Dear David,

Thanks for an interesting post. You wrote,

--snip--

Like rain making ceremonies, these displays are seldom  followed by 
'rain/profits', but that doesn't matter. Indeed it only takes a few 
spectacular 'downpours/successful brands' immediately following the 
ritual to convince everyone that the ritual works -- hardly 
scientific!. But, when it doesn't work, you can at least claim that 
you did your best. In other words 'success' is in the performance of 
the ritual, not in its outcome.

--snip--

I agree.

You posted a challenge:

--snip--

However, if you (Gunner and Ken) want to claim:

>  [That] an enormous amount of design (including a large amount of 
>  graphic design) ... just plain doesn't work.

And by 'work' you mean it in the sense of appropriate outcome, then 
you need evidence from research to back such a claim. Without that 
evidence, you are indulging in another type ritual which involves 
demonstrating that those outside our tribe are necessarily inferior 
to those inside our tribe.

--snip--

Of course, you are right.

The challenge for me would be to collect examples -- but no matter 
how many examples I collect, there will always be counterexamples and 
without a massive database, it will always be possible to claim that 
there are still fewer examples than counterexamples.

I'm arguing my case from a broader perspective, stating issues and 
principles in the tradition that I like to believe Herbert Blumer 
took in developing many of his ideas for symbolic interactionist 
research. Starting from the comprehensively deep psychological and 
philosophical perspectives established by George Herbert Mead, Blumer 
brought forward pointed issues -- sometimes instantiated by specific 
evidence and cases, other times simply by making an argument.

While I agree with you here, and accept that I'd need evidence to 
make the claim that much design doesn't work, I think that history 
and research projects such as your own show this to be true. Now in 
saying "much design doesn't work," I'm not saying that it does not 
work at all, but rather that it often does not work as it is intended 
to do. It is for this reason that so many design projects have a 
short shelf-life. One can make the counterclaim that one cannot say 
this since one major reason for short shelf-life involves such 
changes as changes to taste in the market, acquisitions that require 
new corporate identity programs, etc. It's my view that these changes 
often obscure the fact that the designed artifact they replace did 
not work.

Even so, single cases are tough. This was the major argument many had 
with Erving Goffman's microsociology.

Nevertheless, I'll give three interesting cases that illustrate my thinking.

When I came to Norway in the 1980s, I noticed two interesting 
problems that seemed to be quite common, one in the way that many 
designers created corporate identity programs and trademarks -- 
especially export goods. The other involved a problem in typography. 
The national association of graphic designers invited me to give a 
lecture on what was good and bad in Norwegian design. The designers 
found my two examples offensive -- grumbling for years afterward that 
"real professional" designers did not do such things.

In fact, my examples were culled from two rather large samples. In 
the case of the corporate design problem, there was no way to tell 
without far too much effort whether these had been done by the kinds 
of designers that members of the association deemed real professional 
designers, that is, members of the association. What I did find, 
however, was that the portfolios of many association members included 
cases that did, indeed, instantiate the problem.

The problem was amusing but simple. It is now far enough back in time 
to have become an historical case that amuses even Norwegians -- 
those who are old enough to remember when many Norwegian firms used 
the colors of the national flag: red, white, and blue. When there was 
an argument for this choice, the argument was that this would help to 
reinforce the national identity to a world that would recognize red, 
white, and blue as the colors of the Norwegian flag.

My argument was that on a world-wide basis, it is only in Norway that 
a majority of people see red, white, and blue as the national colors 
of Norway. For other nations, red, white, and blue are either the 
colors of their own large nations -- France, the United Kingdom, or 
the Unied States come to mind -- or else the colors of such major 
nations as, well, France, the United Kingdom, or the Unied States. If 
you ask most Germans what nation is associated with these colors, 
many would say France. Canadians would probably say the Unied States 
or the United Kingdom. I'm not sure whether Australians have national 
colors, but the flag is red, white, and blue. So is the flag of 
another island nation, Iceland. Norway itself chose the colors in 
tribute to the red, white, and blue nations when the Norway 
established its flag in the 1800s

I had a file of hundreds of examples of products and firms that used 
red, white, and blue color programs. Many of these were large public 
firms -- including the state monopoly telephone company, a major 
bank, and dozens of shipping and fishery firms operating within the 
nation, along with far too many exporters. And then there were all 
the travel firms and tourist industry firms who thought of red, 
white, and blue as clear, attractive colors that communicated 
Norwegian colors and values to the world.

This is long ago now, and much has changed. I was part of a group 
that worked on the question of national identity in world markets -- 
an area that would today be called design policy, along with aspects 
of what would now be called national branding. Despite the grumpiness 
of the designers, we repeated my work on a broader basis, then 
decided to take another track. Two of Norway's leading designers set 
out to develop a richer and more variable color program.

The idea came from Reidar Holtskog, who is now professor of graphic 
design at the Oslo College of Art and Design. Reidar's thought was to 
travel through Norway, collecting examples of widely visible colors 
-- both cultural colors and natural colors. Together with Leif 
Anisdahl, the co-founder of one of Norway's then-largest design 
firms, Reidar developed an extraordinary color program for the 
Norgesprofil project.

For many reasons, some involving politics, some involving shifting 
resources in the foreign ministry and the other sponsor 
organizations, the project did not last. It did, however, fulfill one 
important goal. Drawing attention to better and more creative ways to 
develop color schemes in identity programs. That's a value judgement, 
of course, but I can point out two important results.

One was that Reidar took the results of his field work into the 
identity program for the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer. The 
design program was a stunning success, blending national history and 
prehistory with the contemporary idiom of sports ... delightful 
colors were an aspect of the whole.

The real success, of course, is the fact that fewer and fewer graphic 
design firms use red, white, and blue to show that a product is in 
some way Norwegian. The new tradition involves using color in a 
different way to express ideas or to express product identity.

Now, I'd admit you cannot say that this is "scientific." The final 
choices are artistic, and many fail. The research basis is scientific 
in the sense that Blumer would have held it so: the clear decision to 
shift away from red, white, and blue as Norwegian colors that would 
communicate national identity is based on a serious argument. I do 
not think that the argument would have differed substantially with a 
file of 10,000 examples rather than three or four hundred

On typography, the problem was far easier to show. It involved poor 
leading. This was a time when typesetting was no longer based on 
mechanical type, but on photomechanical typesetting systems. The 
problem is that students who studied graphic design in those days no 
longer studied or learned the art of leading. In the absence of 
physical lead slugs, the importance of leading had somehow been 
overlooked and many designers simply used the default setting of 
whatever photomechanical system it was that they used after 
graduating and going to work. This was also evident in much of the 
early computer-based typesetting I saw then.

Since nearly all the designers who then did typesetting had graduated 
from design schools or trade schools, mostly in Norway, and since 
many belonged to the professional association, it was easy to provide 
hundreds, even thousands of cases of poor leading by professional 
designers -- many of whom were association members.

That is long ago, and it's a different era. My research interests no 
longer involve collecting massive groups of examples, so I will have 
to admit that I am unlikely to gather evidence today that will back 
my claim. I observe, nevertheless, that designers and organizations 
that employ designers with a foundation in research and research 
training often do better work than those that operate purely on 
intuition.

Part of this is due to direct project research. But for many 
projects, there is never enough time or money to do deep research. 
Rather, one does a reasonable bit of clinical research, possibly 
backed by some applied research. Where research training comes into 
play is this: designers with a strong research background have a 
repertoire of skills and experiences on which to draw in making 
partially intuitive and experience-based decisions.

Now one more example.

In the run-up to the regulations that created a common European 
market for products and services, Norwegian monopoly providers began 
to worry about foreign products competing in home markets that  would 
no longer be protected. Norway does not belong to the EU, but to the 
somewhat larger economic groups that trades with the EU on favored 
treaty terms. The former dairy monopoly decided to become a provider 
of branded dairy goods.

The dairy monopoly employed Carl T. Christensen to create a new 
brand. Christensen based a logo and trademark -- along with the brand 
name -- on the idea of the traditional dairy bucket of old Norwegian 
farms, the tine -- pronounced tee-nuh. He then designed a stylized 
tine as the logo. In red, white, and blue, no less.

The launch was good, and within three months the brand had something 
like 95% consumer recognition. This was hailed as a triumph of good 
design and successful brand-building.

Once again I got into trouble by suggesting that this was not quite 
so. It was, indeed, a success, but I'd argue that this was not the 
triumph of good design but of market channel control.

On launch, the Tine product line was still controlled by the dairy 
monopoly and the dairy monopoly had unique monopoly control of nearly 
all dairy products then sold in Norway.

As you said, " it only takes a few spectacular 'downpours/successful 
brands' immediately following the ritual to convince everyone that 
the ritual works." This is such a case.

I am prepared to argue that I can achieve massive brand recognition 
with any brand design program given the simple factor of monopoly 
control.

Norway is both a major dairy producer and a massive dairy consumer. 
Norway -- with Sweden and Finland -- has the highest per capita milk 
consumption in the world. We eat cheese and use milk at breakfast 
most days, and dairy products occupy an immense amount of shelf space 
in our stores.

When Tine launched, it had monopoly control of that shelf space for a 
product that nearly every man, woman, and child in the nation 
consumes three or four times a day, buying fresh supplies several 
times a week.

With a monopoly position on a national preference food product, I 
could probably achieve massive brand recognition with Tree Frog, 
Golden Calf, or Fire Devil brands and product programs. Admittedly, a 
dairy-related brand is an easier sell, and it is easier to anchor 
this in the public imagination, but you haven't seen my Fire Devil 
(tm)!

Interestingly, the Tine brand was honored with the design classic 
award this year. Part of this is the fact that it has survived and 
thrived in the marketplace, returning a good yield on the investment. 
I won't make any value judgements on the brand or the identity 
program -- you can see it for yourself at the web site of the 
Norwegian Design Council:

http://www.norskdesign.no/nyheter/nyheter/dbaFile15102.html

I will argue, however, that despite the success of the Tine brand, it 
is NOT the brand program or the design that creates the yield, but 
continued control of market channels. While Tine is no longer a 
monopoly supplier, they still play rough and the firm has had a 
number of scandals in which questions have been raised about monopoly 
practices and anti-competitive practices to retain control of shelf 
space by finding ways to exclude smaller regional dairy producers, 
cheese producers, etc., from the shelves. This irks me enough to 
always buy the local milk here on my island in the fjord, Q milk. But 
I still buy Tine cheese products -- I don't have a choice. If you 
can't choose among products from competing suppliers, you buy the 
product you can.

For me, this accounts for a great deal of Tine's brand success.

According to the Norwegian Design Council: "The Classic Award for 
Design Excellence is awarded to products that have been in the market 
for at least ten years and are still commercially successful. The aim 
is to encourage companies to invest in design long-term. Experience 
shows that good design products are competitive, have longevity and 
give stable profit as well as offers the customer functional and 
aesthetically pleasing products."

Tine has been in the market for more than ten years and many people 
like it. Some aspect of aesthetic pleasure, of course, has to do with 
familiarity -- Ivory Soap and Osram light bulbs, IKEA and Coca Cola 
can make the same claim. Brand equity has a great deal to do with 
familiarity, whatever the design merits of one brand against another.

My argument here is that the awards jury is confusing two unrelated 
issues, at least in this case. The designer is a serious professional 
-- he seems to have retired, but his company is still active, now as 
part of the Brand House group

http://www.brandhouse.no/

(To learn more about BrandHouse in Scandinavia, see

http://www.brandhouse.com/Web/EN

This is the same group, but the firms within the group are quite 
different in style. This makes it difficult to compare them, and Tine 
was created before the company went into the BrandHouse group. 
Nevertheless, the comparisons may be interesting.)

At any rate, I'd argue that the original claims made for the brand 
were simply wrong. Monopoly control followed by quasi-monopoly status 
leads to apparently positive branding no matter the design. Then, 
familiarity and market lock-in increase the results -- again, without 
seriously considering the actual quality of the design. The brand was 
successful -- but I would say that monopoly, quasi-monopoly, and 
massive channel control accounts for the success of the Tine brand 
without regard to the designed aspect of the brand. I'll grant you 
that Tine is probably better than Fire Devil (tm) ... but I'd be 
curious to see what a great designer could do with Fire Devil dairy 
products as against Tine.

The truth is that it would be difficult to run head-to-head tests 
against the Tine brand to determine the contribution of design to 
brand success. I can conceive of valid tests, but I can't afford to 
run them. I don't know who would fund them or what I'd learn to 
justify the effort. This is a case where I'd argue a reasonable 
argument based on historical evidence surpasses Pareto's law by 
giving more than 80% of the answer with less than 20% of the effort.

I've gotten to do real head-to-head tests -- or something like them 
-- on a few occasions, but most of the time what I actually get to 
test is new results against old. That's long ago now, and far, far 
away, and my interests have shifted. It's twenty years since the last 
time I did a real comparative test of one product against the same 
product in a different design configuration.

Well, I didn't intend to go on. Basically, I agree with you. I wanted 
to offer these examples as a reflection on your thoughts. You're 
right to say that one cannot support a claim without evidence, but I 
do suggest we can make good arguments

Based on experience -- including the experience of actual research on 
specific products and designed artifacts, albeit long ago, as well as 
less scientific experience in actual projects and markets -- I'd say 
that some of the ideas I put forward here are sound even though I 
cannot back my claims with the kinds of valid research that Karel has 
been using.

In part, of course, PhD-Design is a site of conversation as well as a 
forum for research issues, and this current thread involves both.

Warm wishes from the brand manager of Fire Devil (tm),

Ken

-- 

Ken Friedman
Professor
Institute for Communication, Culture, and Language
Norwegian School of Management
Oslo

Center for Design Research
Denmark's Design School
Copenhagen

+47 46.41.06.76    Tlf NSM
+47 33.40.10.95    Tlf Privat

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