Week 7: Positioning and Trends | Mapping emergent themes, moods and stories
By the end of this week you should be able to:
- Research current themes, trends and moods relevant to your project requirements and goals.
- Distill your research to outline a positioning statement for your project strategy.
- Imagine three mood boards to contextualise your positioning statement.
Lecture Introduction
For the seventh lecture we continue to present our creative practitioner interview series, which offers insight into identifying, developing, project managing and completing an industry focused project.
This week the creative practitioners answer the following question:
– How do themes and trend forecasts help to ensure a project is planned and positioned effectively to deliver its strategic goals?
FELD
Trends…
A trend can be something interesting if it’s something where you can anticipate something: a niche or something is happening technically, socially or in the design world, when something needs to change.
Trends are good from the position of: “Things are not good, we need to change them”, that makes looking into trends a good thing to do.
The down-side of looking into trends is that it can be overwhelming. There are so many, so can you filter them down? There’s a certain amount of personal preference which fits in here, you will naturally go to the thing which you want to see happening in the future. Try looking away from the type of work you do for trends, looking in a different direction will find interesting new things but there will always be a way to introduce these back into the kind of work you do.
FELD has an approach where, after reaching the limit of what you’re able to process, take a break. Look back over your research and if anything no longer seems interesting or relevant, get rid of it.
The simple Google search which we all do is a good way to research, but the results which are shown are the most common, the easiest route, the obvious answers. “You give up freedom”.
Be strict and come up with a strategy to identify trends for yourself. You can create a trend if you have enough people that think the same.
Accept & Proceed
They dedicate time specifically for researching trends. Re/generative Design is something they’re currently researching as a way to allow the delivery of projects to be more than a one-off and can evolve over time. As the customer grows, the brand grows.
Wouter
At the end of their brand workshops they go through current trends with the client, trends the client thinks will be good for them in their current markets. They also have a ‘knowledge sharing’ approach were anyone who comes knows of a new or interesting product, they will present the details to rest of the team, they then take that information and see if there’s anything to take to their next project.
Edenspiekerman
Stijn van de Ven
Tries not to care about current trends in design or technology, you need to know the new buzz-words for these trends but you can’t let them interfere with what you’re doing. Re/generative Design is the new thing being spoken about but it won’t necessarily solve your projects. Ignore trends at the start, you need to know them, but they’re not the thing that should lead the project.
Luke Veerman
Knowing trends is really important. The timeframes for projects at Edenspiekermann are long, two years, maybe even five, so trends from the time work started are likely to have been and gone. During that time a project needs to be flexible enough to evolve as it goes along. Technology can change which makes what you’re doing out of date before you complete it. Build in some flexibility to allow things to change.
Reflection
Trends?
I’ve never had the opportunity or the need to look into any at the start or during any projects, other than trying to include the the visual kind for a boost in enthusiasm.
Projects have never been long-term enough for the need to consider trends, corporate work I’ve been involved in always needed/needs a right-first-time result without leaving your screen.
Design based on research gives a better answer to a brief, there’s more justification to back up the outcome, a reason for the result other than just a personal preference or a best-guess at the time. To need to look into trends on a project would bring a new depth of involvement, a chance to become immersed in the work and to look for something new and exciting. A set of different, relevant opinions, would keep pushing a project. Everyone would learn new skills and build confidence in what they’re doing.
Week 7: Workshop Challenge
The Challenge
- Create a series of positioning statements and approaches that address the strategy already outlined for your project plan. Show evidence of how trends (and other emergent fields of practice) can be evaluated, to ensure the direction of your strategy is effectively aligned to your project requirements. Please ensure your approach is innovative, original and brings new insights to the given subject area.
- Develop a mood board to show a minimum of three different positionings, with each expressed visually and titled appropriately.
Positioning statement/s
Notes:
Research hasn’t brought up real examples of ways in which this problem is being helped or even mentioned in this sector. The Oscar Kilo website I spoke of last week was unknown to the officers and, other than leaflets and posters pointing them towards a campaign by mind.org called Blue Light Support, there wasn’t anything they could think of, in fact I think I knew more about the Mind campaign than they did.
An opinion common so far is that there simply isn’t the time or inclination to look at anything and ‘p*ss-taking’ is the best therapy.
Leaflets get left on the side until they end up in the bin and any emails mentioning wellbeing go straight into the trash.
“No wordplay, no explanations, no distractions. A clear and simple message to be taken in at a glance. Any call to action must be memorable and a single step, a distraction to their day and it simply won’t happen.
“Simple, clear and down to earth.”
Developments/changes to initial strategy.
Not a public awareness campaign. Interviews suggested that highlighting the issues to the public would be seen as negative. Unlike the military, the police are seen as a nuisance or a target by some members of the public and a campaign along the same lines as Stand Easy or All Call Signs which address PTSD and it’s effects on ex-servicemen and women wouldn’t carry the same weight.
Simple language still applies – a number of short statements, quick to read, easy to remember.
Not image led, images of emergency situations won’t have any impact on the people who deal with them for real, there’s no need to try and create empathy with sufferers, it goes without saying.
Target audience – not based on age, based on experience. Perhaps new recruits need a clear message? Something for me to explore.
Internal campaign: don’t just limit to leaflets and apps and posters, etc. change the environments. Officers don’t seem open to what they might call ‘arty’ solutions so changes in their environment might have an effect? Colour schemes, as well as messages?
Self-awareness?
Develop an app with simple yes/no statements, a personal/self help app for information. Simple questions with tick-box answers ‘how do you feel at the start of your shift’ vs ‘how do you feel at the end of your shift’
Good/Bad/Worse
A small text field for notes-to-self…
Moodboards
The moodboards show a position/starting point for the visual approach to the brief – so far…
A clear message
Subliminal help…
They don’t go for ‘all that arty b*llocks’ so subliminal help might come from a choice of decor? Colours = mood?
No-fuss technology
Feeling ok?
Yes/No
Good/Bad
Notes:
In an article from AdWeek, David Angelo from the ad agency David&Goliath sums up a good approach to follow.
‘Advertising that is timeless… transparent, honest and authentic’
No-nonsense advertising. AVIS car rentals ad from 1960’s.
All Call Signs Website.
Simple clear ways to contact for help. A clear message:
‘WE’RE SHIT AT TALKING. IT’S TIME TO CHANGE THAT.’
Small finds – nowhere to sit just yet, here so they’re not forgotten as I go.
Filmed at The Police Rehabilitation Centre, Flint House situated in the South Oxfordshire Thames Valley overlooking the Goring Gap. Located in 19 acres of beautiful ancient woodland, Flint House is a Centre of Excellence for the treatment of Police Officers needing both Physical and/or Mental assistance.
