I’m going to play with format a bit this week. Something a little less organized but possibly easier to read as a result? I dunno, we’ll see.
But its gonna be a long one since I played hooky last week.
Anyway, carry on…
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The difference between art and advertising is freedom of creative expression. I wrote that note via voice to text while driving– and still almost crashed. But it seemed important at the time. I guess the lesson is anything that you do purely for yourself without the influence of other people’s requests or taste– that’s art.
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When kicking off a brief –or writing first iterations of anything really– your thinking should always be in extremes. No caveats. No middle ground. Everything to 11.
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I really love the moments in meetings/at work where the craft of another department really shows. Not just someone who is good at their job, but good at their craft. The former is how you perform. The latter is how you think.
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Is anyone else embarrassed for the cars who have really fast turn signals? Or, try to keep your windshield wipers at the absolute lowest possible setting – to the point of constantly adjusting them as needed?
If so, that’s an interesting behavior. (human? Cultural? Learned?). If not, maybe I just exposed how my social anxiety manifests in the absolute dumbest ways.
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Another first thing to do when kicking off a process– Audit your assumptions.
(notice there’s lots of what to do first advice, but far less “what to do next” thoughts… Thats because what needs to happen next is a string theory chaos experiment of parallel universes – thats where experience is most important.
Its also because I’m great at starting things but horrible at finishing them)
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Lots and lots of hot takes on how we’re becoming illiterate as a society. But are we? or are we changing our medium of literacy? Are we becoming illiterate or shifting from written to visual culture?
Could the timeline of human history be summed up so far in 3 ages?
Oral Tradition » Written Tradition » Visual Tradition
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“Existing scholarship in the field suggests that rhetoric and digital rhetoric hold various meanings according to different scholars.[5] Based on the individual values a scholar holds”
From the wikipedia entry for “Digital Rhetoric”
I was going to make fun of being in a field where things mean something different to everyone, but then I remembered what I do for a living.
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A quote from “100 things every Designer Needs to Know about People” (PDF)
“In our humble attempts to navigate the world, we humans use our peripheral vision more than our central vision.”
But so much strategy, even creative seems to have what I’m calling Central Vision Energy (CVE).
Why can’t we try more Peripheral Vision Energy?
Target audiences are CVE, Brand Salience is PVE.
Central Vision Energy is trying to tell consumers what to think.
Peripheral Vision Energy is infecting their thoughts.
Let’s put more peripheral energy into Strategy and Creative.
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A collection of links:
List of Micro-genres. Either you think this is fascinating or you don’t. But if you do, we’d probably get along.
The Unfortunates. 🎶 It’s a book in a box! 🎶
The animals that may exist in a million years, imagined by biologists Whale Rat sounds like an Andy Dwyer band name.
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One day I’ll turn this into an actual deck of cards. But in the mean time, thanks to Coda.io, I’ve made a deck of Strat probes. It looks horrible but is sometimes helpful to click through. I’ve probably shared this before. Whatever, I like it.
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Going to end on a “old man yells at clouds” rant.
This campaign deeply bummed me out. I’ve always held BBH in such high regard for strategy. And I get that clients love a good stunt. We live in a short term world after all. But to be so blunt about the purpose of the work…
“Burger King Launches a new burger range” wouldn’t have made headlines
HEADLINES AREN’T THE GOAL OF ADVERTISING.
Or at least they aren’t supposed to be. At most they are a supplement or a happy by product. Not the brief.
Our job is to make the mundane interesting. Not to make something else that’s interesting but adjacent to what we sell.
After seeing both the ad and the press release, I still know absolutely nothing about the new burger range. Except that I shouldn't eat it if I want to keep my shirt clean.
Also, YEEZY? we’re still milking that culture cow? The udders are long dry at this point, right?
WEEKLY MONSTER
Ok not a monster this week, but something else I made…