What Typo 12 had to say about Simon
Simon‘s SomeOne has been behind the recent Royal Opera House re brand, the re-grouping of the National Maritime Museum (the largest in the world), the Royal Observatory (The Home of Time) and the Queen’s House (The birthplace of British architectural classicism) as Royal Museums Greenwich, the re brand of the progressive high speed European train company Eurostar, and the launch of Telefónica Digital’s ‘Tu | Me’ brand. He is a member of the D&AD Executive, an external assessor at Central St. Martins School of Art & Design, London, has written a short course on Typography and is a widely awarded and published voice on design and progressive branding. He also called Al Pacino, ‘Cappucino’ to his face, but thats another story. Being the Executive Creative Director and Co-Founder of SomeOne, the progressive London based and internationally operating design practise, Simon launches and relaunches brands worldwide. SomeOne is working on some of the biggest and most high profile design projects in the sector. From telecoms to hotels, management consultants to train companies. Simon has been in the business of design for over 20 years. He loves design. His brother, father, mother and wife are all designers… his 4 year old son and 4 month old daughter are yet to decide … How Simon creates places to be and meet and how he attracts clients to be with him, he will let us know at his TYPO London speech.
Links
Someoneinlondon
What I think:
Came across very pleased with himself, like a Design Director version of Simon Cowell however behind the mad Cat gifs Presentation did speak a lot of sense and kept the audience entertained, if a bit distracted. (I though Presentation #1 was no animations whilst your speaking!?)
The Talk
Branding not blanding
Has the flattering serpent of social networking changed our approach to creating Branding for businesses? Is Design as we knew it dead? And what is this BrandWorld thing? How do you actually get good design work through these days? Why not just create a nice logo, get paid and be done with this re brand business? Logo’s have been fine for years… why change? What helps creates monopolies for products, services and organisations? Who are David Law & Gary Holt? I will attempt to confuse you further in my 45 minutes onstage.
Professional but accessible. Small part is visual branding identity
Simon runs a company called ‘someone’ in London which specialises in launches and relaunches.
Within the last couple of years he has observed that the traditional understanding of branding does not work nowadays.
Branding does not only need to be liked and stand out, today it also needs to be useful. Eg Meercat campaign on search engines instead of Compare the market. lead the market..
Successful design and branding is connected to society. People don’t just buy, they own a brand. The consumer is in control. On social networks a conversation starts and suddenly a brand is public. If you don’t work with the community, it can happen that people start hating it, and in the worst case even kill it. People are listening to people they have never met from places they have never been to. Gap forced to retract their logo redesign.
In order not to get slapped from the Internet, Simon recommends to stand for something and have principles. Make the conversation more interesting. Great brands need to stand for something. Great brands are divisive and have principles. Not about positioning, about having a position. Amplify opinions. Don’t ‘DO’ social, ‘BE’ social! Create tools to get people involved.
Brands need to connect with people.
EG Created a blackboard for Giff Gaff to allow people to do things with it.
In branding you need to give more than you take. Don't assume people are interested. Invite people to participate.
Most brand values are anti social, this doesn’t work any more. It’s not about being consistent, but coherent. Create coherent conversation.
According to Simon, contemporary logo branding is dying. Showing some of his projects (such as the Maritime Museum or the Olympic character system), he proved, that you don’t need a logo as such, but a good coherent idea, that also involves society to develop it even further. We need more magic not logic. What else can be added to that.
Someone thinks about when creating new visual brands
1. make it Coherent not consistent - people desire stimulation. Consistency is dull and. Cant make one logo need a world of things to stimulate conversations.
2. Do more than a logo / A Brand is what is does not what it says. eg Stratos/red Bull
3. Brand without badging. Logos are very rarely conversational. Public hate new logos -expensive The press hate new logos. The staff hate new logos create uncertainty. Focus off business. Logos inherit meanings The logo is dying
What do you do if you cant badge stuff?
Socially powered design systems.
4 One big idea is not the big idea - have 100's of ideas BRANDWORLDS Launch and learn by publishing
5. Find own able moments - changing seasonable packs for Valeo
6. Remove the fear . Let design in the boardroom to effect change
Business is risk-averse v Creativity is all risk.
7. Clients need to understand that weird works - Its what is remembered
8. We are in the people business.
Enthusiasm wins clients
9. Move from being a cost to an asset. Give more than you take.
Tizen create brands that can change and make 100's of assets
10. Do interesting work so can have fun.. Chase the opportunity not the money.
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