If you haven't seen or haven't heard of Red you should. It's a brilliant play by John Logan moving around theaters and currently showing in Atlanta at the Theatrical Outfit. Red is an insightful play about the agony and ecstasy of an artist and his work. It's told through the eyes of artist Mark Rothko who's at the peak of his career working on paintings for an upscale restaurant in downtown New York. He and his assistant dialog about the tension between art and commerce, philosophy, psychology, religion, significance and legacy.

Here's a short excerpt that I loved. It's Rothko speaking to his assistant after asking him whether he liked his painting or not.

ROTHKO: But do you like it?

KEN: Mmm.

ROTHKO: Speak up.

KEN: Yes.

ROTHKO: Of course you like it – how can you not like it?! Everyone likes everything nowadays. They like the television and the phonograph and the soda pop and the shampoo and the Cracker Jack. Everything becomes everything else and it's all nice and pretty and likable. Everything is fun in the sun! Where's the discernment? Where's the arbitration that separates what I like from what I respect, what I deem worthy, what has… listen to me now… significance.

I found this so refreshing. I think this kind of perspective and dialog is vital to anything you want to make better. Whether you are painting, writing, cooking, managing, strategizing or designing. Nothing get's any better if everybody "likes it". Do you respect it? Is it significant? These are the real questions. Agreed? Go see Red. I really hope you don't like it.

Seems pretty simple but I've found that when designing, zooming in and zooming out are crucial. I have to see the design through a microscope and a telescope as it were. From one angle I can see the small details and ensure that they're perfect. From the other, I can see whether the perfect details are coming together as one.

The other day I was working on a brand mark that was shaping up to be my favorite choice for the client. Having "zoomed in" for quite a while and figuring it was gold, I tabled it to work on the others. Later, I "zoomed out" and met with the rest of the team to discuss. They're honesty and sensibility helped me see that what I thought was perfect still needed work. I was blind too see what they saw so easily. I was too zoomed in, too attached.

I've found that perfect pieces don't always make a perfect whole. Nor does a perfect whole assume perfect pieces. The goal for me is a right relationship or balance. If I only design zoomed in the result will most likely be detailed but lack overall form. If I only design zoomed out the result will be nicely composed but shallow.

Whaam! by Roy Lichtenstein

I suppose you might think so if you've never seen it in person. But for those who have, you know there's just something transcendent about it. Staring at the ceiling, imagining Michelangelo himself painting it. The mastery, detail and dedication it took to do. The story each panel tells makes the experience even better. Then there's the chapel itself, so rich in history. All together, the history, context and purpose make it so much more than a painting. Yeah, you can see it in a picture. But you really haven't seen it until you've walked beneath it. You can't understand it's purpose outside of it's painter. You can't grasp it's significance until you know it's story. It's the relationship of them all together that make it The Sistine Chapel.

Street fashion photographer, Bill Cunningham has been capturing New York's "runways" for nearly 50 years. He has a column in the New York Times called On the Street with Bill Cunningham. I highly recommend watching this recent documentary about his life. I was moved at how his love for fashion seems to have enabled him to look beyond social status and cachet. Whether on the cheap streets or at extravagant New York dinner parties, he's not interested in acclaim. With integrity, humility and humor he captures and elevates anyone with a sense of style. He's a true curator of beauty.

I have unashamedly watched almost every episode of The Twilight Zone. Every single one following the same simple formula, bookended with thoughts from the only real star of the show, Rod Sterling.

Sterling was the series' creator, 40 percent owner, main writer and executive producer. He was the "driving force and unifying sensibility" of the show. Former CBS president, Frank Stanton said, "He was the only writer I had ever met who looked like his work." It's impossible to imagine the show without him. Over the show's five year run, he wrote 92 of the 156 episodes. Most of which he also appeared in with an honest, tense and intriguing prologue and epilogue. He was the signature look of The Twilight Zone.

As a writer, Sterling saw television as an "intimate medium… most meaningful and most effective when you keep in mind that the closer you get to people and the more vertical you probe, the better your drama." Never just an escape, every episode was an invitation away from the familiar only to bring you right back with a new perspective.

But not all episodes sat well with studio execs. "You argue, you fight, you try to protect what you have written… But you're battling networks, advertising agencies, sponsors and pressure groups. I've been forced to make concessions… in every television play I've written." Any creative can resonate with this tenuous relationship. The executive needs the creatives to be creative and the creatives need the executive to pay for the creative. The two are seldom in agreement and concessions are always made.

Watching the show, in order, you can see some of those forced concessions. Later on, some episodes begin to feel oddly similar to an I Love Lucy or Leave it to Beaver. Massively popular shows at the time whose "style" was probably encouraged as a way to boost ratings. The best mandated oddity though was some product placement within the credits of the show. I would imagine this to be a significant point of tension. The image at the end of each episode was always intentional. Always a key object from the show to help viewers marinate on what they had just seen. Probably not his idea to put powdered milk and toothpaste over it.

Source: In the Zone: The Twilight World of Rod Sterling

Paul Giambarba, creator of the infamous Polaroid color bars. Responsible for Polaroid's corporate image development and product identity from 1957–1977.

Source: Paul Giambarba

We've been working on a project that's allowed us to do some research into animation and storytelling. Watching movies…tough work. We've been looking closely at Pixar Studios as they seem to knock it out of the park every time. Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Cars, UP, etc. Brilliant story lines, characters, and animation. What's been fun to discover though is the little design nuances in the movies, the things in the background. Fictious book covers, billboards, advertisements and brands. They create brands like a cub scout organization complete with brochure and badges. Or an airline brand complete with tickets and travel posters.

Pixar often sources great modern design from the 40′s, 50′s and 60′s for inspiration. An idealist time in design history and design philosophy. Often characterized by halftones and illustrations with hand-drawn type done by artists instead of applications. It's design before computers, Kinkos and comic sans. Beautiful, singular compositions with little to no fine print. Iconic soda pop labels, gas stations and travel posters. Generally speaking, the "look" most associated with the American dream. Here's a few examples.

Source: Paul Conrad, Eric Tan

I previously wrote about Coke's seasonal redesign from their iconic red can to all white/silver for the holidays. I said,

"their familiar brand identity allows them a certain flexibility without worrying that flipping colors might confuse it's customers."

Apparently, I was wrong. You've probably heard that customers are confusing the white/silver Coke can for the all silver Diet Coke can. So much that in fact, Coke has decided to stop production and promptly flip the white back to red. Turns out that recognition of the Coke brand identity relies just as much on color as it does shape.

This is an incredibly valuable lesson. Even if your the most recognizable brand in the world, too much change can lead to confusion. It goes to show the delicate hierarchy in the sequence of perception. We say:

1. shape  →  2. color  →  3. content

Which is still proven to be true. But just because shape comes first doesn't mean color is irrelevant. Especially when all the cans are the same shape. Color in this case served an important functional purpose, product recognition. I think the iconic spencerian script and red differentiates Coke from Pepsi. But it's obviously the can color alone that differentiates Coke's product lines from each other. People see Coke, they don't read Coke.

Many people have also said the white can made the beverage taste different, accusing Coke of secretly changing the formula. Coke said that this is not the case but it raises an interesting thought, the psychological role color plays in a brand experience. That's another blog post. One quick thought though, perhaps in this case it's the close relationship the red can has to the actual drinking experience. I wonder if a BigMac would taste any different if the golden arches were green.

#5 – WE WILL BE PROFITABLE; THIS IS NOT A SOCIAL CLUB.

While we are all each others BFF's, we wouldn't have as much fun if we weren't making money. For our business to be profitable we must produce great work which can't be acheived if every one is there to just be friends. This statement means we don't just show up to work on our social stats. It means having to say no to some ideas that "would be so awesome if…" but don't seem to make any business sense.

Past Beliefs:

• #1 – We hold each other's feet to the fire

• #2 – We follow through on our word

• #3 – We rise and fall as a team

• #4 – We know the difference between career and life

Martin Kemp charts the key steps in the history of images that have risen from insignificance to extravagant levels of fame to the proverbial pantheon of iconic status. He discusses their commonalities and tendencies. In an article for the Wall Street Journal he writes: