• Visual Pollution.

    Posted on April 30th, 2012 by and currently 0 commenting.


    Photographer and typographer Tony de Marco has been out documenting the move toward Sao Paolo’s clean city in a sequence of images published on Flickr. The city, he says, is starting to feel more “serene”.

    Years ago I seriously considered dropping out of the marketing world.

    I hated being a part of the visual noise and clutter that we marketers often create. I felt at the time that the world was simply drowning in brochures.

    “Pretty Trash” as Cordell refers to it.

    With the shift of our business toward Word of Mouth Marketing and a people centric focus, I have come to love marketing again. I now truly believe that marketing has the power to connect and touch lives.

    Greenville is a beautiful town.

    The other day I noticed some new lights going up on one our main streets. They’re lovely lamps. But the clutter of signs and telephone poles was nothing short of alarming. The new additions made me painfully aware of the sheer volume of visual clutter on my drive home.

    Kinda like when you get a new couch and realize the other furniture in your house is pretty shabby.

    Well, here’s a story of a city that went cold turkey on signage (all of it) and outdoor advertising about five year ago.

    (Thanks for sharing this with me Vicky.)

    Vicky and I love how the mayor of Sao Paolo considered visual clutter as pollution.

    Gilberto Kassab, passed the so-called Clean City laws. Fed up with the “visual pollution” caused by the city’s 8,000 billboard sites, many of them erected illegally, Kassab proposed a law banning all outdoor advertising. The skyscraper-sized hoardings that lined the city’s streets would be wiped away at a stroke. And it was not just billboards that attracted his wrath: all forms of outdoor advertising were to be prohibited, including ads on taxis, on buses—even shopfronts were to be restricted, their signs limited to 1.5 metres for every 10 metres of frontage. “It is hard in a city of 11 million people to find enough equipment and personnel to determine what is and isn’t legal,” reasoned Kassab, “so we have decided to go all the way.”

    He saw the end of this ugliness as a birthday gift to himself.

    I love that.

    If you want to read more and see how things are going five years later here are the links:

    When the law passed:

    3 Years Later:

    5 Years Later:

    What do you think about visual pollution? Should it be outlawed? Or do you think it’s pretty?

    This place would certainly never be the same. Photo via http://kids.britannica.com

  • What Makes You Buy a Business Book?

    Posted on March 6th, 2012 by and currently 11 commenting.

    The other day I was in the bookstore and as I often do, I checked to see if the Brains on Fire book was happy and snug and forward facing.

    Yes, I do a little housekeeping when needed.

    This particular day something struck me:

    Business book covers are a homely looking lot.

    Full of stretched typefaces and bad color choices. So it got me wondering. Does the cover of a business actually book affect sales? Curious, I googled that phrase and up popped this old post and interesting debate from 37 signals.

    As I read through the long string of responses, I saw the last comment was from Seth:

    I want to say that not ALL business book covers are terrible.

    Ahem.

    Now, here’s the question: does a great design aesthetic lead to more sales?

    The problem is that we can’t answer this because all other things are never ever equal in this field. It’s untestable in the real world, because almost all sales are by word of mouth, so we can do a split test across stores.

    What I do know is this: The business book is more than just a book, it’s a message about who you are and how you sound. And looking good on the cover pays dividends in the other places an author works.

    I think the same thing is true for websites. A ‘pretty’ site might not convert better, but it has other benefits.

    I’m surrounded by amazing design work.

    Trust me, we don’t touch much without thinking about the design of it. It’s in our DNA. Here’s the thing about remarkable design. It’s an intangible, like a clean airplane that quietly says “all is in order here”. Good design says you can trust this. Design is something that puts order to our world.

    We feel good design.

    So does design matter when it comes to book sales? If the book is well designed do you feel like it will and does have better content. Or is it irrelevant? Is Made to Stick an even better book because it has a great cover? OR would it have been a great book with a crappy cover? Would Seth’s shiny brilliance have been as apparent if his books weren’t so visual?

    What do you think?

    Do looks matter when you buy a business book? Or is it all word of mouth and great content?

    Come on. Let’s talk this morning!

  • Creation and Chaotic Residue (Part 1)

    Posted on February 23rd, 2012 by and currently 3 commenting.

    My fiancee is a florist, and the lion’s share of her work comes from brides planning thier weddings. I’ll never forget the first time I helped her prepare an order for an event. I met her at her apartment after work on a Friday, and the entire kitchen and dining room appeared to be a scene of chaos. Buckets of flower bundles of all kinds surrounded what looked like different work stations. Greenery was everywhere, almost literally. Stems, leaves, branches, and more. A toolkit lay wide open on a table with its various contents scattered around the room. In the midst of the mess, however, vases around the room held perfectly arranged, breathtaking arrangements.

    Being borderline OCD in certain areas of my life, my gut reaction to this seemingly chaotic experience (and similar ones before) was to ask, “Why the heck can’t people, including me, just keep things tidy when we’re making things?”

    After my second or third round of being assistant to the florist, observing a well-crafted system of arranging flowers, and thinking through this question all the while, a characteristic of the creative process suddenly became as clear as day:

    Creating order and beauty out of raw material creates chaos as a by-product.

    It seems that no matter what you’re doing, if you give dedicated focus to making something, you always leave some sort of residue behind in the process.

    Now, I’m no creative expert, and I realize these thoughts are probably self-evident to anyone who works in a creative capacity, but I wish someone had set that expectation with me when I was much younger.

    For most of us, the reality is that we have a number of choices to make in what we need to do, and that is rarely ever the same as what is being required of us in a given moment. So, everyday, we choose which things to neglect, and the order in which to neglect them, in our quest to accomplish what we need to accomplish. On good days, we neglect well, accomplish well, and have made steps forward.

    Making specific things (or solving specific problems) amplifies this process. For example, when I’m extremely focused on thinking through all possible contingencies in planning the execution of a strategy, I neglect most other things on my plate. Sometimes for days in a row. Papers litter my desk, emails pile up into a daunting mountain, voicemails stack up behind an ominous blinking light.

    Perhaps a good way to explain this is to say that I’ve always found (and maybe you have too) that in most projects there is a strong tension between progress and organization. But we’ll tackle that in the next post.

  • Design, triggering emotions and movements.

    Posted on April 11th, 2011 by and currently 4 commenting.


    Left, classic poster from Jenny Morla, 2010 AIGA Gold Medalist winner. Right, soap as art and complete category change, Method. AIGA Corporate Leadership winner.


    Above, John Maeda, 2010 AIGA Gold Medalist winner. Isn’t that just beautiful? Looks kinda of like some of the visualizations of community I’ve seen floating around lately.

    Last week I got a kind offer and a last minute chance to attend the AIGA Bright Lights Awards in NY. Hanging with some amazing design talent (see above).

    As I walked back to hail a cab after the event, two things hit me:

    1. The design world at that level is just so ROMANTIC. Full or stories and heroes. Think Herman Miller and Tiffany.
    2. Design is a talk-able trait. Always has been. Think Method and Apple. It moves us. Stirs us to talk and to share. Even if we don’t quite understand why.

    Okay, a little side story:

    I have a degree in art. And even now I consider myself an artist.

    I can still remember the very first time that I got my hands on a CA magazine. I think it was a design annual. It was as if a whole other side of my head and my heart flew wide open. Having grown up in a world filled with really bad design, to hold so much amazingly brilliant design in my hands at one time was a gift that is hard for me to describe.

    As a struggling art student, I found a way to pay the 40 dollars (a small fortune back then) for a real subscription.

    My next design hero wasn’t in a magazine — he was a real person. And the lead creative director at a small southern ad agency. It was the first real job I had in the advertising world. I remember following this guy around and I am not lying, if he dropped something in a trash can, I quietly picked it up. And took it home and traced it. Trying to get a “feeling” for how and why he but things together on a piece of paper.

    Makes me laugh now to think of it.

    Okay. Here’s the point of sharing that silly story.

    In our work and in our world of igniting community and sparking word of mouth movements, design is still a very big part of the work we do at Brains on Fire. Here is what we know to be true:

    That “feeling” you get when you see something that moves you — can in fact inspire you to take action.

    Now, more than ever, design is helping us to unite and connect people emotionally. Human being to human being. We are helping kindred spirits express their shared feelings, beliefs and passions. And in some cases, the community literally becomes the total inspiration for design as we simply help execute their ideas, their passion.

    I love this “designism” from designer Jenny Morala:

    “Design is not solely a marketing device that supports consumerism. It can be a communicator of dissent. It can market ideology. It can effect change.”

    Design connects. Design stirs our emotions. Design can bring people together for a common cause or purpose.

    In a social world where everyone is talking and taking up space with content, are we losing sight of the critical role design is playing to connect and spark action?

    Just thinking out loud on a beautiful Tuesday morning in Greenvegas.

    What is the best example of design supporting or igniting a movement you have ever seen? Past or present…Let’s get a discussion going. You know I love it when you share.

    ***Design examples inspired from burning settlers cabin

  • A Reflective Perspective: From TimTV

    Posted on October 28th, 2010 by and currently 4 commenting.


    Today’s post is a gift from TimTV. I love it because it clearly relates to building movements. Movements build and grow stronger with every new voice. Enjoy.

    Today I received news that the father of a childhood friend of mine passed away. As we reminisced, two particular moments came to mind; both of which containing modicums of wisdom which helped form my view of the world, and so I thought I should share.

    Among the many things that Mr. Dolber had been in his life, I thought of him most as an artist. One of those rivers that ran deeper than I would get to know, but quite obviously so. We didn’t have many interactions; only a handful, but what they lacked in number, they made up for in wisdom.

    I remember sitting in the sunny kitchen of their big old New England house, looking at the large aloe plant sitting in the breakfast nook bay window and listening to Mr. Dolber speak. He was talking about New York and being a taxi driver and being shot. Eventually we came to talking about art, and he had one piece of advice for me.

    It was simple. “Draw Something Every Day.”

    And I did. He was right. The lesson of Increments is vital, and has come up again and again for me; whether for art, martial arts, music, business or relationships. Anything, really. “Strength builds in increments; flexibility builds in increments.” a Yoga teacher once said. It’s important not to forget when you’re trying to budget your time, money and effort. Every little bit really does count.

    The other moment we spoke of was at a Japanese dinner. We had just seen the film “Tampopo” at a small art theater. I was 17 and discovering my weirdness in full regalia. I was proud of who I’d become so far and all the attention it was causing. From the end of the table he told me, “You have style, but you lack substance.”

    The words were painful to hear. A critique of my delicate new frontier. But he was right, and as much as it hurt to admit, I knew it. But that terse assessment (among other things) drove me to seek experience; to explore the outer and inner worlds in an effort to thicken my blood and gird my stance.

    My years have been full of adventure. Last year I got to see Mr. Dolber again, and I reminded him of these moments. He laughed and nodded his head. He had never realized that his little statements were taken to heart and that they had helped shape my life. But I’m grateful I was able to share with him before he passed. And now with you.

    My request: DO something. Something that builds. Every day.

    My question: Does your Style reflect your Substance?

    your humble narrator,
    Tim of the kinetic potential

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