Whether you like the new branding for the University of California, you surely can’t deny that this is a nice way to introduce it. Designed by an 11 person in-house creative team.
This identity is for London suushi store Yoobi which takes influences from Japan and Brazil. The sushi is made fresh to order. The branding centres around the shape of the product and is consistently applied to the environmental graphics, furniture, signage, stationery, packaging and print.
The environmental graphics at the London Olympics is starting to show up. LOCOG have somehow managed to use the graphic language from the logo to develop a brand rather than just a logo.
Alex Mustonen and Daniel Arsham, reconstructed the 10-foot letters from the old Miami Orange Bowl and whimsically scattered around the east plaza of the new Marlins Ballpark. Created as a sort of memorial to the stadium that was demolished in 2008.
Madefire is a new digital publishing platform for comics and graphic novels through two main features: a desktop web tool where creators can produce their stories, and an iPad that delivers the content, with animation, music, and sound effects.
This parking area at Place des Arts was turned into a Salon Urbain, a versatile new space ideal for meeting up before or after a musical performance, a gallery visit or a conference.
“Embedded in the ground to minimize its impact on the surrounding hillside, the Bolton Eco House by Make Architects has been dubbed “the house of the future.” “
Baby best sells products that aim to enhance the relationship between a mother and a baby and the castle logo communicates the safety of that relationship.
I like the way the logo is shown as a large group of units which are also used individually.
Branding of the five star luxury hotel, Sankara, from Glazer Brand & Design Consultants. It draws its inspiration from a zebras stripes, giving it an authentic african flavour.
The Coca-Cola logo may be classic, but is it really relevant to hip, metropolitan 20-somethings? With the motto “holding up a mirror to the artsy community,” a Tumblr called Hipster Branding proposes tongue-in-cheek solutions for popular brands looking to attract the cool kids. The blog’s mastermind, Dave Spengeler, redesigns corporate logos in a familiar minimalist style, with plenty of trendy signifiers — anchors, mustaches, Helvetica or old-fashioned fonts, the ubiquitous “X.” The results range from actually attractive to hilariously ridiculous; page through to see a few of our favorites, the follow Hipster Branding to keep up with the feed.
AT CONTINUUM, INNOVATION’S SECRET SAUCE IS DELIBERATIVE DISCOURSE. HERE’S HOW YOU DO IT.
Turns out that brainstorming–that go-to approach to generating new ideas since the 1940s–isn’t the golden ticket to innovation after all. Both Jonah Lehrer, in a recent article in The New Yorker, and Susan Cain, in her new book Quiet, have asserted as much. Science shows that brainstorms can activate a neurological fear of rejection and that groups are not necessarily more creative than individuals. Brainstorming can actually be detrimental to good ideas.
But the idea behind brainstorming is right. To innovate, we need environments that support imaginative thinking, where we can go through many crazy, tangential, and even bad ideas to come up with good ones. We need to work both collaboratively and individually. We also need a healthy amount of heated discussion, even arguing. We need places where someone can throw out a thought, have it critiqued, and not feel so judged that they become defensive and shut down. Yet this creative process is not necessarily supported by the traditional tenets of brainstorming: group collaboration, all ideas held equal, nothing judged.
So if not from brainstorming, where do good ideas come from?
At Continuum, we use deliberative discourse–or what we fondly call “Argue. Discuss. Argue. Discuss.” Deliberative discourse was originally articulated in Aristotle’s Rhetoric. It refers to participative and collaborative (but not critique-free) communication. Multiple positions and views are expressed with a shared understanding that everyone is focused on a common goal. There is no hierarchy. It’s not debate because there are no opposing sides trying to “win.” Rather, it’s about working together to solve a problem and create new ideas.
So we argue. And discuss. And argue. A lot. But our process is far from freeform yelling. Here are five key rules of engagement that we’ve found to yield fruitful sessions and ultimately lead to meaningful ideas.
Breaking down hierarchy is critical for deliberative discourse. It’s essential to creating a space where everyone can truly contribute. My first week at Continuum, I joined a three-person team with one senior and one principal strategist. A recent graduate, I was one of the youngest members of the company. During our first session, the principal looked me in the eye and said, “You should know that you’re not doing your job if you don’t disagree with me at least once a day.” He gave me permission to voice my opinion openly, regardless of my seniority. This breakdown of hierarchy creates a space where ideas can be invented– and challenged–without fear.
It’s widely evangelized that successful brainstorms rely on acceptance of all ideas and judgment of none. Many refer to the cardinal rule of improv saying “Yes, AND”–for building on others’ ideas. As a former actor, I’m a major proponent of “Yes AND.”
But I’m also a fan of “no, BECAUSE.” No is a critical part of our process, but if you’re going to say no, you better be able to say why. Backing up an argument is integral in any deliberative discourse. And that “because” should be grounded in real people other than ourselves.
We conduct ethnographic research to inform our intuition, so we can understand people’s needs, problems, and values. We go out dancing with a group of women in a small Chinese village; we work in a fry shack in the deep South; we sit in living rooms and listen to caregivers discuss looking after a parent with Alzheimer’s. This research informs our intuitive “guts”–giving us both inspiration for ideas and rationale to defend or critique them.
During ideation, we constantly refer back to people, asking one another if our ideas are solving a real need that people expressed or that we witnessed. This keeps us accountable to something other than our own opinions, and it means we can push back on colleagues’ ideas without getting personal.
We’ve all heard of T-shaped people and of multidisciplinary teams. This model works for us because deliberative discourse requires a multiplicity of perspectives to shape ideas. We curate teams to create diversity: Walk into a project room and you may find an artist-turned-strategist, a biologist-turned-product designer, and an English professor-turned-innovation guru hashing it out together. True to form, my background is in theater and anthropology.
On a recent project, I realized the best way to tackle a particular problem was to apply a text analysis tool that actors use with new scripts. I taught this framework to the team, and we used it to generate ideas. Another time, a team member with a background in Wall Street banking wrote an equation on the whiteboard. It was exactly the framework we needed to jumpstart our next session.
When we enter deliberative discourse, arguing and discussing and arguing and discussing, we each bring different ways of looking at the world and solving problems to the table.
Deliberative discourse is not just arguing for argument’s sake. Argument is productive for us because everyone knows that we’re working toward a shared goal. We develop a statement of purpose at the outset of each project and post it on the door of our project room. Every day when we walk into the room, we’re entering into a liminal play space–call it a playing field. The statement of purpose establishes the rules: It reminds us that we are working together to move the ball down the field. As much as we may argue and disagree, anything that happens in the room counts toward our shared goal. This enables us to argue and discuss without hurting one another.
We work on projects ranging from global banking for the poor to the future of pizza and life-saving medical devices. Our work requires intensity, thoughtfulness, and rigor. But no matter the nature of the project, we keep it fun. It’s rare for an hour to pass without laughter erupting from a project room. Deliberative discourse is a form of play, and for play to yield great ideas, we have to take it seriously.
Daniel Sobol is a design strategist at Continuum, where he draws on his background in the performing arts and anthropology to learn from people, tell their … CONTINUED
This clothing store in Korea is aimed at students – slightly messy, low budget, with high spirits. Everything is movable so the store layout can be changed easily, keeping it unpredictable.
This urban art project by Boamistura has transformed both the environment and the community in the slums of Brazil. The community was directly involved in this project, painting the backstreets and alleyways, using art as a tool for change. The words that are painted are also community building - ‘pride’ (orgulho), ‘beauty’ (beleza), ‘sweetness’ (doçura), ‘firmness’ (firmeza), and ‘love’ (amor).
