Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

I was thinking about widely recognized icons. Those of us in the creative industry are driven to hopefully invent a lasting impression. The mother lode is to become embedded into pop culture. While looking into some of the more celebrated jewels, I discovered their intrinsic value is bargain basement. Their deeper, chord-striking value is…ahem…priceless.

Dumb graphic luck

While I suspected it to be graphic urban legend, I discovered the bargain-priced Nike “swoosh” story to be true. In case you haven’t heard it, Nike’s logo was created in 1971 by Carolyn Davidson, a graphic design student at Portland State University. She met Phil Knight (future Nike CEO) while he was teaching accounting classes. Davidson agreed to provide design services for $2 per hour. Looming production deadlines forced Knight to settle on the swoosh after rejecting others. At the time, he paid $35 for the logo and said, “I don’t love it, but it will grow on me.”

Today, most global brand evaluators place Nike in the top 15 most recognizable logos.

Speaking of bargain symbols…

The ubiquitous yellow smiley face was created by Harvey Ball in 1963 for an insurance company’s employee morale campaign. Ball never attempted to trademark it. Soon “Smiley” fell into U.S. public domain. His total income for this round grandpa of emoticons was a whopping $45. Have a nice day, Harv. : )

So, serendipity plays a big part in making some icons. Right place, right time, right voice, right marketing investment with the moon and stars in alignment.

It’s called what?

Heard of Spam? Of course. Ever wondered about the name? Kenneth Daigneau, the brother of a Hormel vice president, dreamed it up when the first can of luncheon meat was produced in 1937. Billions and billions of canned pink goodness have been sold since. Matter of fact, each year more than 90 million cans are sold in the U.S. alone. That’s three cans every second!

Daigneau was paid $100 for the name. What a bargain. Without him, it’s hard to imagine it would have survived with runner-up names like Crinkycrinky or Canned Flappertanknibbles.

The wee-wee of a generation

Kurt Cobain was the voice of a generation, but the tiny penis of a generation belonged to three-month-old Spencer Elden of Los Angeles. Spencer was the baby on the cover of Nirvana’s iconic Nevermind album. The cover’s photographer, scrambling for the swimming baby, called his friend Rich Elden. Mr. Elden had just become a new dad. Baby Spencer gets tossed into a pool. Dad got paid $200. History is made.

Each of these examples demonstrates the creation of a potentially empty thing. Without hundreds of millions invested, we may not have ever heard of these phenoms. Makes me wonder. With enough bank, can anything become pop culture history? Paris Hilton, anyone?

 

While minding my own business on three different occasions of surfing the web I came across some great art gallery sites. My wife and I are art lovers. These artists were good and the prices reasonable.

With each discovery I said to myself, “I love this gallery!” Each site had a section to purchase on-line.

I bit.

Sadly each time, the on-line purchases didn’t go through. So I called. And each time all three galleries said, “Oh, we don’t do that any more. I don’t know how you got this number.” Newsflash: I got the bleeping number ‘cause YOU put it on YOUR web site to SELL YOUR CRAP.

Like all good cobblers’ children, Capstrat struggles to build fresh content throughout our various web properties. We try really hard but still could be better. At least we see the value.

This is puzzling. You design and program a site, then host it. All these events cost money and time. Why don’t people take them down after they no longer do business?

It’s not like they have to unprogram it. What’s your favorite Web peeve?

Visual thinking, best explained by Kermit the frog. Some things are timeless.

Kermit Scats

Imagining Shapes

My professional life collided with my childhood yesterday when David Carson, the graphic designer known for Ray Gun Magazine and the movie "Helvetica" showed us this Transworld Skateboarding cover that he designed in 1985.

Notice the name of the issue is the "Full Bleed Issue." At the time (age 13) I thought it was some cool reference to skateboarding acidents. It turns out that it became possible for Transworld to make the images stretch to all edges of each page (a full bleed) for the first time. So David named the issue after a graphic design printing technique. And now, after not seeing the magazine for 23 years, I finally get the inside joke. Awesome. My life has come full circle.

Many presenters at Flashforward this year urged fearless experimentation and the courage to risk failure. Being bold, trying new things, and trusting your own instinct seemed a common theme. David Carson said that if you are not failing then you aren't pushing yourself hard enough. And Miha Pogacnik said that "the creative process leaves a trail of blood."

Transforming work into play and finding joy in your work seemed another common theme. Craig Swann suggested that we think about work as play and urged us to believe that R&D = R&R. Danny Stillion of IDEO suggest that we "fail often to succeed sooner. And we were reminded of Tal Ben-Shahar's idea that Happiness = Pleasure + Purpose.

Stacey Mulcahy gave some advice on how to unleash the creative potential of developers and the dangers of bad process. "Bad project process limits developers to implementation. Good project process enables developers to innovate and contribute. Meaningful innovation requires a good environment. Meaningful innovation is a competitive edge." I couldn't agree more. All too often coders get relegated to implementation.

The last idea that bubbled up several times was the cold, hard fact that the only way to be great at Flash is to bust your ass doing it. Call it work or call it play - doesn't matter. The only way to become great at what you do is to spend time doing it. You can stand on the shoulders of giants, but becoming a giant yourself requires passion, relentless experimentation and inspiration.