white macbook). I was in a Sanrio store today and picked up two tote bags. One of them was a light blue Hello Kitty tote with daisies that was attached to the original price of $6.50. Another was an equally adorable (perhaps even more in my taste) red tote of Hello Kitty with apples that was priced at $5.95. I was so confused why the red tote was less expensive. It was the exact same material and size, with even more print material on it and almost, in my opinion, a better looking tote. I don't get it... maybe the design of the Hello Kitty with the apples is less popular or more (I've definitely seen more of that design), but it would be great if I could find out how that particular pricing decision really came about.

ObJeCtIFiEd and Helvetica

OMG. I just came back from a screening of Objectified, a product design documentary film directed by Gary Hustwit at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. It was SO amazingggggggg. They featured several designers from all over the world, including Apple's own Senior product designer Johnathon and IDEO in SF as well as the guy who created the first laptop. They touched on many key points related to the future of design (i.e. sustainability), its role in society as well as what an object is. It's more of a way of reassuring oneself (the buyer is his or her own audience really, not other people who see what you buy). I always noticed the face on cars and they touched on that, how a product should express itself easily through its design, while they also mentioned how technology has moved tangible design into design that is more difficult to understand how to use it, for example, if a martian came down and saw a spoon it could most likely tell what it's for, but seeing an iphone it will most likely not be able to tell. I can't wait for the DVD to come out!!! It's going to be THE documentary to show every semester in my design club!

http://www.objectifiedfilm.com/

For my design club last semester I had the club watch Helvetica, a documentary on typography and graphic design by the same director, Gary Hustwit, on the history of the font Helvetica (it originated in a company under the name of Haas!!! yayuh) and how it (as a font with a design that communicates reassurance, safety, reliability) has come so popular in everyday signs and corporate communication and branding. It was the most amazing documentary, talking about how the most minute detail of the font changes its personality and how typography in signage is everywhere, it cannot be escaped and really inevitably has an effect on everybody who sees it. Beautiful. :*)

http://www.helveticafilm.com/

Colgate Popsicle Sticks

Colgate's advertising by Bangkok's Y&R on inserting popsicle sticks that look like toothbrushes that remind the consumer to brush after eating sweets is a sweet idea! Although I was thinking how the guerrilla effect of the popsicle stick on the person might make them feel scolded or guilty. It might associate Colgate with feelings of guilt or any other negative associations. However on the flip side it definitely breaks through the clutter and may take consumers by pleasant surprise. I think I would've loved receiving one, either if it's placed in random popsicles so that it may be a rare event or as a promotional tool where Colgate would actually hand out popsicles to confused but eager sweet tooths who would get the punchline later, thus developping a stronger positive relationship with Colgate.

Design Mind's Naturalistic Experiment

http://designmind.frogdesign.com/blog/naturalistic-experiments-the-lesser-of-two-evils-scenario-part-one.html

So this a blog article from FrogDesign's Design Mind newsletter written by Jason Severs, Principle Designer at frog NY. It's about an experiment he did on trying to get people to use less energy and paper towels in the bathroom. This is my absolute favorite design entry to date!!!!! In my opinion, it's an example of what design is all about in making positive change and how it affects humans in our everyday world. The result literally made me burst out laughing and smile all day. :)

What do you think?: Someone arrested for art using vandalism

http://www.artbistro.com/news/articles/9142-barrel-art-nets-arrest-notoriety-for-nc-student?utm_source=nlet&utm_content=ab_r3_20090623_uarr

This article from ArtBistro.com is about a student/construction worker who stole a few construction barrels to create a sculpture on the street. He was arrested for vandalism, which of course is wrong but looking at his work it looks great I feel like his charge should be small. The police took down the sculpture unfortunately, but hopefully (even his own construction company wants him to) he'll make a new one! This brings up the issue of street art and graffiti, some people love it yet some people hate it. I don't really like graffiti, but I can definitely see why people can appreciate it. Wouldn't it be great if people just graffitied on canvases and sold them instead?

Meiji Chocolate Packaging

My favorite type of packaging (next to Apple) is Japanese packaging. Meiji is a Japanese company that manufactures candy and snacks. In Japantown I picked up three of Meiji's chocolate bars because I absolutely love their packaging designs. The first is white chocolate, second is milk chocolate, with almost the same design except the color is brown for milk chocolate instead of cream. The third bar is black chocolate, however instead of the same design it's look is completely different (and not as appealing in my opinion). How did they choose to make certain letters red and in that almost uneven random order? The pictures of the packaging are below:At the SF Museum of Modern Art I was flipping through a book on CD package designs and
came across a CD case that looked like Meiji chocolate! AWESOME. I would probably do the same if I had a record out! I wanted to hear this group, Rip Slyme. They had shopping bag designs to promote their release called Hot Chocolate where they gave out or sold packets of hot chocolate powder and coffee take out cups with their name on it. They had to be endorsed by Meiji or maybe the other way around? I don't think Meiji actually has their own record label. I listened to their songs none of them really interested me unfortunately, but one of their videos was all about chocolate so that was great to watch! Here's a picture of the design!

7-11 in Taiwan

There are several things I think of when I think of Taiwan. Among them include horrifyingly merciless mosquitoes, motorcycle pollution, department stores, and amazing night markets. The most memorable observation that most likely everyone who's visited cannot deny is 7-11's overarching dominance in the convenient store market. It is basically the equivalent of Starbucks, where instead of the familiar cafe, every street corner sits a convenient store, one that is familiar in the US but definitely not as popular or seen in the way. Why is that? How did 7-11 become so strong and so successful there? All I know is that 7-11 is amazing and highly powerful with their marketing efforts, from their many advertisements everywhere to sponsorships in the biggest stores and biggest mall in the second largest city in Taiwan, to working with the most popular celebrities to endorse their products and the store itself. 7-11 is in new the high speed railway station of Taiwan's main railway. I took a picture of its lit up campaign poster inside the station of its mascot and friends (I don't even remember seeing any advertisements by 7-11 in the US).

Then later when in the car I noticed the drop down table's latch in front of me looked kind of like the mascot in the advertisement. I thought it was amusing and an interesting observation. Do you see the resemblance?

Logo Frauds!

Just felt like posting up some pictures of logos I took in Taiwan that seemed all too familiar... are these legitimite?

Random Funny Shopping Bag

This bag is from a souvenir shop at the Hakone National Park in Japan. The name they put on the street sign made me laugh so hard. It's real name is just Hakone :)

Forever 21 from yellow to pink

So I was shopping in SF with my friend who is not interested in branding whatsoever. But even she noticed something I was definitely already thinking about while we were shopping downtown. For several years (I recall) Forever 21, the clothing store, has been using bright yellow solid colored bags with black letters along the bottom. Just recently they switched to a neon pink clear bag design with the same black letters. However my friend asked me the same question I was thinking in my head at the time. "Just why did they switch from yellow to pink?" I guess pink is a more feminine color and the color is also very bright. But why yellow in the first place? Maybe the company might switch to a bright solid or clear green in the next couple years? Was the company simply tired from the original color? Or did they assume people were getting tired of the yellow color, but not of the overall layout and size of the bag? I wonder how much research retail companies such as Forever 21 and H&M or Urban Outfitters conduct to determine whether or not they need to change their shopping bag designs, or do they simply feel intuitively when or if they should from time to time. There are companies who do change their designs more frequently then others, but I wonder just how frequent companies should change their designs, when thinking about catering to changing tastes while maintaining brand consistency. Forever 21's color change is definitely not as drastic as let's say, Tropicana's change, but it was definitely enough to catch my friend's attention, and I'm sure others as well.

The future of shopping bags?

In my sociology class on Corporate Social Responsibility and Green Business, my professor mentioned how companies (such as Ecko.) are making their shopping bags fashionable so people are beginning to carry the shopping bags around as a fashion statement. I got so excited when I heard him talk about this because I feel this is one of the coolest things happening in the branding world, of which I have secretly been longing to happen all my life.

I have already noticed Bloomingdale's doing this, as several girls have been carrying around tote bags that weren't made out of brown paper, but has the exact same design and look as the 'big brown bags' that the store shoppers generally use to carry their Bloomingdale purchases. It looked great on those girls, and it looks great on the brand as well. :) I hope that more and more companies will take on this trend (not just because I've already been wishing for this to happen), but because doing so will not only help the brand's image in stating that they care about the environment but also more likely make consumers appreciate and reuse their real shopping bags more often. In addition, providing these types of bags strengthens the brand's relationship with its customer and positions the brand higher in the customer's mind as that person is now carrying the bag as a fashion or designer bag. Depending on if the person owns the bag, upon buying it now the customer's touchpoint with the brand is even more personal than when that person used to throw away or recycle the shopping bag. For companies that decide to pursue this venture, the closer proximity will also push brand managers of the retail stores to pay more attention to their shopping bag design (to me, the second or third most close in proximity touchpoint of the brand other than the instore experience and the actual product itself), especially if the bag is going to be resuable, the design must be good so that people will actually purchase the bag and are willing to carry them around as a fashion statement. Focusing on the shopping bag design will help ensure more simple and clearly focused branding. I believe that simplicity is key to everything. In design, and in life and especially in branding. Landor's New York Managing Director Allen P. Adamson wrote an amazing book called BrandSimple, a book I recently finished on the importance of simplicity when doing branding. It's a DEFINITE MUST read! Paying more attention to a branding signal such as shopping bag design forces the brand to communicate itself more clearly to its customers by requiring the company (if they want to brand effectively and successfully) to look at its core essence and identity and communicate that through consistent, simple and hopefully aesthetically appealing design on their shopping bags. In addition, letting customers carry around the bags is a perfect way to increase brand awareness and enables free advertising. What a perfect way to go!

SHOPPING BAGS!!!

One of my crazy passions is collecting shopping bags that I feel represent the brand's identity and message very well or are simply aesthetically appealing. Some of them that I admire include Juicy Couture (the thick pink bag with the logo emblem and other designs on the inside of the bag with the fat strings as handles really show the attention to detail on reliability, exclusive higher end positioning and feminine beauty of the products the bags carry) and Sephora (the black and white stripes to me embody the sophistication and modernity reflected within the fresh store retail experience). Sometimes I would buy something from the store just to get the bag design I really like, and my siblings learn to just save the bags they buy from the store and give them to me as they have become so used to me asking them for their bags. It's a pain everytime I open the closet door really.

Tradition vs. Innovation in packaging design

The issue of staying with tradition or pursuing innovative change I just mentioned in my last post reminds me of the Tropicana case in which the company drastically changed its package design and was met with such negative reaction from its original customers. Personally, I found the new package design highly appealing! I found the strategy behind the design (the glass and the orange cap) also very inspiring and different. However I was never one of their loyal customers and was never strongly connected to its original design. The agency did not do enough research on their customers to see if they would like the change and as a result Tropicana put on a mass sale of the packages and had to revert back to its old familiar packaging design. It was learning about this case in my Integrated Marketing class I was surprised to learn how difficult it is to change packaging design. Then I realized that it makes so much sense as the more physically close or familiar the product or design may be to the consumer the more difficult it is to change the design, unless consumers are already dissatisfied with the product or design. As stated in my sociology class, society does not like change. Especially for a design or a product (even though it's not the most aesthetically appealing as it can be) people may be more likely to keep the look the same just because they are more comfortable or grew up with that design.

Localizing a brand

I just returned from a road trip to Wyoming and at a KFC there the building exterior displayed its familiar KFC sign with the colonel's face, except he looked a bit different. He was wearing a cowboy hat! I think it was appropriate knowing that the culture in that area is more western, or for tourist amusement, but it also makes me wonder how much are franchises allowed to change the logo to localize the brand? McDonald's always tries to localize their product offerings but to what extent should they be doing it in order to maintain its central core identity as an American brand? To what extent should Disneyland Paris cater to the culture there (selling wine on main street) while maintaining specific same customs as in the original Disneyland in Anaheim? There is always a fine line to be aware of when marketing across different cultures and borders, especially for global brands such as Disney, McDonalds and KFC. They know how to maintain and keep their brand promises to its customers but I am sure it is a real art for determining where to draw that fine line between consistency in brand design versus pursuing innovative risks.

This is going to be awesome.

:)