Ubisoft had a problem: how do you set up mobile play stations in places like conventions and malls and bring them home quickly and easily? I designed an answer for them.

When set up, the display is large, fun and functional. It shows of the console and the game while building the Ubisoft brand with player and passer by alike. At the end of the day ALL parts fit into the podium: TV, TV stand, banners, console, and controllers. Ready to be wheeled away like a briefcase. The TV stand breaks into 3 lengths for storage, and easily stacks together with collars. The banners roll or fold up and fit into a pocket with their hangers, and the game controllers. The fragile TV and game console are protected by foam strips. The unit is primarily made of sheet metal, but has a mill work podium and steel tube for the TV post.

This mobile game demo unit was coined “the POD” and was requested by Ubisoft to Matrix MCI. I did all design on the piece: industrial design as well as graphics. After digesting the full brief from Ubisoft, I developed the concept through sketching. The unit was modelled in Solidworks, and rendered using built in rendering engine: Photoview 360.

© 2011 matrix marketing concepts inc. All rights reserved

Microsoft unveiled their new Xbox design at the 2010 E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo), the gaming convention. The new hardware is packed with a 250 GB drive, and Wifi (a long time coming.) But what I want to focus on is what is on the outside. The old design was done by the industrial design / branding firm Astro Studios; a firm I am a fan of and take inspiration from. I don’t know if they deigned this case as well. Let’s analyze the industrial design:

- This is clearly is under the same line of thinking as the Alienware hardware. Nothing wrong with that, particularly because Astro also did the design for Alienware. This is a strong difference from the pervious Xbox which was tidy and refined. The new design is more Mitsubishi Evo if the old design was an Audi.

- Speaking of cars, the case design is like a car in that it has a belt line. A belt line design element on a car is the corner on the side that divides the sheetmetal pointing down from the metal pointed up; because above the belt line is reflecting the blight sky and below is reflecting the dim ground, it creates a high contrast line that can be used graphically on cars. This only works on shiny exteriors particularly using black, which the new Xbox case features. The line angles up to the back, and creates a nice graphic appeal to the otherwise boring side the the case. The fins and shape of the air intake on the right side reference the belt line, creating a dynamic yet tidy appearance.

- The logo debossed on the sides of the case look too small, and out of place. On the right side it references the air intake, but on the left side there is nothing anchoring it to where it is positioned. It as a straight horizontal element looks awkward so close to the angles belt line. I would eliminate the logo altogether, or move it to the bottom or the top to reference horizontal lines.

- The chrome button looks striking against the graphite colour of the case. But the brightness of the button drowns out the signature green-yellow glow around it. Maybe the glow is more prominant when you see the unit in person. I would like to have seen the green glow in more places, as it is the basis of the Xbox branding. It would have been nice to see the logo on the front of the case lit up.

- The choice to switch from a light gray ro a grapite black is an interesting. They have had a black case before with the Xbox Elite, which was also a funny choice. With the original design, I credited Astro for have a very strong link between the branding and the case design. This black distances the branding and the product. It also moves it towards the look of their principle rival, the Playstation 3. This was change probably driven to distinctly distinguish the new model from the old one for marketing purposes.

- The awkward hump on the top of the old case is eliminated… hallelujah. Let’s hope the overheating and red ring of death problems are gone as well.

- The unit looks like it can still stand or sit on it’s side again. A nice feature to have. As nice as it would be to have people proudly display this in their living room standing up, I imagine it will be used on it’s side 90% of the time.

- The case overall looks like they have designed some cost out of it, with only 1 finnish, has shallower injection molded parts and eliminated some parts. This is a good example of how a tidy, inexpensive design can look better if you understand your restraints and design a nice visual concept around them.

I came across another company benefiting from the brand associations of another brand. We talked about this in regards to the Hyundai Genesis badge being similar to the Bentley, and Genesis benefiting from all of the luxury associations that come with positioning them selves closely with Bentley from a graphic standpoint.

Well this one is cross industry. The logo for Heys luggage has the same old coat of arms design as Porsche.

Porsche has the broader brand awareness, so Heys is the one that benefits by all the brand associations that come with having a logo similar to Porsche. Heys has pre existing associations like performance, high engineering, luxury and quality even before they run their first add. This is an amazing advantage, because Porsche had to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising to earn those brand associations, and back it up with 60 years of quality products.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If you are building a brand, you need to capitalize on these associations so that you are getting a head start at building your brand to have those qualities with your customer. You don’t want to directly copy a logo, but to model your logo, graphics or architecture on that of other brands you want to be associated like in encouraged. But those associations are only stepping stones; if someone buys a Heys piece of luggage and doesn’t find the Porsche quality and performance, than they will quickly drop those associations they had. They will also feel duped or taken, and you will never recover them as a customer from that. Thankfully Heys makes very good bags.

Unfortunately you take the good with the bad. Hey’s has the Lion crest very similar to the Peugeot one. Now Peugeot has a pour reputation for quality, and if Heys was in Europe they may see that brand association as well.

This is a 7 shelf permanent display Cadbury produced to fit spots in convenience stores to merchandise their chocolate products.

This display arose out of a problem that Cadbury had: sales reps had identified spaces in the convenience stores they sold to but had no tool to fill the spot permanently. This design won out in a multi-vendor design competition because of the high touch approach I took with the Cadbury merchandising team. This display had many features: many areas for graphic communication, angled or flat shelves, and could be configured for Cadbury’s 19” planogram or 28” depending on the space available.

People have relationship with brands not only because of what they offer with their product or service, but also how being a part of that brand makes them feel. Brands that have strong personalities are the ones that capitalize on this. Whether this is the fun, playful, young-hearted Disney brand, or the macho, competitive, manly brand of UFC. People feel they have the personality traits of the brand they are using or affiliating themselves with.

This was confirmed once again with a study from the Journal of Consumer Research (see this article for more details). In the study, participants were asked to walk a mall with the bright pink shopping bag of Victoria Secret. The control group was given a plain pink bag of a similar style. People with the Victoria Secret bag reported to feel more feminine, glamorous, and good-looking. In another study, people reported feeling more intelligent and like leaders when they used a pen with MIT engraving.

This verifies what we already knew. What was a new discovery is that the personality adoption effect was greatest people who believe that their personality cannot be changed through their own self improvement efforts. People who believe that they have some control over their personality traits do not report personality changes from brands.

People who feel their personality flexible would not see the need to use brands to augment their personality. These people wouldn’t see the value in fashion; they would feel that their attire would not have an effect on how they are perceived. They believe that if they want to change how they are perceived, they will work to change their personalities.

It is a strange paradox: people who feel their personality is more fixed actually more flexible. But people with brands augmenting their personality probably feel like they are being perceived as having the brands personality traits, not as if their personalities actually have changed. People who feel their personality is fixed would be more exercised at using brands to change their personality or the perception of their personality at least.

You may think this is tricking people who feel bad about their personal into buying products to feel better about themselves. Quite the opposite. The marketing to brand something with certain personality trait is adding value to the product itself. Helping people express themselves or feel better is an admirable goal.

Hopefully, we will look back at the turn of the millennium and laugh at the stupid clam shell, vac formed plastic packaging. You know the type I am taking about; the clear plastic job that you can’t get open without some sort of sharp implement to open, and even then it is a struggle. There are eventools you can get at Home Hardware to open these packaging nightmares. I know the reasons for this packaging: theft reduction, mass production and durability for shipping. But that doesn’t undue the harm it does to the user experience. Design Critique: Products for People podcast has a great cast on designing the packaging experience.

What inspired this article was the Amazon ‘Frustration Free Packaging’ initiative, just in time for the holiday season. The frustration free packaging eliminates the clam shell packaging or complicated boxes with zip ties and plastic trays. This is great to start customers out on the right foot, and keep the positive experience. It also turns out to be more green, using post consumer recycled corrugate and eliminating the mixed media so people are more likely to recycle the packaging. I know alot of brand managers would shutter at loosing that graphical packaging to introduce the product, but the product itself is the real asset that people are looking for. For online purchases from places like Amazon, if you could reinvest the money saved on 4 colour packaging and copacking into a proper instruction manual that people would really have a proper user experience.

We treat brands as we do people; we begin and foster relationships. A great brand experience should be akin to a love story. If advertising is the flirty first meeting, and the website is getting the number, then the packaging is definitely the first date. We all know the importance of the fist date in relationships, but we downplay the impact of the packaging in the user experience. Your not getting off on the right foot if someone struggles to free their product from it’s cumbersome packaging and then deal with the waste that is 5 times the sized of the product.

The model in this space is Apple. When you come home with you iPod, you don’t open it… you reveal it. There is hardly any graphics or packaging material, but the experience is obviously the design focus. The iPod is the first thing you come upon, centered and nested like a jewel. The USB cord, headphones and instructions are laid out simply. It is such an experience that many people I know keep their iPod box on display; talk about valuable advertising space and compelling endorsement. I was also very impressed with the Jawbone packaging, but haven’t experienced it myself.

Have a good first date of customer experience; design the packaging experience and eliminate these torturous types of packaging.

You may have seen my Twitter post about the creative of the video for the Tom Tom iPhone app and car kit. What I liked about it was the associations it was creating between the Tom Tom brand and descriptors like urban, sophisticated, simple, worry free, elegant and future thinking. But then I realized why the associations were so powerful. The music, brand elements and the 3D road projected from the iPhone were inspired by a brand with all these associations powerfully built in for many people: Sim City.

What was most clear to me was the music. I always liked the music from Sim City, and probably was a pivotal driver in my love for jazz. I often work to the Sim City Rush Hour soundtrack (free download) because it is stimulating but non-distracting. The ambient music in the Tom Tom iPhone demo video is very similar. I put the connection together consciously, but for most the association is there on an unconscious level. Players who played Sim City will link the positive feelings they remember from Sim City to Tom Tom, to a certain extent. A good move, because I would be willing to bet the people interested in the iPhone car kit would be on the geekier side of the general population (I am a self admitted geek) and are more likely to have played Sim City. Even if a potential customer hasn’t, Sim City did a great job of orchestrating those feelings and why try to reinvent their great work if they are making the associations you want.

This can be done by any business. Think of a descriptor you would like your brand to be described as. What brand is best described that way? (Elegant = Mercedes, Free Spirited = Echo) Analyze that brand. What colours are they using? What sort of lines does the graphics have? What sounds do they use? How is the material composed? Look at everything that speaks to your descriptor. Don’t be afraid to integrate some of these aspects into the design of your company’s material. But put your brand’s spin on it, and give credit where credit is due.

Check out the video for yourself. I think it is very well done:

Hello my friends and readers,

This is the first post in the new blog section of my website. This section will be for my thoughts and lessons about design and marketing, and where they intersect: branding.

Branding is one of my favourite topics to write about. I believe it is the single greatest benefit for a company from practicing good design. Branding is where a company can cash in the good will that comes from the good experience of using a well designed product; a user has to associate that good experience with a brand, and be able to recognize that brand the next time they make a purchase. In designing retail displays for great companies like Philips, Ubisoft, Bic and others, I help them convert on the positive experiences and relationship they have built with their users / customers. To use an industry term, cash in on their brand equity.

Because I am so passionate about branding, I am going to migrate some of the more successful and helpful posts from my branding blog: FireBrand Creative. The first posts you see in this section will be from their, but everything else will be original content for Finkle.ca.

Looking forward to talking to you more in 2012!

Cheers,
Colin Finkle

This is a dump bin concept that I made for Matrix MCI to propose to merchandise Fox DVDs in Rogers Plus stores.

This was an interesting concept for a dump bin because the bin looks like it is floating above it’s legs. The chamfered bottom of the bin is inches from round tubing ring, but it is not connected to the bin. The interplay of the 2 forms makes it look like it is floating, while it is simply being held by support tubing below, which your eyes typically ignore. That effect, along with the tubing base make this dump bin feel light and not visually intrusive. This is very welcome because dump bins are usually large, massive looking things that retailers would rather not have on their floor.

© 2011 matrix marketing concepts inc. All rights reserved