For example: I find the nature of BA’s on-board service (long-haul) is neatly summarised by the warning noise that sounds throughout the ‘plane just before the aircraft turns its engines on to full at the beginning of the runway for take-off. Here are my reasons for this:

1. It’s not designed to benefit passengers (we are already strapped in to our seats). It’s for the crew, to tell them to sit down. Much of BA’s service seems centred around what suits the crew rather than the passenger.

2. It sounds awful. It would be hard to find another two-note sequence that has such tonal dissonance. It manages to sound hostile at just the point that passengers need the opposite. Dissonance and hostility are wider themes in BA service too.

3. It is laughably out of date. The timbre of the sound is unlike anything I’ve heard since my ZX81 computer got thrown away in 1982. BA’s service hasn’t moved with the times either.

I could go on (I really hate this noise) but won’t. The point of this example was not to go deep into BA, but to explain the concept behind the word I am looking for. The noise is just one small thing but, for me, it represents the wider issue of which it is just a part, rather well.

So, what’s the word? I have spent some time searching for this of course, but haven’t quite found an answer that seems right yet. Some contenders have emerged though and I list a few here together with the reasons why I don’t think they are right:

Microcosm. Probably the closest, but implies that the thing is really a miniature version of the whole thing, which is not what I’m saying. I’m looking for something more conceptual than this. Back to the example, saying that the noise is a microcosm of BA’s service doesn’t seem right.

Epitome. In the sense that it means “the perfect example” then it is not wrong, but the thing here is not the perfect example, it is a perfect capture of its characteristics – and that’s not the same, I think.

Synecdoche. I read this piece in The Guardian at the weekend that suggested to me that this was the word I crave. But my OED suggests that this is more a linguistic term – a substitution of a word describing a part of the whole for the word describing the whole – than a way to describe a more abstract concept.

Now, I’m holding my hands high in the air at this point in admission of my ignorance. Perhaps one of these words is indeed the right one, and no doubt there is some word – obvious or not – that describes what I seek. Please, readers, make your suggestions in the comments section below.

But the reason I am searching for this word is not just out of intellectual curiosity (although I admit that’s part of it) but because the concept is an important one in the professional world of brand consultancy and design. In fact, it is the perfect way to describe what we do. We define and create things – words, identities, communications, objects, events, etc. – that are conceptually representative of the broad intent of the wider proposition to which they belong. When audiences experience these things, together or in isolation, their experience is therefore representative of the wider proposition, i.e. to have the experience of the thing is to have the experience of the organisation, company, or brand of which they are part. Because the human brain looks for patterns and consistency, positive experiences will build positive expectations for similarly branded experiences, driving willingness and enthusiasm to engage – ergo, business success. But by the same token, negative experiences will create wider negative expectations, and these may prevail over positives (that’s a human brain thing too) so consistency across all experiences is important too. In the ideal brand, every experience of every thing is, in itself, representative of the whole; experiences are interrelated and multi-dimensional, spider’s web on spider’s web of interconnected threads. There are tangible things, like products or buildings; intangible things, like customer service or social media; meta-things, like brand identity or how an organisation engages its own people in its brand; and, micro-things, like a small detail on a piece of packaging that just makes everybody smile. Each one of these is a representation of the brand and needs to be properly aligned.

There is a really important distinction to draw here between brand consultancy and management consultancy or, to put it better, those consultancies that have a design capability and those which do not. We both start out by setting out the master proposition at the organisation-wide level. That, in itself, is a complex and involved task. But where I am convinced that band consultancies, like The Partners, offer far greater advantage to clients, is that we then translate the proposition into the things that audiences actually experience: the things that take strategy beyond theory, and make it real. We create things that embody the characteristics of the wider proposition of which they are a part, thus making the proposition more compelling, more desirable, and better understood.

Now, if only there was a word for that…

On Thursday night at the Natural History Museum the world was introduced to a little yellow tag that will come to symbolise the struggle of millions to make the world’s roads a safer place.

Back in May we were part of a WPP competition to design a logo for the United Nations Decade of Action for Road Safety, the most ambitious campaign ever to reduce deaths on the world’s roads. The statistics make for horrifying reading, particularly in the developing world, ranking with TB and malaria in its impact, and growing fast every year. The Decade of Action aims to halt this, and with a concerted effort reverse the trend.

This will take the support of millions of people. And we didn’t think a logo would do it. We needed a physical symbol of support. Something you could own, could hold in your hand, could wear to show you were part of the fight. The AIDS ribbon, the poverty wristband and the remembrance poppy have become enduring symbols of their causes, and many imitators have taken advantage of the power of those symbols. We created something new that people could use just how they wanted: a metal tag that can be a badge, a necklace, a key fob, on a coat, a bag, even a pet.

Under the strapline ‘Wear. Believe. Act’ (a very smart idea courtesy of our friends at the FIA Foundation, the people behind the Decade of Action) the Tag was presented to the great and the good in the safety world as preparations begin for the global launch of the Decade in May next year.

Etienne Krug

It’s a little late for the great dinosaur in the main hall who oversaw proceedings, but we hope the rest of us will start wearing our support for the Decade – however we want to do that.

The Partners 2003 (top), Paul Rand 1966 (lower)

It was cool to see a discussion about the Ford Oval in the NY Times last week. We were lucky enough to have the chance to update the Ford Oval in 2003 for the centenary of the company. The mark has become symbolic for Ford, with a lot of pride invested in it – they have a saying in Dearborn that true Ford people ‘bleed Ford blue’! It wasn’t an option to do anything as radical as Paul Rand’s job back in the sixties, especially as Ford were struggling financially at the time. We also found that there were hundreds of versions of the oval all around the world (we lost count at 400), so our task was to create one that could be used everywhere. Needless to say the debates about every slight tweak were prolonged, but we were very careful to preserve the character of the ‘original’. The new Oval revealed on top of ford HQ in June 2003 was the first new standard since 1967. That made us proud too.

Read more…

Scour across the interweb and you’ll read lots of comments on blogs about the new design for massive super-global brand Pepsi: people love it, people hate it, but what ever you think, they’ve probably spent long and hard coming up with a design solution and spent many squillions of dollars to make it memorable and distinctive.

So memorable in fact that a pdf has managed to leak out onto the web that details the enormous science and almost insane detail that has gone into developing such a mark. It’s right up there with anything that Leonardo Da Vinci had ever come up with. Check it out here. 

Real of Fake?

Davidoff Black & White
I’d like to start with this job as it recently hit the news by becoming a nominee at the 2008 Mobius awards, just missing out on best of show in brochures and books. Davidoff Black & White is a lavish and indulgent brand book designed to help inspire agencies and internal teams from around the World to understand the true relevance and opulance of this new luxury brand offering from Davidoff.  The run-of-the-mill approach to brand books; ring bound folders or electronic pdf files, didn’t fit the bill — instead, we designed a beautiful case-bound book that looked more in place on a coffee table than in a office or studio. Rather than have page after page of what Black & White is and isn’t, we thought we’d let the book as an object, communicate it’s values through gorgeous photography.

Further to the news at the Mobius awards, the book has also won silver at  New York Festivals and both the design and print catagories at the McNaugton Review. Here’s a little peak inside…