A clean, dimly-lit room.
Pictured is a postcard from Jade West, a Cantonese restaurant on Southwest First Avenue and Harrison Street (sadly, no longer extant) that served as the de facto clubhouse for the Designers’ Roundtable, the progenitor to our local chapter of the AIGA. Here, under no structure save periodic visits from a cocktail waitress, Byron Ferris and other communications luminaries sat and hashed through what it meant to be a designer. Pinch rabbi Thom Smith and priest Timothy Leigh were members, and Mr. Leigh is working with us to cobble together a secret history of those days when commercial art was searching for something more meaningful. Chapters in that history will appear here at Bespoke over the coming months; check back early and often.
Posted by Adam McIsaac in Community | 28 May 2008 | Permalink | Comment on this post
Your local crows know who you are.
Okay, I'm a little late to the dance on this one. Joshua Klein is a member of that new breed of powernerds spawned by our technological culture — you know, the kind of supersmart fella who didn’t get the memo about the natural relationship between brainy folks, aviator glasses and chemistry person hair. Here, Mr. Klein gives a presentation at this year’s TED conference on a subject dear to this correspondent’s heart: crows. I stand abuse here at the office for my admiration of our corvine cousins; but Mr. Klein seems to understand, and is figuring out ways to hack crows to do useful work. Prepare to have your mind blown out through your ears. Included with this presentation are two tickets to the gun show. Via BoingBoing.
Posted by Adam McIsaac in General Interest | 27 May 2008 | Permalink | Comment on this post
Tuesday Flickr Set: Hebrew graphics.
During our first week at Bespoke, Conahan referenced a wonderful set of eastern European matchbooks from Jane McDevitt's Mariad Design. Of a similar vein, at least with regard to that era of print production, Philipp Messner (isotype75 at Flickr) has, for quite some time, been adding to his delicious collection of historical Hebrew graphic works reflecting contributions to the voice of the Jewish state at the time of Allied enlistment propaganda, posters, pamphlets and press advertising. Supporting an excellent presentation of modern Hebrew typography, Messner's set includes collections of Yohanan Simon, Pesach Ir-Shay, Otte Wallish, Franz Krausz and the venerable Rudi Deutsch (later, Dayan) which—at least in part—reflects Deutsch's work while leading the graphic design program at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design.
Posted by Eric Hillerns in Design | 27 May 2008 | Permalink | Comment on this post
Quality blogging
Everybody thinks they can write. That is a source of annoyance to serious writers. Writers have invested time and thought into perfecting a craft and formulating an idea of what quality writing is. Imagine how they feel about celebrity publishing deals, hordes of the most clueless beginners who think that putting words on paper makes them a writer and now, bloggers. Portland’s Willamette Week recent things we hate issue noted that "I write for a blog" is a pathetic pickup line. A crazy person babbling at you on the bus is a public speaker but not necessarily an orator.
Technological shortcuts displace skilled craftspeople. This is usually accompanied by a drop in quality as the operators of the new tools get up to speed. If you buy an expensive tool you probably have to compensate by paying less for presumably less skilled labor. If blogging is effectively free where's the percentage in paying a really good writer? The answer is of course, quality. Some writers are more talented or more practiced. Some have special access to subjects.
I wonder if our traditional notions of quality can be linked to the technologies and economics of the day? Was so and so a great writer because circumstances combined to make them a focus of an economic and technological thrust to disseminate the ideas? Marketability is a huge concern if your production costs are high. How important was simple availability in raising certain figures into the pantheon of great artists? Surely there is such as thing as Quality that is not subjective?
I think quality has at its core deliberation. You need to focus your energies on doing something well. It might be possible to create quality accidentally and if we make enough stuff we might arrive at quality that way. At a certain level of mastery quality can be achieved effortlessly but that is because - through practice - the master has become saturated with the skill. Doing becomes natural.
Blogging has great cultural potential. It has become cheap for an individual to reach a wide audience. How do we spread a desire to do nothing but Quality? Teach it to the kids.
Posted by Mark Conahan in General Interest | 25 May 2008 | Permalink | Comment on this post
AMA Oregon's Forward 08 substantiates hunch: marketing is still about people.
Following up on yesterday's post below, I came away quite pleased with the AMA Forward 08 Conference. As billed, the event centered on social networking, by way of Web 2.0 tools such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, et al. A good portion of the underlying tone of the conference hinted around the discipline necessary to manage one's personal, professional and corporate identities, but the speakers flat-out confirmed that tools are just that; tools.
Mr. Sernovitz opened the event and was, as usual, entertaining and informative. Now I hope you'll understand that it's not that what he's talking about these days is particularly groundbreaking. That's his point. Marketing (and its cousin, branding) is about keeping people talking and it's about employing common sense while continually striving to earn trust. It's always been that way and yet clients often believe that we can make the customer believe. The rational approach suggests that the customer has likely already made up her mind about the product, or in our case, service. According to Mr. Sernovitz, it's up to the marketer to concentrate on the following:
Posted by Eric Hillerns in Community | 23 May 2008 | Permalink | Comment on this post
How I'll spend my Thursday. As if it mattered. [It does matter —Ed.]
Today, I'm attending the American Marketing Association (AMA Oregon) Forward 08 Conference at the Portland Art Museum. [Given the nature of this post, and the focus of the conference, this entry should probably exist as a tweet, but I'm still easing into the water with Twitter. —Ed.]
The morning keynote is Andy Sernovitz of Word of Mouth Marketing fame. I'm enjoying his book, Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking and have followed his Weblog for a while now. The afternoon keynote taps Mrinal Desai, Former Business Development Executive at LinkedIn and Co-Founder of CrossLoop. If you've read this, you know that your correspondents have been fiddling with LinkedIn for some time, so Mrinal's presentation should be interesting. A panel discussion promises to "address new frontiers in marketing; connecting with the customer on a more personal, experiential level through their passions." Panelists include: G. Cody QJ Goldberg, former Sports Marketing Manager, adidas America; Jason Goldberg, VP Marketing & Creative Services, MTI; Garett Stenson, CEO & Creative Director, db clay inc.; and Brian Linver, Partner, Pinnacle Marketing Group. I'll provide a short report following the event.
Posted by Eric Hillerns in Community | 21 May 2008 | Permalink | Comment on this post
Yet more hope out of the Prairie State.
Men after my own heart: the Chicago Tribune reports on two young men, traveling the country and correcting typographical and grammatical errors in signs. First Obama, now this: what's in the water in the Land of Lincoln?
Posted by Adam McIsaac in Language | 21 May 2008 | Permalink | Comment on this post
Novick comes up just short.
We are saddened and, frankly, a bit surprised to hear that Pinch pal Steve Novick apparently won't be advancing in Oregon's Senate race to face Republican Gordon Smith. There is little question that Novick gave fits to national Democratic party bore, Jeff Merkley, on his way to grabbing 41% of the vote in the primary. Merkley couldn't seem to decide what he stood for, but I'm guessing folks outside of Multnomah county were likely a bit baffled by Novick's whip-smart, say-it-like-it-is approach to Oregon politics. We look forward to tipping a Left Hook Lager with Steve as soon as the dust settles. Oregonian columnist Steve Duin provides a fitting campaign postmortem.
Posted by Eric Hillerns in Politics | 20 May 2008 | Permalink | Comment on this post
Tuesday Flickr Set: Motor art.
We stumbled upon this fine Flickr set while researching a future post on Aussie moto-brand, Deux Ex Machina. While that write up will deliver in due time, we couldn't help but provide this little morsel from Lockwasher Design; a collection of fantastical transportation objects assembled from repurposed and found industrial ingredients. 40's-era Electrolux vacuums, plumbing flanges, vintage ice cream scoops. And while we're also quite smitten with the cutest-ever army of robots, it's the motor art set that got us a bit revved.
Our Flickr voyeurism ignited a spark (again with the lame play on the motor theme?) for what we hope will become a regular department here at Bespoke. The weekly Flickr post. Tuesday seems as good a day as any, we'd suspect. With that, we promise to do our best in staying current, but we will need your help. If you are especially fond of a Flickr set that you'd like to share with your humble correspondents, do let us know. Won't you?
Posted by Eric Hillerns in Art | 20 May 2008 | Permalink | Comment on this post (1 so far)
Old brands never die; and neither does anything else, dammit.
Rob Walker has a piece in this morning's Times Magazine about companies who purchase the rights to dead brands — e.g., Brim decaffeinated coffee, Underalls, Eagle Snacks — and revivify them. The brands return to market, however, having first been updated: the plan for Brim is to contain a full portfolio of coffee-related drinks, caffeinated and non, because consumers—while remembering the brand name well—have apparently forgotten that it was a decaffeinated brand.
I'm the kind of guy who flips through old magazines and thinks, Ah, hell. Why can't a fella buy a box of Quisp anymore?
I wouldn't think twice about Quisp if it were still on the shelves [Actually, it's back, too. —Ed.]. And though I remember my mum buying Brim, I wouldn't think about it at all if it hadn't been name-checked in the Beasties' Root Down
. But here's what bugs me: the complete separation from the brand and the product, which seems … well, cynical. Walker's subjects refer to the return of the Volkswagen Beetle as the master pattern, but the Beetle is still made by the folks who always made it, and the new version holds true to the original's mandate: a simple car for the middle class. Brim, Underalls, Eagle Snacks, Salon Selectives are not only not iconic brands, but the reloads have little, if anything, to do with the original product. Which, I suppose, is part of the point. When all folks can remember of a brand is the jingle, you can shove anything under that jingle and sell it.
Posted by Adam McIsaac in Brand | 18 May 2008 | Permalink | Comment on this post
The wellspring.
A pleasant bit by Bob Hicks in this morning's Oregonian about the late Reed College professor and writing master Lloyd Reynolds. Pursuant to Eric's post below, I would think that a proper review of this region's design history (1946-79 is the period of interest) should have a good look at Mr. Reynolds. [Note— the link will probably spawn your Print dialog box, as I've linked to the "printer-friendly" (read: no mosaic of blinking appliance ads) version of the article. Just dismiss the dialog box and you should be able to read the article in one draw without suffering Oregonlive's ridiculous advertising scheme.]
Posted by Adam McIsaac in Community | 16 May 2008 | Permalink | Comment on this post
Then and now. One view of Portland design, from yours truly.
Note: Last month, Media Inc. magazine asked us to write 1,700 words about the design industry in Portland for their annual Graphic Design issue. They printed an abbreviated version of the article, weaving it in with a view of Seattle's scene, as written by AIGA Seattle chapter president Wendy Quesinberry. The full version of the Portland piece follows. –Ed.
“Design naturally reflects the culture in which it lives," wrote Ralph Caplan in By Design, the author's written illustration of why things are. Within his chapter exploring the relationship between design and society, Caplan contends that design, as with architecture, is often measured by its exterior, rather than by the quality of its space (or the content) inside. He concedes that there really wouldn’t be a need for any exterior if there is something of great importance that we are driven to accomplish within.
I was reminded one rainy April afternoon that Caplan's central organizing thought was that every thing (and every place) is designed; be it for good or ill, whether seemingly considered or hurried and regardless of price. It was Tim Leigh, the Portland fixture (a writer, designer, crafter of handmade pens, and long-time partner in the agency Bronson Leigh Weeks) who was doing the reminding in this case, as it often is. Leigh is impossibly fit, in mind and in body, and his 60-plus years defies any logic suggesting that we as humans are designed to steadily recede in our later days. As had become our habit, the Driftwood Room at the old Mallory Hotel was our inside and was the place where we had often discussed Portland’s design legacy. On this day, however (and largely because the Mallory has ceded to her swank replacement), we held court elsewhere while discussing Portland’s current crown as a hotbed of creative energy; a preferred destination for designers, artists, musicians, chefs, authors, actors, pimps and potters. As I rushed to establish my line of thinking on this supposed new movement, he reminded me, yet again, that to a degree, it has always been this way.
Posted by Eric Hillerns in Community | 16 May 2008 | Permalink | Comment on this post
Brand differentiation, explained.
I can't attest to the myriad visual references that came to mind when young Logan shared the Bizarro strip from this morning. I had tucked into my first cup of Joe, and for the life of me, I didn't see this as a bat. Of course, that's another discussion entirely and not particularly family-friendly. But I digress. We found this one especially pertinent to our little on-going brand dialogue. I've actually had clients make this argument when suggesting a startlingly familiar product name. "Can't we just make it two words?" And, "sure it's spelled the same way, but couldn't we just pronounce it differently?"
Posted by Eric Hillerns in Brand | 15 May 2008 | Permalink | Comment on this post
AIGA Portland presents social networking for the creative class.
On Tuesday morning, AIGA Portland hosted our pal Kent Lewis of Portland search engine marketing agency Anvil and SEMpdx, as part of the 2008 Career Tools series. Lewis discussed search, and what it means for the creative services industry; outlining steps to increase one's professional and personal profiles with social networking tools such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr and a bevy of blogging strategies. Forty-plus were on hand for coffee and quiche. For a copy of Kent's presentation, as well as a primer from Eric Karjaluoto of smashLAB and Design Can Change, follow the links below. To wrap it all up in a convenient little package, Adam came across this nice piece about, um, green networking from Max Gladwell for Sustainablog.
A Primer in Social Media from smashLAB (PDF: 200K)
AIGA Career Tools Presentation from Kent Lewis (PDF: 3MB)
Posted by Adam McIsaac in Community | 13 May 2008 | Permalink | Comment on this post
Wanting it Nau.
While we'll never know if Nau could have happened at another time, this provides two important answers: First, that hitting consistent singles is almost always more effective than connecting with an occasional home run. And second, sustainability isn't the play; product is. Sports analogies are easy. Business isn't. Sue Nevin's participation in this interview is poignant, given Lucy's history. We know what they say about hindsight.