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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