All this does not obviously mean placing the brand on whatever media is available. It is about inventing it and customizing it according to the needs of the brand’s target itself.

Implementaction could be a mental and working orientation to bring innovation and dynamism.

Communication on the move between the endless available means in the market. I think that the subdivision between above and below-the-line advertising is a thing of the past. We are oriented towards multiple forms of communication: specialized media geared for specific targets that interact amongst themselves. Not really a “wow”. It’s already happening.

Suitable tools to create new and unexpected communicative possibilities, direct and personal connections with the people, original and different languages. Solutions conceived to place brands on a new levels, or rather, on several levels which are at the reach of persons on their same wavelength.

Everyone can build a coherent argument. But it is intuition that recognises worlds, stories or visuals capable of arousing the right emotions.An efficient brand communication comes from a deep knowledge of advertising, of markets but, most of all, of people.

My job is to builds emotional connections between brands and persons, based on respect but touched by feelings. Creating empathy, commitment and passion.

Producing not simple messages but persuasive ones.

Messages capable of rendering themselves visible, understandable, interesting, attractive and, most of all, convincing.

I have simple beliefs: to delight and impress people, change their way of thinking. Create, together with them and for them, brands which are emotional and inexhaustible. Creativity on its own is not enough to do this unless it produces concrete results in time. Sophisticated brand strategies and innovative design are pointless if they don’t increase loyalty, awareness and profits. Creativity is an opportunity. A pliable tool to make way into people’s hearts.

And that’s why i like to design brands to do this exactly: reinventing themselves, maintaining their deepest emotional feeling and creating an ongoing and enriching experience.

A downright “brand conversation” that starts from the eyes and reaches and touches the heart of people, even before their minds. “People” and not “consumers”. Because brands can go beyond the rational consumption promoted by information and comparisons. They can establish strong empathies, create relationships and emotions, amongst and with, individual persons.

Brands are an experience. Defined by what persons assimilate of the brand itself: the impression which becomes emotion, the intrigue which induces love.An experience which is also stimulated by what the brands understand of the persons: values, meanings, expectations and feelings.

Every person’s mind breaks up, analyses, defines and finally evaluates the communication addressed to it. But even before reasoning, the most primitive part of the brain activates emotions. And it’s these that influence all its thoughts and actions and guide it into giving sense to what is happening. I try to have the brands I work on to follow their own univocal route which places them right were the persons expect to find them and directs them towards places that these persons wish to reach.

Every brand, big or small, becomes the result of a collective adventure, something shared. A mental structure, a language in evolution, a collection of desires, a passion.

Watch the video

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This interview i reblogged is was originally pubblished in Monocle. The original video can be seen here.

A striking use of the Futura typeface, shown in Volume 1 of the “I Love Type” book series, is the poster “Loose Lips Build Ships.” It was created by the Amsterdam design office Experimental Jetset for the 2008 exhibition “Thoughts on Democracy” at the Wolfsonian-Florida International University museum in Miami Beach.

Graphic designers are fickle consumers of typographic fashion, their preferences changing on a whim. Some popular typefaces symbolize the future, or something even more fleeting; others are classic and exude elegance. A passé font returns from the wilderness, while others are exiled until they are rehabilitated by younger generations because they really are too cool for words — or too cool not to be made into words. Nothing is neutral about type. Designers so love their pet typefaces, and argue their merits so vociferously, that declaring one’s type preferences can be as risky as calling oneself a Republican at a Democratic fund-raiser.

I, for example, strongly object to Avant Garde, a flawed photo-typeface designed in 1970 by the great type masters Herb Lubalin and Tom Carnase. Avant Garde is heavy-handed fake Futura, and its multiple ligatures are ridiculous — a real shonda of typeface design. Conversely, I love Futura, designed by Paul Renner and introduced in 1927, because it is a perfect geometric face that evokes machine-age ingenuity — and looks good in all its weights.

These distinctions may seem trivial to the nondesigner, but I’m sure there will be acrimonious fallout over my heretical stand against Avant Garde. Nonetheless, passionate discourse is not a bad thing.

A recent book series, “I Love Type,” published by Victionary and edited and designed by TwoPoints.Net, is bringing these passions to the fore. The four typographic ramps represented so far are “Volume 1: I Love Futura,” “Volume 2: I Love Avant Garde,” “Volume 3: I Love Bodoni” and “Volume 4: I Love DIN.” Each is loaded with examples of the work of dozens of designers and firms that have chosen sides in what might be called “the type wars” of 2011. The preface to each volume is written by an advocate of the typeface in question, ready to do battle. “The world is changing, but Futura always remains present; it is the favorite of every period of time,” Wolfgang Hartmann exclaims in “I Love Futura.”

“If a striking headline is your goal, this may be” the font to use, counters Allan Haley in “I Love Avant Garde.”

“Bodoni is, without a doubt, synonymous with creation and artistic sensibility,” argues Hartmann again, proving that there can be two loves in a type maven’s life. And DIN, named for the German national association for standardization, is “associated with things such as being accurate, striving for the perfect, and most of all neutrality,” says “Mr. DIN,” Albert-Jan Pool.

O.K., none of these are actually fightin’ words, but they suggest that feelings run deep.

Each book in the “I Love Type” series further argues by example for the rightness of its respective typeface, with selections of posters, packaging and magazine pages therein, largely by European graphic designers, that are virtually flawless applications.

The Futura, Bodoni and DIN examples reveal a stunningly wide range of applications. I must grudgingly admit that even the Avant Garde looks good. One of its best uses is Silo’s 2009 corporate identity for Fenedex, which uses a green Avant Garde “E” as a symbolic, illustrative element throughout all the printed materials. Oliver Daxenbichler Design’s display headlines for Neue Mode Magazine reinvents Avant Garde by forcing the letters into ligature patterns that differ elegantly from the original font.

At first I thought this series would address the lame question “What is your favorite typeface?” Instead it is a handsome and useful guide to how versatile even the most classic (Bodoni) and most anemic (Avant Garde) typefaces can be when good designers are using them.

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This article i reblogged is by Steven Heller, and was originally pubblished in the NYTimes. the original article can de seen here.

The interactive subway diagram that was designed by Massimo Vignelli, Beatriz Cifuentes and Yoshiki Waterhouse for The Weekender Web site of the M.T.A. offers riders information — driven and updated by live data — on planned weekend work projects that will affect subway service. At any point, the diagram can be clicked, zoomed, panned or expanded to full screen. In this screen, the B and 5 lines are shaded to indicate a weekend service interruption.

In 1972, Massimo Vignelli designed a diagrammatic map for the New York City subway. It was a radical departure. He replaced the serpentine maze of geographically accurate train routes with simple, bold bands of color that turned at 45- and 90-degree angles. Each route was color-coded, its stops indicated by black dots. Its abstract representation of the routes was elegant but flawed. To make the map function effectively, a few geographic liberties were taken, something that didn’t sit well with New Yorkers.

For instance, the new map showed Central Park as a square; Vignelli reasoned that for people riding underground, the park’s rectangular proportions were irrelevant. Along Central Park West there are fewer stops than in Midtown, so logic dictated that less map space was required. Vignelli was absolutely right, but New Yorkers did not care about such nuances. They wanted their rectangle back, and other geographical details too. Dissatisfaction was palpable, and in 1979 the map was replaced.

Still, the Vignelli map refused to vanish. It was included in the design collection of the Museum of Modern Art, featured in exhibitions and analyzed in history books. In 2008, Vignelli was even asked to create a limited-edition version, which sold out almost immediately. Then last year, Jay Walder, the head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (who is leaving his post at the end of the year), asked Vignelli to revise his 1972 map for the M.T.A.’s The Weekender Web site, which informs the public of weekend service changes caused by maintenance projects. How sweet the irony!

In fact, the 1972 map was ahead of its time. As a vindicated Vignelli told me, the map was “created in B.C. (before computer) for the A.C. (after computer) era.” He’s right again. His original, economical format is perfect for Web accessibility. The new digital iteration is the result of the combined efforts of Vignelli and two of his associates, Beatriz Cifuentes and Yoshiki Waterhouse. One of their first acts was to rename the map. It is now a diagram, which actually makes sense as it is not a literal representation, but a semantic one. They also agreed to add supplementary neighborhood map options — online versions of the proprietary maps already used in M.T.A. stations.

For The Weekender, the team rebuilt the diagram geometry from scratch using a new primary grid for Midtown. This grid is essentially a square bound by 14th and 59th Streets, and Park and Eighth Avenues, with Broadway running diagonally from corner to corner. Intervals between major cross streets like 14th or 42nd were placed equidistantly along the grid, with more minor stops, like 18th and 28th, placed in between. And, Waterhouse adds, “We introduced a hollow dot to represent stops, which were sometimes passed, depending on schedule, known as a ‘sometimes-stop.’”

Waterhouse explains that all critiques of the 1972 map — which had been dutifully retained by the M.T.A. — were addressed. But Vignelli’s biggest bugaboo was showing the parks. He believed that including them — particularly Central Park — was the downfall of the 1972 map, so the new iteration eliminates all parks. Issues of type size and legibility were addressed, and line colors, station names and connections were all updated.

In addition to temporary closures for maintenance, certain lines (such as the B train) do not run on weekends. Yet rather than eliminate the line from The Weekender map altogether, Waterhouse explained, “We reasoned that it was better to leave it in the diagram to be more consistent with the signage, only in a ghosted shade of the same color. For working lines, we created a series of line-specific animated flashing dots to designate stops undergoing planned work. Thus users can swiftly see if their stop is affected without parsing through the laundry list of text for each line, or referencing which trains stop where.”

On The Weekender Web site, the diagram can be panned and zoomed, and as you mouse over it, the adjacent dots that make up each station light up to indicate a link, allowing users to navigate the system graphically. Alternatively, the system can be searched by station, line or borough. Lastly, every view of the diagram is complemented by a geographic neighborhood map, essentially giving riders a means of navigating the system both above and below ground.

That Vignelli, who turned 80 this year, was allowed a second chance correct the original map’s flaws is itself incredible. That the digital version works so well is a testament to his decision to make a “diagram” instead of a map — even if it was almost four decades too early.

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This article i reblogged is by Steven Heller, and was originally pubblished in the NYTimes. the original article can de seen here.