Future of Web Design 2007: Branding and identity
Thursday, April 19, 2007Comment, or trackback from your own site.
Branding and identity
Rei Inamoto, AKQA
Impressive portfolio…
AKQA - huge company - SF/LDN/NY/DC/Shanghai 200 people in London, 500 people globally
Don’t think of themselves as designers etc
They create ideas that solve client’s problems - slightly bigger perspective.
26% of people remember what they hear
43% of people remember what they see
67% of people remember what they experience - something which combines different senses
[jingle writers have it tough, huh]
Experience = Remember
5 ways to make your brand more memorable
1) Have a point of view.
Being everything to everyone leaves you with nothing.
Example:
halo2.com - all in alien language of the covenant, cryptic navigation, no english text
how long would it take for users to crack the website to read it?
AKQA guessed 2 weeks.
Within 24 hours users collaborated parts of the character set and posted an entire translation into English
Translation and localisation is a pain in the bum - make up one language and consumers will do the translations for you.
Halo2 grossed more money in the weekend of launch than Spiderman 2 movie in the same weekend
2) Be who you are
Be pure and honest
Example: perfectdarkzero.com
Main character Joanna Dark has to kill everyone at Datadyne
Give details, explore Joanna Dark’s room. [Very dark and a bit dull…]
You nominate a friend to be killed. And they get emailed to say they’ve been killed. Nice…
Client afraid of promoting dark stuff - even though the game is about killing people
3) Let them engage with you
Give them something meaningful to do
Example: http://www.runlondon.com (nike 10k)
Googlemap mashup where you can store your local run routes.
Also responsible for the retail design instore
Text message alerts
Video clip of person crossing the finish line
4) Be relevant
Prove yourself worthy in whatever medium you work with.
Example: http://www.yell.com
Initially just a set of animated gifs for yell.com. 5 years on they now have the online and offline advertising accounts
Nice TV ad, and some examples of interactive bus shelters to find stuff local to that bus shelter.
Digital sign on side of bus - bus has GPS chip to tailor messages relevant to the bus location
Try and find relevant ways to catch up with people
5) Simplify, simplify, simplify
When you think it’s simple enough, simplify it some more
Example: nike air
How do you make a buzz about a shoe without a shoe?
Show it from the inside - made a model of the air bubble - nice detail image
