Wednesday, October 12, 2011

The Best 17:16 of Your Day: How Beauty Feels

Designer Richard Seymour paints an incredible picture of beauty and why it matters. Not a whiny appeal that we need to appreciate beauty that you hear from designers from time to time. No, he outlines for us how we subconsciously know beauty, appreciate beauty, respond emotionally to beauty and most importantly, know what is not beautiful.

From a branding and marketing perspective, this reinforces to me that as professionals we need to do a better job of selling quality design to clients. We need to work to convey to them that an immersive brand experience is valuable. That they need to invest in their brand, their packaging, their total experience. Not just because it will look beautiful, but because the consumer will respond to that beauty. They will act on it. Ultimately, if it is on message, they will buy it and regard the product more highly.

Richard Seymour's design company, SeymourPowell is a leader in product and packaging design. You should check them out, view their work and see how it makes you feel.

This is a TED talk that all designers should watch. More importantly, this is a talk that all agency owners, strategists and branding experts should watch. Enjoy...  

Richard Seymour: How beauty feels

2 comments:

  1. "We need to work to convey to them that an immersive brand experience is valuable"

    This will only apply to some companies, won't it? Example - Apple wants their customers to have the above, but Larry's Discount Smartphones will not consider it essential.

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  2. Thank you for the comment David. I don't believe that it is limited. All brands could benefit from a more comprehensive (and beautiful) immersive experience. Sometimes we confuse a great brand experience with clean/contemporary design. Not every brand would be on message with the Apple style branding. However, if you are Larry's Discount Smartphones you still could benefit from clearly conveying the design expression of your brand promise.

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