Survival of the Print media and Differentiation

Markus Frey, the design director from "Kauppalehti" (Finland´s premier business newspaper) admits, that design is not the ultimate savior or wonderdrug for the print industry. More is needed.

According to various "estimated per week spent with media" -research results, the usage among "the old" media is diminishing. (These studies are abundant and widely available for all) Not surprisingly for anyone, the great public around the Western world is spending more and more time among the digital media: web, games, digital tv. What is the common newspaper or magazine to do? Adopt game-like features, transform and shift its presence partly to the internet?

In Frey´s mind, the carefree-attitude in making print media has to be abandoned. Now, a clear message and a unique personality has to be present from the get-go. Yes, a paper has to have a personality. A unique soul, that we want to adapt into our lives. The created identity needs to be different from other existing print media brands, and to catch our attention. This is nothing new in the world of marketing, however.

Frey criticizes the what he considers "overly bad taste" of Finns regarding consumption of media. Much more could be offered and consumed. But is the decreasing popularity of old media to be blamed on the general  bad taste of the greater public? "The product is good, the customers just don´t get it" -approach is weak.

When discussing the success of the "Monocle", Frey mentions emotions, personal relations to the paper and perceived quality. A consumer object becomes more than it is, a friend -and a prestigious one.

Frey also mentions, how the style and idiom of communication changes with times. Guttenberg´s bible would be incomprehensible for most of us today, as its text style is so old. Should print media borrow the style of digital media more? Or, should they evolve and fuse with the new technology entirely? With the arrival of iPads and growing fusion between television and internet, this is not such a small question to ask.

Survival of the Print media and Differentiation

The Genes of Passion include Simplicity

Christian Lindholm has an impressive resume. He has been called "the god-father of mobile phone users´", with his ideas on making Nokia mobiles (at least in the past) easier to use. Lindholm could be named as the "father" of Symbian s60-smartphone. (Before Symbian had the bad rep that it carries today). He has also been the vice-president of global mobile products for Yahoo! and has been labeled as one of the 180 movers according to VentureBeat. Clearly, this man is to be listened to, if anything.

At Elonmerkki, his main message was the need to reach passion as the ultimate user experience through service design. In this present occupation as the director of Fjordnet Limited, his goal is to transform digital through "elegant simplicity". In other words, he tackles problems of pure misguided design in digital services.
Lindholm´s main thesis is, that anything can, and should be made better. At present the problem in a lot of modern organizations is weak software. Companies do not invest in better programs simply because they, or their employees, do not care enough to change the situation. This ´status quo`, however, is changing. Increasingly people as employees or consumers are demanding better user experience. C**p, as he says, does  not sell. Services like Dropbox are a troublesome issue for monolith companies like Microsoft, simply because they work, and beautifully so. But if the issue is so simple, and easy to point out, why does a megacorporation not tackle it and offer better products? Lindholm does not answer this, and obviously it is a more deep-rooted issue related to bureaucracy, conservatism and resistance to change.

The highest form of design for Lindholm represents  the so-called "of course" -logic: an idea is so powerful and well-functioning that we cannot fathom how we lived before it. The newly designed and improved wrench is an example of this. A clever idea by a mechanic to twist the ends of a wrench proved genius. Elegant and simple. Ergonomics re-invented. The old design becomes wrong and the new is accepted as the prevalent norm. This reaction brings with it an emotional bond and eventual love affair with the product or service. (Albeit it is one-sided or imaginatively reciprocal at best)

According to Lindholm, love affair is what companies should be after. "The right-brain business" brings more value for the company- what he does not add, is the other term that could be used to describe this approach. The irrational business, the religion approach. When a brand becomes more than it is, a consumer product or service, when a bond is achieved that almost no rational argument can break. When we actually name our consumer goods (as in vacuum cleaners or cars) like children or pets and they become semi-living objects in our minds. They become the signifiers of a secular church that we attend to with a religious-like mindset when the real spirituality in our lives has diminished in importance. And this is the world that we are moving into.

The Genes of Passion include Simplicity

Design forms it all - even Communication?

What is design? According to Wikipedia, it can be defined as "specification of an object, manifested by an agent, intended to accomplish goals, in a particular environment, using a set of primitive components, satisfying a set of requirements, subject to constraints; to create a design, in an environment (where the designer operates)". 


Short and sweet. But not really telling us much. Is it something that we know "when we see it"? Is bad design design at all without consistently successful end result? Is mass-production design? Is design only performed by certain individuals with professional ties- who gets to be "a designer"? Is a child´s sand castle design? Is design always art?

The dean of Aalto University´s School of Art and Design, Helena Hyvönen, has attempted to define some of the concepts related to this universe of design. In her speech ("Elonmerkki"), she dares us to look beyond traditional views and stereotypes. The time of strict categorization and authoritarian ownerhip is ending. Hyvönen talks of Designthinking, which is a new way at looking at the age-old concept.
Designthinking approaches the individual as an active creator, never a passive object. Individuals and usability move to the center of focus. In this regard, (good) design talks with the user, not to the user.

Hyvönen admits that the old ways of thinking inside organisations are difficult to break. When before design was considered something extra, separate from the actual product/service, it now needs to be incorporated into the entire process. Design has become essential in the final user experience, and part of the perceived value of the whole package. Simply put, we cannot ignore it. We need to cut the chains of the old school of thinking, and embrace the new, holistic and playful mode of "design-thinking".

As an example of the new joint process of creating design Hyvönen mentions today´s fashion blogs. People customize, tailor and express themselves through their own designs made with store-bought clothes, which they proudly display on their blogs.  The actual fashion designers follow the ideas, and make new design based on this fruitful communication. The circle continues. The ownership to design has become grey area. Everyone can be a designer and part of the process. In this way, design is communication. Communication is design. Design makes the world more understandable and controllable for the individual. Thus through design we create, and re-create our personality and place in the world.

Design forms it all - even Communication?

"Elonmerkki" -media conference

Today (25.8.2011) I will be blogging live with 15 other bloggers, related to "Elonmerkki"-media conference, in Helsinki, Finland. It is an honour to be chosen among other bloggers to witness this event.
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The day´s theme is related to design, innovation and their strategic significance for organizational value. The need for differentiation in today´s organization is massive. Various daily messages are bombarding us and fighting for the attention that is getting harder to catch.  Design, as we are have come to associate it, has usually been linked to surface, commercialism, embellishment and frivolous enhancement. The core value has been thought to lie somewhere else. The message of this year´s "Elonmerkki" -conference states otherwise. Design is more than a hip afterthought in an engineer´s daydream. It is a complete experience that tells a story of the product/service for the great public. Design is an inseparable, essential part of the product/service.


All the blogposts will be edited into a book. As a plus, the proceeds originating from this publication will be donated to Unicef. Comments are highly appreciated.

"Elonmerkki" -media conference

Architectural Delight- Or, the not-your-average Crib

Those of you who have followed my scribbles for awhile, know that I like to engage in a bit of architectural dreaming every once in a full moon. And I´m not thinking just any old architecture with an IKEA simulacrum, but something with a twist. Those people who live in an old lighthouse turned family dwelling? Marvelous. Castle-living? Expensive, but impressive. An apartment turned into Star Trek -ship by the very detail? Neurotic, but still admirable. People have their passions. Mine is, plain and simple, architectural daydreaming.

So here we go: first of, the hotel in drain pipes. Yes, it is called " Das Park Hotel" in Essen, Germany, and you can actually book a room between May and October. Before it gets too darned cold, that is. Here some images of the wonderful little pad. Romantic getaway?

Obviously, showers, toilet or the much needed minibar do not come with the tube, but apparently the public facilities of the park are available. Which gives an interesting add to the term "romantic getaway". Paging George Michael? The bed looks somewhat comfy, but I hate to think of waking up in the middle of the night, alarmed by the small tube-cube, and mistaking it all for a bunker in the Second World War. Smaller things can give you nightmares, you see? Anyways, I´m sure there is a market for this. If they arrange sold-out tourist trips to Chernobyl, there must be eager beavers for this experience, as well.

Next stop takes us to the skies. Airline companies are struggling. Even with taking our last pennies from every carry all, glass of water and legroom, they are still after blood. The green kind, of course. Korean Air has decided the take our primal need to get wasted on-air to the next level. In order to get us really wasted and spend every dime on needless fancy cologne, plastic airplane and other lavish trinkets they hustle for us poor passengers tied to the chair for various hours. At least, that is my theory.So, why not actually stick a bar there? Or three? All for the duration of the trip. The boozing class is aimed, unfortunately, just for the first class PAX. Which is where they get it completely wrong. Don´t they have free drinks anyways? Why do they need the bar for socialization purposes? Isin´t part of the first class allure to get more privacy and space in the small confines of an airplane? They should have aimed for the meager pockets of the common folks over at the coach class.
That´s all I´m saying.

Architectural Delight- Or, the not-your-average Crib

Traveling Hotel in Norway

Breathtaking or what? Norway is beautiful and the fjords are full of poetry. But how to market this nature´s grand design for the ignorant masses? The small town of Andalsness has come up with a novel idea -a hotel on wheels. These pictures depict the whole plan. "Hotel" rolls on train tracks across the scenery, showing the absolute best of what nature can be. Portable box rooms are minimalistic and tiny, and the whole idea is to move people in an environmentally-safe fashion from place to place.
If this were April fool´s day, I would list this as one attempt at passing wild imagination for the gullible.
But no, it is very real. I´m not sure how this would succeed in the middle of cold, snowy winters.
Stranded in a cold box in the middle of nowhere? Paging Bear Grylls, please.

Traveling Hotel in Norway