Eight years ago Facebook was in beta, operating out of a dorm room. Last Friday it became the third largest public offering in the history of the United States. At $104 billion, Facebook's market value is higher than McDonald’s, Citigroup, Amazon.com and most American companies. Mark Zuckerberg is 28 with an 8 year old company of which his stake is worth around $20 billion. That's a lot of Powerballs.

Now, the question on every stockholder's mind is whether Facebook has an expiration date. It's easy to think of Facebook as joining a group of historically overrated draft picks; webvan.com, pets.com, etoys.com, boo.com. All of these late nineties, dot-com brands grew too fast, lasted about three years after IPO and all have essentially been replaced by Amazon.com now fifteen years later. Despite mismanagement, they were either ahead of their time or couldn't keep up with the time. As young as Facebook is, the internet is nothing like it was eight years ago, much less fifteen years ago. Facebook is very much a reason for that. It's certainly not just a good idea with 800 million friends worldwide and $1 billion in net profit last year.

Will it ever become "old school" to have a Facebook account? Social apps like Foursquare, Instagram, Spotify and Twitter are all much newer than Facebook and would seem to be more relevant. They're all designed around the assumption of social media rather than the invention and focus on one small piece of our social lives. We're OK with this because they're all available as apps on our phone and connected to Facebook. Mobile OS's have provided the platform for a social media mall. I'm sure Facebook would have loved to be the source for what these new apps provide but that's not what we want anymore. In the same way that Sears has become just a long entrance to the mall, we're moving from branded social media to individual social media brands. I wonder if the future of Facebook's relevancy lies in it's willingness to be just the halls of the social media mall. Not always a destination but a connection and place to talk along the way.

I don't think you can force conversations to happen in one place. Social apps seem to only complement Facebook rather than replace it. They fill the figurative halls with friends' whereabouts, photos, music, thoughts, etc. while leaning heavily on the social network Facebook provides. If this is right, then it's in their best interest to keep acquiring popular startups like Instagram but also to keep them independent. If Instagram is reduced to filters for Facebook posts I'd imagine the conversations would just move elsewhere.

AMC's "The Pitch" premiered almost three weeks ago on April 30th. The Reality TV show features two advertising agencies competing against each other to "win" new business – Condensing a one week crash-course of work into hour long episodes that conjure up crystalized versions of an already cut-throat industry.

A Flawed Approach.
Pitching is crafting and presenting speculative work to a potential client, and is one of the Advertising industry's biggest flaws. While pitching is commonplace for agencies, it rarely happens anywhere else. We've all heard the mechanic or doctor analogies… You don't ask a handful of professionals "How would you fix this?" and then only pay one. "The Pitch" tells it's audience that giving away your strategy and ideas for free, for a chance to win new business, is acceptable.

Get Creative.
From a designer's perspective, the results of the work on the show are less than inspiring, i.e. – finding a rapper on YouTube isn't exactly a concept. But what is even more bothersome, is that "The Pitch" skews a client's perspective of what we're doing! Great work is not some dismal, knock-down, drag-out death-match. It takes time, process and a life outside of the office.

You Think You Know, But You Have No Idea.
After The Real World premiered in 1992, it gave everyone the ability to become a star, particularly inspiring youth*, see: YouTube. The problem is Reality TV has a strange way of warping perspectives and priorities. My biggest concern is that aspiring Advertising and Design majors are receiving the wrong message. This industry isn't about becoming the next celebrity, it's about equipping our clients with the tools to make them famous.

* No disrespect to iTrevor, I personally find his Apple Store dances hilarious.

“To design is much more than simply to assemble, to order, or even to edit; it is to add value and meaning, to illuminate, to simplify, to clarify, to modify, to dignify, to dramatize, to persuade, and perhaps even to amuse. To design is to transform prose into poetry. Design broadens perception, magnifies experience, and enhances vision. Design is the product of feeling and awareness, of ideas that originate in the mind of the designer and culminate, one hopes, in the mind of the spectator.”
Paul Rand
Design Form and Chaos

Illustration by Craig Frazier

Last Friday I was fortunate enough to spend the morning listening to some great speakers at Chick-fil-A Leadercast – And for someone as un-fashion-savvy as myself, I found speaker Angela Ahrendts, CEO of Burberry, to be surprisingly interesting. She spoke about creating a work culture that acknowledges the past, while pushing forward through trust and intuition.

Know your roots.
In the beginning, Burberry made trench coats for the British military. Their brand mark (above), developed in 1901, an illustration of a soldier on a horse carrying a flag, reads "prorsum" which is latin for "forwards". Simply put, the brand has always been British and has always had a desire to be progressive. Acknowledge your past and what you stand for. Put your egos and agendas aside. Don't do it for yourself, do it for the brand. It's bigger than you are.

Trust each other.
Burberry's internal structure is exactly the opposite of the traditional corporate structure. Their young creatives make the decisions, while their experienced veterans use their know-how to execute those ideas correctly. They do this so that they're actually speaking to this generation of consumers. Finding this balance has got to be challenging, but it's only possible by doing the job you're asked to do correctly, and trusting that the person next to you is doing the same.

Lead by intuition.
Once you know what you stand for, and your trust issues are out of the way, follow that little guy yelling inside you. It's so easy to get hung up here, trying to decide where to go, and then not really going at all. Trust your gut and move forward. You can't actually prove that something will be successful, you just have to trust that feeling.

As a designer and musician, I enjoy finding parallels between music and design. Last Sunday evening I went up to Alpharetta to watch one of my all-time favorite musicians, Mr. Tom Petty, live in concert.

Petty performed admirably, rocking through a solid two hour set and token encore. The crowd, a mix of baby-boomers to 20-somethings, cheered as he played old favorites and some new jams. His current tour started in mid-April. The night before he played in New Orleans, and the following night he would be in Tampa. By June, the tour will extend into Europe. Petty is 61.

To put this in context, imagine that bands are brands, and music is the product. Since his first record in 1976, I bet Tom has faced some challenges that made him want to call it quits. He's also had enough success to do the same.

If I've learned one thing from Tom Petty, it's to keep pressing on. Sure, the music may evolve over time, but the passion remains the same. Four decades later, working as hard as he ever has, Tom Petty still makes a consistent product that makes millions of consumers smile. Isn't that the dream?

Steve Matteson, type designer and creative director of Monotype Imaging, claims that Apple’s usage of Helvetica throughout its mobile devices is far from the right decision.

He claims that the font, originally designed in the 60’s meant for large settings, has its flaws when used as a primary font set at small sizes to be read on “vibrating” mobile screens. He points that the font’s primary flaw is in its terminals. In comparison to Matteson’s Segoe (used on Android devices), Helvetica's terminals begin to “close-in,” especially at smaller sizes.

Perhaps Matteson is somewhat biased since Segoe is his baby after all. And to be honest, I have but a single complaint for Helvetica:

I love u, Helvetica, but hate that I can’t tell if that’s a capital “I” or a lowercase “L” sometimes.

Source

In my role at Matchstic, I have the distinct pleasure of working with the Innovation Department at Chick-fil-A. They have taught me a great deal about business value, s-curves, design thinking, idea presentation, and thought organization. The work that they are doing is extremely inspiring, and more than that, they are just good people. I will tell you more about them later.

Next Friday, April 27, you too can learn from these fine people. Dwain Cox, who heads up the department, will be speaking directly to the creative class audience at Creative Mornings. Dwain has an extensive career in design and innovation, having worked with Kodak, Coca-Cola, starting his own agency, and then pioneering and leading Chick-fil-A's innovation efforts. He has a strong appreciation for design and equally strong advice for its practitioners.

The event will be held at One Twelve Gallery, and you can pick up your ticket reservation here on Monday morning. We hope to see you there.

Watch videos from the past events including the most recently uploaded talk from Zach Arias.

“Progress in art does not lie in extending its limits, but in knowing them better.” – Georges Braque

Regardless of how new and interesting the architecture of a building might be, you and I both would not walk in without the assumption that it was built with some measure of certainty. Something that was intentional, proven and that we could trust. I see graphic design as no less important. It matters what you say and how you say it. There's a lot of ‘pretty' out there. Design blogs should not be the arbiters of what is good or bad. Is form and content well integrated? Is truth being communicated? These are excellent questions.

When was the last time you looked up while waiting in line at the grocery store? If you were one of the rare ones that did pay attention you'd probably notice a slew of bent necks entranced in their smart phones. Today we have HD Movies instantly at our finger tips, world news feeds on hand, and addicting apps to entertain us in our doctor's office. I don't remember the last time I was "bored". In ways, the speed at which technology is improving is the rate at which our patience is declining. Our expectations for everything, traffic jams, download speeds, sports team's performance, delivery pizza, design, furniture, car washes, product assembly, packaging, etc. is rapidly changing.

One of my favorite authors, Marty Neumeier, talks about the old metric of "Good, Fast, or Cheap" (and choosing only two) now being replaced with "Perfect, Now, and Free" (and consumers wanting all three).  How can brands deliver on "Perfect, Now, and Free"? That's an impossible promise to live up to, but brands must find a way to offer a little of all three. We see the world's largest brands already embracing this trend. Facebook is free, instant, and always working towards perfection. Google is primarily known for its free apps, like Google Maps. Apple offers iTunes, and even Starbucks lets us hang out for free.

Even in our business we see a progressively more intense demand for "now", with next to impossible turnaround times and resistance towards proper timelines for a comprehensive brand identity to be developed. Often we lose jobs because of this, and more times than not the original prospect comes back to us a year later wanting to "do it right this time" scarred and bruised from false promises or disappointing work from other vendors. I guess the "Perfect" was missing.

I'm my opinion, the beauty of our work is in our process. Whether strategy or design, being disciplined as design thinkers to take steps of understanding, research, inspiration, experimentation, exploration, and collaboration produce the most meaningful results. Not skipping steps to get a logo done in a week. If you want quality work you have to wait for it. Perhaps a truth for everything.

What it comes down to is the battle of quality v. speed. And from what I can tell the former is at risk in our society. If anything this is simply a note to myself as a reminder to slow down and enjoy the process of life to straighten my neck while I wait in line and actually enjoy the boredom.

Brand Spirit is a delightful study. Stripping certain products of almost all visual content, the brand remains absolutely recognizable, simply because of the shape. Much like Red Bull differentiating themselves in the marketplace around the shape of their can, many brands stand out from the competition due to this singular signature cue. Shape can be a powerful branding tool in packaging (Coke bottle), brandmark (Nike Swoosh), and even physical environment (Sonic drive-in).

In the opposite manner, the power of color is explored in this campaign for Lego. Take away the shape. Keep the color. Simply perfect. Imagine.

Cowabunga, dude. Enjoy more of these minimalist ads from Jung von Matt.

If used well, shape and color combined can give a brand a wealth of visual identity affording the opportunity to stand out in a crowded marketplace.

This enigmatic set of brandmarks that are solely representative of color and shape. 

Can you place these brands by the hues and positioning of dots?

How are you using shape and color to enhance the visual identity or differentiation of your brand?