I had an interesting conversation with the bossman at work today. We were discussing the exasperation that fills a designer every time he or she is told by a client “you know, just make it look like a mac”.
My boss shared an interesting anecdote. Yves Behar was once asked by a client “Can you just make it look like a mac?”. Yves brilliantly replied, “Well, sure, we can do that… but are you Steve Jobs?”
Goddamn, Yves Behar is one smooth cat. I hesitate to sing his praises too enthusiastically– I’ve met about ten people who’ve worked for fuseproject, and when asked about their time with the firm they’ve all winced and hastily changed the subject– but I’ll be damned if I’ve ever heard a better answer to the question “can you just make it look like a mac?”
I don’t think it’s wise for industrial designers to talk about apple products as much as we do. The enormous success of apple is due only in part to the product design. Yes, the iPod is beautiful. But after seeing it on every single image board and inspiration wall and project brief and design magazine for the past ten years I’ve begun to wonder: Is it really that beautiful? Is that white box really worth wetting ourselves over?
Of course not. The product design is nice, but it’s the idea, the brand, and the aura of mac products that make them so appealing. Apple has spent the past quarter century and god knows how much money carefully crafting and placing their brand. In my opinion the success of their products has more to do with innovative services, aggressive marketing and prohibitively expensive manufacturing methods than the product design itself. Go ahead. Take the CAD file of the MacBook Pro. Now try injection-molding it out of ABS. Put that on an image board and see where it gets you. Plastic ≠ machined aluminum.
Thus lies the brilliance of Mr. Behar’s comment: the ipod is only as good as the company that created it; the company bold enough to take the risks it has taken with new services and new platforms; the company wise enough to throw down the cheddar for choice materials and the development of new manufacturing methods; the company ballsy enough to launch marketing campaigns in which they openly defecate all over their competitor without looking like complete douchebags.
In 2004 Read Montague, Director of the Human Neuroimaging Lab at Baylor College of Medicine, performed an experiment that investigated the neuroscience behind brand preferences. Montague had participants undergo a blind taste-test between Pepsi and Coke while their brain activity was monitored via fMRI.
Prior to being told which cola was which, the majority of participants preferred Pepsi. “On the scan images the ventral putamen, one of the brain’s reward centers, had a response that was five times stronger than for people who preferred Coke.”
When the experiment was repeated, however, and participants were told which brand they were tasting, nearly all subjects said they preferred Coke. “Moreover, different parts of the brain fired as well, especially the medial prefrontal cortex, an area associated with thinking and judging. Without a doubt the subjects were letting their experience of the Coke brand influence their preferences.” 1
“The investigators concluded that there are two different brain systems at work. One is based on taste buds and the other is based on cultural conditioning. These systems help determine our preferences for food and drink.” 2
If we want to evaluate the response of one brain system we shouldn’t reference content that will trigger another. We need to be careful to understand what we are evaluating when we put an inspiration image up on the wall, especially if we show the image to an individual with a background other than design.
A client’s preference for apple products likely stems from an enormously wide array of biases, most of which we have absolutely no control over. A designer’s preference for apple products is every bit as biased, and we’d do well to keep this in mind when we find ourselves aspiring to a culturally significant product or brand. We should be neurotically suspicious of these biases when we establish expectations with a client.
Loaded Images, or images that are likely to increase activity in parts of the brain associated with cultural knowledge, memory and self-image, should only be used if the scope of the project encompasses things like cultural knowledge and self-image. (And sorry: I know we designers like to think that all designs encompass these things, but most of the time they don’t. Ain’t nobody defining their self-image with an air-freshener. Get over it.)
If the task at hand is defining company direction– if meetings include marketing and business and innovation leaders– then apple’s success is an important case study to consider. However, if the task at hand involves skinning a low-cost device in two and a half weeks time, which always seems to be the case with anyone who asks that you “just make it look like a mac”, then you should take those pictures of your beloved iPhone and magic mouse and you should burn them. By failing to do so you’re setting expectations you can’t meet and you’re implying results you can’t deliver. You’re talking about apples but you deal in oranges.
Ask yourself why you printed out a picture of the iPad. Which best practice makes this product worthy to join your esteemed platoon of inspiration images? Is that best practice relevant to your efforts? Is it possible to find an image that illustrates the core concept without the cultural baggage?
And really: are you that fucking unoriginal? The iPad? Really? That’s your brilliant inspiration? Come on. You and the rest of the world, buddy.
1 “The Science of Branding” by Edwin Colyer http://www.brandchannel.com/features_effect.asp?pf_id=201
2 “The Real Pepsi Challenge” by James Flanagan http://bullandbear.musonline.com/?p=82
No comments:
Post a Comment