Creating worlds in branding.
'World-building' is a term I heard for the first time in interviews of filmmakers talking about their films to feel like 'worlds,' the immersion of capturing a story with visual, sound and texture that is only widely expanded upon through time and genre. It is a feeling more than an easy description of what it is. In a time of constant change, that feeling has become rarer with time in the design space.
Denis Villeneuve is gave a clue when he spoke about what art would lose if it became fully automated: “What I would miss is the collective act of creativity, the messiness of people coming together and building something none of them could have made alone.” He was not talking about efficiency, or the fastest route to a finished product, or even about technology directly. He was talking about the struggle, the specific kind that only exists when people with different perspectives are collaborating to work through a belief or vision together rather than execute something out of thin air. That clash is not a byproduct of the process. It is the process. It is where the texture comes from.
Design lost touch with that friction somewhere through time. Briefs became generated. Feedback became faster. Collaboration got ditched into comments and Slack messages. The result ends up solved, but it rarely feels alive, because nothing was actually built together in the way that actually feels. A design glued together without that collective messiness ends up feeling like a soulless reproduction and at times rushed. That is the gap I keep noticing, and the one worth closing.
To define the solution for incoherent results is creating worlds for brands, a definition yet to be formed fully; we at Offgrid have been experimenting that with ongoing projects. Instead of looking at what a brand think they need or solve, we look at the landscape in full and focus on what we feel, from outside inwards and inside outwards. Branding is the core of each brand, in veins into all branches possible, from their product to their coffee cups. It is seen every single day by many people, with well considered design you can move people, to feel, to comfort, to hear the music of the brand.
The approach of the work changed, more time and space is needed to create, to fulfill something ethical. In the early stage of creating a new brand is creative direction. What story does the brand tell and how can we translate that in an outstanding way? There are always too many possibilities for this, when I started in graphic design I used to pitch three directions; the safe route, middle route and the out of the box route. 9 of the 10 times the safest route was chosen. The risk of going bold, ‘out-there’, nearing controversy is not for everybody. When you deal with tech corporates and people boxed in with limited inspiration then presenting 180 degree turn for them is a hard pill to swallow for the client. With creating worlds, the approach is totally different, no limits, paste boarding what comes to mind, based on feeling not Pinterest search results. Writing each idea down, branching out and dividing categories and slowly crawling into finding definitions for them. At times these are blends, sometimes they are hard to title. The fun within, amongst each other is essential, when you are free to think, the brainstorm together brings the best out of each other.
Today’s process has become so fast, automated and decisions are based on what converts better, ‘'the safest is the best’. I am convinced you can do both, be out there, be the ‘cool’ one and succeed. To wear your own brand should make you feel something, something more than a white logo on a black cap. ‘Creating a world’ refers to*that* feeling. There is so much more than people think, once you open that door up for them you will see the smile. As a designer there is no better feeling than that.