Scott Weaver’s Rolling through the Bay from The Tinkering Studio on Vimeo.
Scott Weaver has spent 35 years creating this conceptual model of his very own San Francisco. It’s sweet and a bit twee, but demonstrates how models and gaming methods can be very useful for mapping complex relationships of flow, time, space, user needs, change… “Every doorway has something different,” he says. Or was that Lao Tse as well?
Interesting article in the Guardian about choice and marketing. And a great quote from Professor Tim Jackson, the author of Prosperity Without Growth: “We buy things we don’t need with money we haven’t got to make impressions that don’t last on people we don’t care about.” In his book, he describes how the never-ending spiral of over-consumption has led us into never-ending spiral of debt and cultural decay in Western society. And moreover, how “We do not have investment structures, investment markets, investment conditions that are suitable to lay down the infrastructure to allow people to make better choices.”
But marketeers take note: its not all do-goodiness in his message. It’s proven that consumers who are faced with too much choice, make no choice at all. In fact, the biggest luxury of our age is to be totally relieved from the stress of choice making. To check into a Japanese Ryokan, on the top of Mount Koya, to be served a set breakfast and told when to take a bath, and what to wear; what could be a better remedy to the stresses of modern day life?
Read more
Sandu Publishing House have released a book that features our very own Johan Hjerpe, concept developer, art director and partner at Imaginary Life. In parallel with commercial brand strategy and design work, Johan is highly active within the cultural field, driving projects as diverse as designing prints and textiles for fashion, set design, magazine art direction, graphic design and concept development for various art and fashion projects.
Entitled ‘Designers Universe – the Wow Factor’, the book is a fascinating, if not somewhat random collection of design that you will have seen in the latest blogs, crossing graphic design, illustration, fashion, set design and motion graphics. Described by Sandu as a book spotlighting “59 professional designers who shine within the field,” each designer, coming from different corners of the world, has a couple of spreads showcasing recent work with short Q&A’s on what makes them tick.
Read more
The articles surrounding the Shenzhen Industrial Design Conference go something like this:
“Sweden: Design for Better Business
Sweden is the first country to become industrialized in Scandinavia and also the earliest country to develop the industrial design movement. IKEA and VOLVO have been icons in people’s minds, standing for Swedish design.
The Swedish designers coming this time are well prepared, not only for the signing ceremony, but also for holding presentations sharing their experience in furniture design, interior design, industry design and other types of design.”
Read more
“If you are committed to serve, there is always endless opportunity.”
如果你致力于服务，那么机会就会源源不断。
Here are some notes we used in China on turning risk into value.
将风险转化为价值
The reality: Resources- both material and human – come at an increasing cost. Which makes business more and more risky – financially, environmentally, and socially. At the same time, customers are going “back to basics”. They are claiming the service, that has been stripped away by mass production. Once again they are demanding value in exchange for buying a product. Consequently, two different economies are emerging. The thriving and the struggling.
Read more
A shared brand vision for better business.
为了创造更好业绩的共同品牌视野
Successful global companies know who they are first and foremost. They have a 2020 vision, and a roadmap of how to get there. A clearly defined 2020 brand vision will help your business rise above product category, economic downturn and consumer trends. Successful companies can survive change because they are designing change. This means asking the right questions at the right time: How do you want to serve people and society? What are the needs of the people who make up your business?
成功的全球化企业首先要有自知之明。他们有着2020年的视野，对于如何达到目标了然于胸。 一个定义清晰的2020品牌视野将会帮助提升你的生意，超越产品类别，走出低迷的经济和萧条的消费趋势。成功的企业之所以能在变化莫测的世界中存活下来是因为就是他们在设计着这些变化。这意味着要在正确的时间问正确的问题：你想如何服务于人们和社会？你的顾客有什么需求？
At Imaginary Life, we see brands as partnership platforms. Branding engages people in a shared vision; people at the company, partners in the value chain, end consumers, and even competitors. Imaginary Life designs global communications platforms for people to engage in and share your company’s brand vision.
在Imaginary Life, 我们将品牌视为合作平台。设计品牌将所有的人融合到了一个共同视野之中；企业员工，在价值链上的合作伙伴，终端的消费者，甚至是竞争对手。Imaginary Life设计全球交流平台，让人们参与其中，共享你们公司的品牌视野。
Read more
Put your left foot in, your left foot out, in, out, in, out shake it all about. That’s what German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, seem to be doing, whilst the rest of Europe looks on in astonishment and dismay, too stunned to fathom the implications of a bill, that in less than 24 hours, could limit our democratic rights to vote and decide on how public spending is handled. After all, the shift has happened already, right? From State- to Enterprise-driven public space, from public domain, to pay-to-stay, so what’s the big deal?
Read more
The companies who are keeping quiet about sustainability fall into two categories: the ones who know what they are doing, and the ones who don’t. Denial ain’t a river in Egypt, as they say in Cairo. Our oceans are dying, our air changing, and our forests and grasslands turning to deserts. From fish and plants to wildlife to human beings, we are killing the planet that sustains us, and fast.
But telling this to business people is like showing a smoker a slice of a cancer infected lung. It just doesn’t work. No matter how eco-conscious the person is- the catastrophe scenario is just too much to take on, emotionally, and viably. And quite frankly- isn’t it up to our governments and politicians to sort out this mess? The UN treaty on climate change — our best hope for action — expires next year. As it looks like, the US corporate-nation-democracy will not take the lead – leaving every other nation on the fence? We suspect not. But let’s stick to business for now.
Forward looking companies realize that drastic change in legislation is inevitable, and are already quietly working towards a 2015 change in legislation that will exceed any CSR law being mentioned today. Far beyond the blanket calls for lower carbon emissions and the carbon payoffs, a cradle to grave product life-cycle responsibility is almost certain to put many successful companies today exactly there: in the cradle if not the grave.
Read more
Sitting in meetings, couldn’t help wondering –what we are here for? To shift more stuff, with the communications plasters of premium design and graphical brand concepts? Or can we consultants learn to apply design & management processes so that companies can leapfrog to newer business models that are more innovative by nature? Looking out the hotel window over a view of Shanghai Gotham City, it’s easy to forget at what cost this incredible view comes. And what will our skylines be like in 2050, 3050?
Read more
You’ve heard it before but I just want to remind you: The global communications grid is having more impact on how we live than the railway and electrical grids ever did. What we fail to remember, in all the clutter of the Internet, is that it is no older than a newborn baby. It’s like Detroit out there, I heard someone say, and even Google can’t sort through that kind of mess. The baby has dirty diapers on but that is also set to change with the emergence of an evolved mobile network- where every everyday life transaction is Internet-enhanced. Where no amount of censorship can stop the emergence of a technology-enhanced IRL (real life). It’s the “Internet of Things” that Chinese companies are working on, today, while the floundering US/UK lead West try to impose new invisible borders of control, more fitting to the Great Chinese Firewall than that of democratic nations.
Technological possibilities are growing far faster and smarter than our businesses or systems of control. But if we navigate this complexity with a “Scandinavian” reframing of our global context to serve humanity, there are literally endless possibilities to do good business – for good (sic). Call it “Folkhemmet” 4G, or Corporate social integration. Call it what you will but “branding” doesn’t make the cut.