Feel Good Marketing

What comes to mind when you think of today’s marketing? Annoying advertisements? Cheesy commercials? Modern-day media manipulation?

It has this unethical ring to it, doesn’t it? There’s something about it that just doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel good. I’m not talking about making the consumer feel good. I’m talking about the marketer. And when a campaign doesn’t feel good with the marketer, it won’t feel good with the consumer.

Feel Good Marketing is ethical. It’s relevant and flows through life. It’s marketing without the marketing. There’s not way to describe it other than it feels good. This feeling will translate well with consumers who won’t feel like like they’re being talked at, but rather being conversed with.

Start with the product and end with the consumer. Focus on creating a Purple Cow and let the consumers do most of the work. Word of mouth is king.

Design Psychology

I finally got the books from the library.

Started with “The Design of Everyday Things” by Don Norman.

Seemed like a good book to start with. Already a third of the way through and caught myself thinking: “What in the world am I reading? This isn’t about design!” Which is true, it’s not about design. It’s about psychology. (it was previously published as ‘The Psychology of Everyday Things’) But the reality is, design has everything to do with psychology.

As I said before, design is in the details.

Magsafe power charging ~ So your laptop doesn’t go flying across the room when you trip on the wire

Macbook’s open notch/handle ~ Because slide notch to open doesn’t make sense on a laptop

Macbook’s sleep light ~ Only shines when it’s sleeping, try finding it when it’s not

Details like these can only come from hours of using the device. They’re not examples of cutting-edge technology. They’re examples of human psychology. They’re the details that we don’t notice. But quietly appreciate. Because somehow, they should be there. It feels obvious and questioning them seems out of the ordinary.

They follow Dieter Rams’ principles for good design. They don’t detract from the experience by being there. But taking them away would.

Back to the book. I’m already a third of the way through and I found numerous examples of these details expressing their respect for human psychology.

Such as push and pull door handles.

The subtle cues let you know if you should push or pull and in which direction, left or right.

With good design, labels are not necessary. Don Norman even goes to say that if a label or sign is needed, try a different design.

Mental mapping and models are also recurrent topics that relate to psychology. Really glad I took that psychology class in High School.

More mapping. The controls for the car seats look exactly like the seats. Self explanatory. No labels necessary.

We gripe over bad design. But good design is overlooked. Never looking at well designed products the same way again. ~ Imtiaz Majeed

Thoughts On Design & Dieter Rams

I finally understand this quote from Mark Twain: “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” It explains the heart of design. Because design is not the easy process of adding more features. It is the hard process of taking away until nothing else can be taken away. It’s the process of making the complex, simple. Simplicity and design are cousins.

Design is at the heart of every product. But, good design is not about design. It’s about function. It is the function wrapped up in a little package. Only the package is invisible. And the function is obvious. It’s in the details of product design. The ones that don’t intrude. But rather blend in. Details make good design.

I thought Dieter Rams’ 10 principles of good design was a good place to start my learning.

The principles as well as the accompanying text are from Vitsoe.

Good design is innovative

The possibilities for innovation are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for innovative design. But innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology, and can never be an end in itself.

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Good design makes a product useful

A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional, but also psychological and aesthetic. Good design emphasises the usefulness of a product whilst disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.

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Good design is aesthetic

The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products we use every day affect our person and our well-being. But only well-executed objects can be beautiful.

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Good design makes a product understandable

It clarifies the product’s structure. Better still, it can make the product talk. At best, it is self-explanatory.

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Good design is unobtrusive

Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user’s self-expression.

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Good design is honest

It does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept.

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Good design is long-lasting

It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years – even in today’s throwaway society.

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Good design is thorough down to the last detail

Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the user.

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Good design is environmentally-friendly

Design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. It conserves resources and minimises physical and visual pollution throughout the lifecycle of the product.

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Good design is as little design as possible

Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials.

Back to purity, back to simplicity.

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Dieter Rams has created many masterpieces for Braun.

He designed over 500 products in total during his life! (he’s still alive)

 Personally, I like his universal shelving system for Vitsoe the best. The simplicity is astounding.

His opinions are very thought provoking.

Reminds me of when I read Biocentrism. Very controversial book. But made me view the world through a different lens.

He also disliked the use of “stark” colors for kitchen appliances. He said it was too dominating. And that design should not dominate things. Or people for that matter. It should only help people.

As I try to think like him and view the world through his ideology, the world of design today is really a terrible place. Each individual product is constantly fighting for our attention. It’s for this reason that Apple’s computers are all chrome. They are too big to be colorful. They would dominate easily. But iPods are a variety of colors. They are too small to dominate. All of these factors must be taken into account for great design.

Looking at my room, I can understand why he hates the American way of styling. The design of many dominating objects try to emphasize it and make it more noticeable in some way. People are more comfortable with objects that they can dominate. We like products we have complete control over. Not just in a literal sense, but figuratively as well. We prefer simplicity over complexity. It’s just human nature.

Continuing on with learning design…

Checked the local library for Dieter Rams’ book: As Little Design as Possible. Nothing. Checked for any design books. Still nothing. But I did find 15 books on knitting…

Ended up ordering 3 books from another branch: (but still no Dieter Rams, may just end up purchasing this one)

• “The Design of Everyday Things” ~ Don Norman
• “Fab: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop” ~ Neil Gershenfeld
• “The Art of Innovation: lessons in creativity from IDEO” ~ Tom Kelley

They’re still in transit. But I’ll do a comprehensive review of each one like before.

Learned a lot from Dieter Rams so far. Still have a long way to go with learning design. ~ Imtiaz Majeed

Magical and Practical: Enchantment

Continuing on from my previous book review, this week’s review, “Enchantment” by Guy Kawasaki, caught my eye from the tall stack of borrowed library books waiting patiently to be read and appreciated. The book is a combination of “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie and “Never Eat Alone” by Keith Ferrazzi but has Guy’s own twist and flavor to it. He explains how to “enchant” people in layman terms and in a short, easy to understand book. Enchantment, in Guy’s own words, is the process of delighting people with a product, service, organization or idea. His practical guidelines of enchanting are: (and as always I include some notable quotes):

Eye-Opening and Incredible: The Education of Millionaires

     Those are the words I would use to describe this amazing book written so eloquently by Michael Ellsberg. I’m glad I chose to read this first because it encompasses my entire motive for this blog: to take my education into my own hands and learn real-world skills that will undoubtedly be key on my path to success. What sparked my interest in learning even more is when I read the interviews and success stories of the entrepreneurs. The featured individuals weren’t special in any way, they only possessed large amounts of drive and passion which are available to anyone and everyone. They didn’t give up and neither will I.

Reading List: Art, Epiphanies, and Linchpins?

On my journey to become proficient in sales, marketing, and entrepreneurship I will completely immerse myself with the writings of successful active practitioners (and not theorists) in the field to learn from their experiences, both good and bad. This will give me a good foundation of what and what not to do in the business world, and provide me a starting point to my autodidacticism. *Some of these books are not exactly about sales, marketing, and entrepreneurship but are still relevant and useful in life.*