Do you ever get those moments in life, when you realize you’ve just been brand-had? Every once in a while I catch myself realizing I had that thought because a well done brand or marketing campaign told me too. Sometimes I’m privately embarrassed, but mostly I’m amazed at how subtle I was coerced into associating A with B because C, D, and E told me too.
iPlastic
Recently, it was Apple that got me. With white shiny plastic to be exact. Apple started to brand their products with this material ever since the iMac. It was made near ubiquitous with the release of the iPod, which pretty much sealed the deal for Apple and this material. Through consistency, a high quality product, and a hell of a lot of good marketing, any product wanting to be seen as “Apple” just needs to coat their product with the stuff. So much so that peripheral manufactures make goods out of it and we instantly get it…it’s an apple product and should be thought of as cool. MP3 devices were around loooonnngg time before the iPod, but our minds, if it ain’t white and shiny, it’s just junk. (or at least it won’t gain nearly as many cool points with our friends)
On the other hand, should I be surprised? Human brains are very good at associations and making decisions with imperfect knowledge. Essentially their just big gelatinous neural networks. To us if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, our brain fills in the gaps and we’ll pay $500 to take it home to learn it wasn’t a duck at all but rather an Aibo. At Apples To Oranges we work in the industry that’s partially responsible for creating these connections. When we do visual design and branding work, our skill is being able to make these subconscious associations. We learn how to tell your brain something is luxurious, rich, and classy. Or even a little rugged, tough, and full of machismo. How much of our everyday decisions are made from these subtle product cues?
Are you the chicken or the egg?
However the 64K question in the case of the Apple is, which came first? The chicken or the egg? Did shiny white plastic give their products a sleek, elegant look of quality? Or did consistently good products and customer experiences turn the material into the champion mark of cool? I tend to think a little of both. Branding and design tends to feed off of itself. If you set yourself apart with a particular brand style, then you live or die by it. If you have good products, then its a good association, if you have bad ones…well then maybe you should have switched to the purple.
Published on March 21, 2006
Resides in Design
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3 Responses to “Apple Is White and Shiny”
1
kyle on March 23rd, 2006
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/portable/frog-design-mind-124912.php
This is a great article by Frog Design speculating about what inspired the iPod sleek materials — the bathroom.
Sometimes the best ideas are right under your nose.
2
ryan on March 24th, 2006
Hah, that’s very true. Great points about perception, especially about the idea that it is sleek with no moving parts.
Just the other day I was thinking about that point in design. Look at the evolution of the engine. Open the hood of a car in the 60’s, and you see it all. Parts and plenty of open space to work on the engine. Look today and it’s primarily a large plastic box. The engine is encased and hidden away. It seems when we get good at a technology we start adding design to it and we hide away the parts. We want to just see the thing and know that it works. We don’t want to see the complexity.
3
Trajan on March 26th, 2006
your rss feeds are not being updated on feedburner. It stays stuck in “Freelancer’s Regiment”. FYI. 0_o