[Brookside]

I've been saving this article...relevant intriguing thinking here



Design Tendencies...

by Olivier Blanchard @ClusterFlog

I'm not sure how familiar lay-people are with the term design language but design language is used to describe the family of physical attributes associated with a particular brand.

We can speak of the BMW design language, for instance, and although the phrase might be confusing,
we can conjure an image of what a BMW looks like; we can remove the badging and see the car and know which company designed and made it.

What I am beginning to suspect however is that contemporary designers are spending more time creating products that reflect the design language of the brand than are perpetuating beauty.

For instance, it seems more important to create a car that looks like a Pontiac than to create a Pontiac that is beautiful.

"Looking at cars that were created in the sixties, for instance, it appears that the emphasis was on design rather than with branding.

For some companies (think Apple) the design language is beauty, to create extraordinarily aesthetically realized objects; in those instances, the design language of the company reaches for and achieves the exemplary. The design language of the brand becomes a byproduct of the beautiful forms rather than the master of them."

There seem to be two very different schools at work here in the world of product design: The first believes that great design will enhance or validate a brand (Apple is a great example), while the second believes that "design" is a branding tool that needs to be consistent.

The difference between the two schools is purely cultural. Some company cultures promote true design, while others prefer to use design as a means to remain consistent through an ever-evolving product offering.

Designers who are lucky enough to work for the first of the two get to design cultural icons like the iMac, the iPod, or something as old school as a Hermes scarf of a Birkin bag. Everyone else gets to design around a template. A set of rules and parameters. This isn't to say that the latter group isn't talented or doing "real" design. Not at all. In fact, you could argue that they have a tougher job since they have limitations to deal with. But though this type of design may not be earth-shattering or culture-shifting, it can be, nonetheless, at the core of a brand's strength. Think BMW. Think Cartier watches. Think Yves St. Laurent. Think Ralph Lauren. The idea here isn't to come up with revolutionary designs or works of art for the sake of coming up with a work of art, but when a brand concerns itself with aesthetics and impeccable style, you can be sure that designers don't mind having to work within the confines of a brand's framework.

The point here is this: There doesn't have to be a division between stale design language, and design for its own sake. Increasingly so, companies are becoming aware that being known for their consistently great designs fare better than those who are known for the consistency of their designs.

For companies like Apple, originality and boldness of design are the design language.

When it comes to Cartier, BMW and other luxury brands known for great design, what you get is a balanced mix of innovation and familiarity.

In the best case scenario, design and branding complement each other. The brand incorporates Design (with a capital "D") in its identity and celebrates both innovation and tradition in a symbiotic package that is both reassuring and cool. This is an enlightened, fresh and energetic approach to branding that has never, ever, ever failed a single A-list brand.