To get there, and there are signs of it happening, designers must, like salmon are reputed to do, swim upstream to lay the eggs of their interventions. Upstream is where the decisions are made about what to design, and how to intervene in a given situation. Downstream of this is where eggs are hatched, and design in the narrower sense of giving form to things lies here.

Business has been drawn to design. Its lodestar may seem to be the fifteen year rise and rise of Apple, seen as the best example of making design a competitive advantage. But it’s not making attractive products alone that matters. It’s the ‘design thinking’ that the management world talks up as enthusiastically as design’s leaders. This is  a toolkit of broadly applicable skills, habits and attitudes that good designers (should) have.

Business has been drawn to design. Its lodestar may seem to be the fifteen year rise and rise of Apple, seen as the best example of making design a competitive advantage.

These thoughts came, as they often do, from random stimuli (openness to which could be skill #1).

Life saving

The first of these was an email from a friend, pointing to a BBC website* slideshow called “graphic design that can help save lives”. It sounded too good to be true; and while it was, the examples are instructive in other ways. Let’s see.

Stephen Doe’s wall paintings illustrate with brutal clarity the symptoms of ebola, in low-literacy Liberia, and probably saved lives during the 2014 outbreak. It went viral, via posters and billboards.

Then there are ‘plain pack’ cigarette packs, with ghoulish graphics of smoker’s diseases, designed to deter, pioneered in Australia. Reports on their success are mixed, but let’s go with those that say they do. (Another attitude: being comfortable with validity, not needing proof).

Stephen Doe’s wall paintings illustrate with brutal clarity the symptoms of ebola, in low-literacy Liberia, and probably saved lives during the 2014 outbreak. It went viral, via posters and billboards. 

Next is the highly distinctive check pattern on British ambulances, which instantly says ‘emergency services’ to Britons, seen through a rear view mirror, or anywhere else. As an aside, another common device, laterally inverting the word ‘ambulance’ on the vans so it reads correctly in the mirror has always struck Deep Design as clever but weak, though evidence is lacking.

In each of these cases, the graphic design itself, in the sense of the visual form given to the intervention, is downstream of the upstream decision to act in that way. The designer’s craft as form-giver is less important, albeit to varying degrees.

Stephen Doe’s wall paintings are effective despite their crudity, not because crudity is somehow a cunning device that makes it effective. Similarly, it’s the idea of placing disgusting graphics to cover cigarette packs while eliminating the brand, that has the impact. It constitutes the upstream design thinking, and the details of how the horrific ulcers are pictured is secondary.

If we were to hype, as the BBC report does, the precise shade of brown used—‘opaque couché’, billed the ‘most nauseating colour in the world’, chosen after rigorous research, we would miss the point. And indulge in misplaced mystification, because colours are ugly only by the associations we attach to them. Pantone 448, as the colour is known, might readily suit an elegant men’s cigarette pack (brown is a staple of men’s products).

Likewise the check pattern that spells ‘emergency’ does so by repetition and its optical property. That they are drawn from Battenberg cake (the checks show up when you cut through one) is, like the ‘world’s ugliest colour’, tag, romanticising a good choice. The choice of the checks is important, but both impact and the balance of creative weight lie upstream.

Smoke without fire

More stimuli came in the form of Richard Thaler’s Nobel Prize for his foundational work in behavioural economics, (after Daniel Kahnemann’s Nobel win in 2002)  following a mention of Thaler in the last column, on design and psychology. At the same time came the pre-Diwali fireworks in the form of the Supreme Court’s cracker bans in Delhi.

One of the biases that behavioral psychology explores is “what you see is all there is”. It refers to our tendency to treat the evidence of our eyes as a complete picture of a reality. Events in the news, particularly the images we are exposed to, called ‘available’ in psycho-speak, dominate our thinking.

One of the biases that behavioral psychology explores is “what you see is all there is”. It refers to our tendency to treat the evidence of our eyes as a complete picture of a reality. 

By this thinking, Diwali pollution hogs our attention because both the crackers and their polluting after-effects are strikingly visual, not unlike the uglified cigarette packs. This outweighs its extremely short-lived effect. Instead, it’s the long-term, everyday, ‘permanent’ kind of pollution that matters far, far more. But invisibility ensures its lack of salience.

The Delhi Metro, while it was being built, made diligent use of well-painted and marked barricades, screening us from continuous exposure to dug-up roads. The Commonwealth Games did not, and invited anger. The Metro construction was admired, the Games’ works mocked. This visual factor likely exaggerated both reputations,

A Job Description

Designers with upstream ambitions must reflect on things in psychological terms. But they also know that none of these upstream acts, however well conceived, would have taken place without the skill of rallying facts, building consensus and steering it through a forest of conflicting stakeholder interests. Buckminster Fuller’s (attributed) description of a designer as “emerging synthesis of artist, inventor, mechanic, objective economist and evolutionary strategist” could well include ‘politician’ and ‘psychologist’.

Indeed, some of the best-regarded companies emphasise design with the new position of Chief Design Officer. Their upstream and downstream influence, and the new skills and mindsets that the CDO and his employers will need, deserve to be considered.

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First published in a slightly modified form ‘A seat at the High Table’ in Business Standard, Deep Design, a fortnightly column by Itu Chaudhuri.

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Yet a vast amount of communications may well be entirely wasted, or at least measured with the wrong scales. We see something akin to an arms race, in which advertisers, for example, build ever better arsenals to penetrate the defences of audiences, who neutralise messages by knowing more and more and believing less and less.

The Deep Design of the phenomenon has to do with signalling, the notion that the what content of a message, conveyed in words, sounds and pictures, matters less than its context. That is, the when, where and who or the circumstances surrounding the message, leading to the why, an inescapable inference about what’s really, really going on. This meta communication trumps the actual message content.

signalling, the notion that the what content of a message, conveyed in words, sounds and pictures, matters less than its context.

Signalling is everywhere. Companies use price signalling in a number of ways, such as luxury goods companies using it to reduce availability, to connote exclusion, not superiority. We use signalling everywhere: LED lighting signals our concern for the earth, and less our pockets. Weddings are expensive, noisy and public to signal commitment. We vote in part to show we ‘care’. Software nerds take job interviews in sloppy (though uniform) clothes, not suits, to signal an obsession with code, and a sacrifice of convention.

Indeed, sacrifice has a lot to do with it. In biology and economics, signals are considered credible when resources are spent—especially inefficiently. A peacock, say biologists, grows a metabolically expensive tail despite its many disadvantages, to signal its health. Stalin’s armies, ever short of arms, shared one rifle among two recruits—”when the man in front falls, take his rifle and advance”— yet armed the guards who stood behind the ranks, to shoot deserters. Irrational, until one considers the signals.

A company that uses mass media lavishly to reach a small audience ‘wastes’ money, but it signals solidity and power. It’s rational to prefer the more heavily advertised product, quite apart from what the advertising messages. It’s one explanation of why advertising works, because its exhortations are expensively public, the more viewed the better. Every viewer knows that the commercials that aired during the cricket were watched by millions of others, tying her into a social lockstep. These are expensive signals. (In contrast, the doctor who rubs his hands with a self-drying gel from a dispenser on his table signals hygiene inexpensively, the latest stop in a 150-year campaign to get doctors to wash their hands more).

A company that uses mass media lavishly to reach a small audience ‘wastes’ money, but it signals solidity and power. It’s one explanation of why advertising works, because its exhortations are expensively public, the more viewed the better. 

A recent Apple commercial shows a sea of people in single coloured uniforms, running parkour-style through the streets, asking us to ‘make room for colour’. It’s beautifully, expensively, made; the track is highly listenable. Yet it is more like an ad for a tv set by an electronics giant than from a company that has defined techno-lust. Apple’s advertising has never leant on incrementally better technology but on a certain swagger. The typical Apple ad is more a statement than an appeal, an assertion of social proof of the iPhone’s desirability, not its functional superiority: if you don’t have an iPhone, well, you don’t have an iPhone. This ad is an appeal, to better implemented features, and credibly messages an excellent phone. But that appeal may send a different signal: of a lower level of confidence, from which one might infer Apple’s acknowledgement of a shrinking gap with competition. Is there a less vibrant pipeline of new ideas?

Signaling is non-verbal, and so is design. Obviously, designers can harness its power or at least be more aware of the signal value of their products and communications, not simply the rational content that is sought to be transmitted.

Signaling is non-verbal, and so is design.

Packaging is a good example where the wrapper sets our expectations of the product. We are seeing a slew of milk brands of the small food, or organic variety use glass bottles reminiscent of an earlier time. Plastic containers would be far more efficient, but the particular sort of glass bottle signals a score of things. The surface graphic design is secondary.

Apple’s trend-setting identity in the 1980s, by its choice of name, signaled its difference from the status quo in the fledgling computer industry. This act, of not naming it to connote techy-ness was far more significant that other readings of the name (to signify temptation, as one tale goes, or freshness or simplicity).

Apple’s trend-setting identity in the 1980s, by its choice of name, signaled its difference from the status quo in the fledgling computer industry.

Less obviously, expensive, hard to fake, official signage is a signal of competent governance, as has been argued in these columns. Branding may communicates ideas and attitudes, but these are arguable and malleable. But the consistent application of the branding program across geographies, media and applications, powerfully—and inescapably—communicates the owner’s ability to orchestrate thought and action. The wasteful packaging that e-commerce sellers use, where an unbreakable can is swaddled in superfluous amounts of air-filled blistered polythene, and then placed in secure corrugated cartons both assures and signals assurance. However, as environmentally conscious consumers, we might have to perform our own virtue signalling, by opting out with explicit instructions to forego the extra safety.

consistent application of the branding program across geographies, media and applications, powerfully—and inescapably—communicates the owner’s ability to orchestrate thought and action.

Now that you can see signalling everywhere, and appreciate that it’s a human, social tendency, a skilled instinct and not a synthetic learned thing, it’s a surprise that not all communicators or designers are alert to the idea. We’ve repeated, since school, that actions speak louder than words, but we may have lost the essence somewhere.

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First published in a slightly modified form ‘Signal to message ratio’ in Business Standard, 16 March in Deep Design, a fortnightly column by Itu Chaudhuri.

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Austere titling identifies the grass-green juice as cold-pressed Mojoberry, wild-sourced, and full of natural antioxidants. Mixed only with spring water, it promotes healthy metabolism, and is plucked by Melgrovian gatherer communities. Like it? Yes, especially when you learn that 1% of gross sales go to keep the intellectual property rights within the forester groups.

Perhaps we have reached a point where it may be incumbent on every food business to locate itself on an ethical spectrum, even if its product is 100% manufactured, and synthesised entirely from the purest chemicals. Deep Design probes the phenomenon and salutes with both a nod and a wink, the sea of new brands that concern themselves with bettering the human condition.

In a sense, it was always thus.

For selling food has always been about health and trust; no purchase or sale has greater consequence. If the last century of food is partly about packaged convenience, then it’s also about its malcontents—processing to enhance taste, texture and shelf-life often achieved at the cost of lower nutrient density.

Health / ethical brands can be viewed as a corrective to modernity, arising from the body of society, using modernity against itself, and running contemporaneously with it. As analogy, consider the human body, which can makes antibodies against pathogens, and hormones to digest a range of foods. It is exquisitely evolved to fight or adapt, and both the stressors and their anti-stressors go back many aeons.

Health / ethical brands can be viewed as a corrective to modernity, arising from the body of society, using modernity against itself, and running contemporaneously with it.

Like the analogy, the opposition has evolved along with the mainstream it seeks to correct. As early as the 1930s, Robert Bootzin (1914-2004, also ‘Gypsy Boots’), an early icon of fitness and natural living in America, lived with other ‘tribesmen’ in caves, wore long hair, and lived off seasonal fruit. A media figure, he likely opened the door to alternate living, California style: yoga, vegetarianism, abstinence and organic food. The title of his cult book “Bare Feet and Good Things to Eat” says it all.

Food processing, new materials and manufacturing (plastics and aluminium), and new distribution formats are by themselves, merely modern enablements. What turns them into the sort of profound, discontinuous change that characterises 20th century modernity is that they serve the large food companies which have changed what food means. Food is no longer local, and we are distanced from the growers; we consume brands and variants, not varieties. It is hardly perishable, tastier than nature could manage and standardised. Its critics call it Big Food.

Accordingly, Big Food’s packaging, and that of its followers, stresses a kind of screaming, base attractiveness, optimised for the shelf, and conveyed through images that strain to detail (un?)natural perfection, apart from corporate reliability.

As with bodily stressors, Big Food is resisted by multiple antigens: local food, slow food, organic food, sustainable farming. Let’s call it Small Food. Acting in concert are new-age spirituality, fair trade, the rise in status of traditional knowledge, multiculturalism, and the public scrutiny that’s a feature of the internet age.

Tying some of these strands together is a lurking distrust of the establishment, comprising government, corporations, media and sections of intelligentsia. It is seen by critics as a cartel of interests and opinion: buy, eat, and be happy. Big Food is compared to Big Tobacco, and even food science is suspected of commissioned research.

These perennial themes suggest the ways in which Small Food packages itself. A whole taxonomy of design approaches offers a rage of antidotes. The folksy strand takes the ideal of artisanship to an delightful extreme: hand lettering and intricate, irregular shapes. They stress their distant, wild, sources, often with carefully enunciated ‘ethnic’ values. Another kind professes to be a medieval or modern apothecary, a herbalist, who has merely labelled his potions in the plainest of packs. Then there are the sciency types, stealing a leaf from the multinational playbook with a pristine, minimal laboratory chic. Mojoberry, in paragraph 1, might well be an amalgam of all of these.

Perennial themes in Heath/Ethical brands — a range of antidotes. The folksy strand: hand lettering, intricate, irregular shapes, the medieval or modern apothecary strand: plain labels, and the science-y kind with a pristine, minimal laboratory chic.

Common to all of these is an ethical approach to identity. Sources are all important to food, but the logic of manufacture, scale and standardisation makes authentic origins hard to claim for Big Food. Small Food exploits this weakness and paints itself as a person or community you can know, and thus claims a kind of personal authenticity. Trader Joe, as a name exploits this: remember that Small Food isn’t necessarily all that small as business.

Each of these design styles implies a claim to innocence of marketing, branding and commercial slickness: the herbalist, scientist and local grower all strive to appear artless. Patanjali’s gauche packaging has been claimed to fuel its stupendous rise; on the other hand, the super successful brand Innocent is an archetype of an extremely artful artlessness.

Patanjali’s gauche packaging has been claimed to fuel its stupendous rise; on the other hand, the super successful brand Innocent is an archetype of an extremely artful artlessness.

It is now possible to look at these healthful heroes with a cynical eye, as the ethical bandwagon seems as full of pretenders as any other. Has the antibody started to resemble a virus, which the immune system cannot detect? If so, Big Food can launch or acquire ethical brands. Great bodies coopt small ones to survive: our cells evolved from simple bacteria.

Bite by bite, sip by sip, Small Food’s positive antagonism might yet strengthen the food trade, making it more transparent, fair and wholesome. At least we can hope: watch those packs carefully.

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First published in a slightly modified form ‘Big Food, Small Food’ in Business Standard, 17 February, in Deep Design, a monthly column by Itu Chaudhuri.

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“It looks like a particularly unhealthy time to be a brand,” said the Slayer of Ordinary Design, a sardonic, sage and street-wise guru known more usually as The Sood, or sometimes the SOD, a term, as he pointed out, for a piece of turf—grass, earth and all.

“First, “ said the Sod, easing into a chair at the barbershop he’d chosen for our chat, “someone suggested that the logo had done its time, (didn’t you write a column on that, too?*) and was no longer central to the brand’s identity. Now you tell me that the art and science of packaging design—the best way to tell a brand story without advertising— is under attack from e-commerce. And I’m not feeling so well either,” he said, pleased with his humour, and fingering the unfashionably grown stubble on his jaw.

“I suppose the argument is that you already bought it, naked, on Amazon, so what use are clothes now that I don’t need to persuade you all over again, right?” I nodded, agreeing that it was a crudely correct summary of the view I’d encountered (packs need to be clean and simple, and stand out on the webpage and the mobile phone).

Truth be told, he went on, there’s something to the charge. The internet and the culture of marketing it brings is making life harder for the marketing as a whole, and packaging, too is a part of that. E-commerce strips your offering down to its objective essentials—you are a puny bunch of database entries. It emphasises price and facts, and turns it all into a entirely cognitive sale. You can’t be more than your product specs, and your brand vanishes in a click.

E-commerce strips your offering down to its objective essentials… You can’t be more than your product specs, and your brand vanishes in a click.

Also it’s difficult to build a relationship with something you can’t touch, where a human isn’t involved, and which you can return minutes after you’ve bought it.

How different things were! he said, taking in his greying hair in the mirror. Until just two decades ago, we bought from a neighbourhood store, with a counter in the front and a deep shop that you couldn’t enter, what’s known as a General Trade outlet. Most of the packaging is too far away to influence you. You came with a specific need; exploration was forbidden.
Perhaps you asked for a brand, learnt from newspaper or TV ads, or from family tradition. The shopkeeper gave it to you, or slammed down his recommendation on the counter, and asked how many you wanted.

When the pack came, your lizard brain kicked in. You had to decide quickly. Behind you was the street and to either side, fellow shoppers pretending not to notice your squirming in uncertainty, some openly staring, some offering or asking advice. Unless you could think of a reason not to buy, the deal was done. Conversation was all but ruled out. Retailer influence was decisive. Advertising and distribution decided matters. The pack’s job was to match the picture in the ad; and then to reassure you via a checklist of benefits, on the front, and then on the back of the pack.

In a way, he said wistfully, general trade is somewhat like an arranged marriage. The elders know best, and you may only refuse or accept. By that analogy, e-commerce is sort of like a responsible dating site, but with more information (vital statistics perhaps). Your partner has a small photograph to showcase herself; comparison is mandatory, and the volume and variety of choice can be stultifying. Reviews from previous daters are conveniently available, but read them at your peril. Rejections (called returns) are easy and commitment is slight.

General trade is somewhat like an arranged marriage. The elders know best, and you may only refuse or accept…e-commerce is sort of like a responsible dating site, but with more information (vital statistics perhaps)…perhaps modern retail is like romance, the start of an affair?

But in this story, said the Sod, we have jumped from arranged marriages, or general trade, to a responsible dating site, or e-commerce. In doing so, we have flown over what must come in between the two: Modern Retail. This type of shop has been proliferating rapidly since about 2000. It is the format where packaging comes into its own. In our analogy, perhaps modern retail is like romance, the start of an affair?

It’s useful to compare the demands on packaging for the three formats. In modern retail, there is no hurry to buy a product; in e-commerce it can be postponed indefinitely. There is little crowding and none of the enforced socialisation from shoppers; you are not on test. Retailer influence is minimal. The lizard brain is quiet, and love can flower.

In general trade and e-commerce, large, clear brand units are necessary to survive reduction when they are reproduced on a web page, and in the case of general trade, in advertising. These packs must be photogenic. Modern retail allows a more relaxed approach to the ‘shelf throw’ imperative that dogs all packaging design discussions: you are closer to the pack. You can pick it up, feel its material, and finishes. Premium finishes have impact; texture and material can be powerful influencers.

In general trade and e-commerce, large, clear brand units are necessary to survive reduction…Modern retail allows a more relaxed approach to the ‘shelf throw’… You can pick it up, feel its material, and finishes; powerful influencers.

Taken together, these characteristics of modern retail allow an unhurried, deeper narration of the brand on the pack, allowing smaller brands to compete alongside larger ones. Also since your pack stands alongside its peers from the category, it needs stand out from them, somehow getting to the essence of its proposition.

In reality, the demarcation between the three formats is not so simply acted on. For one, a pack, wherever bought, may begin a new life on another shelf: at home, in the bathroom or pantry. This is obviously true of, say,for example, a toilet cleaner, deodorant, or a Marmite jar. These can build relationships with their buyers anew. Even e-commerce presents the opportunity—and it is largely under-addressed— to impress the consumer at the point of receipt, when she beholds her date, once it emerges from the retailer’s protective packing. (The barber then took the hair apron off, and the Sod admired his new look in the mirror).

Equally, a product may be present in any two, or all three formats, so, never have the challenges or the opportunities of packaging been greater. Packaging design, under threat? It’s perhaps the strongest, and subtlest, means of turning consideration into conversion, to seduce the buyer into a long, meaningful relationship. Moreover, the pack is virtually the product, as I will explain another time.

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Brief

The design of the new variants to evolve from the broad design logic followed by the continuing variants of the old range, to be able to visually fit into the family and exude similar signals when showcased together on the shelf. But, the new variants were to be distinct to be registered as new additions, and develop a visual language which will pave the way for future variants.

As it was planned for a Summer launch the variants needed to exude cues like light, fresh, bright, working in consonance with the youthful variants names selected by the client; Crush, Wink, Flirt, a story of young love which the design needed to express. The client also shared that the variant name recall was very poor in this category and purchases were made mainly through colour ( Example: I want the purple can) and therefore the each of the new variants should be recalled by a single colour.

Study

The existing range showcased a consistent visual logic followed followed by the range —

1. two-coloured cans (one-third and two-third of the can)
2. geometrical lines and shapes as graphic style
3. cat mnemonic which expressed the variant name
4. bright can colours for great shelf throw and easy recall

But exceptions existed. The old range was designed in two phases by two different agencies and some dissimilarities existed between some of the variants.

1. Blast, which was the odd one out didn’t follow the linear line pattern followed by the others and was more connected with its variant name by expressing a visual blast.
2. The two-coloured logic followed by all the cans had its own exceptions. While Passion (Red) and Romance (Purple) used its two colours from the same family, Play (Blue and Pink), and Mystery (Pink and Orange) used contrasting yet consistent colours. And Blast (Pink and Black) was an outlier in all respects

Design Explorations

Design explorations attempted to understand the varying degrees of extensions and evolution one could take with the design routes and to assess how far we’re willing to travel from the existing set. There were two main criterias that needed to be decoded for the new variants.

1. Colour logic
2. Pattern style

We underwent two design exploration rounds —

ROUND I

Drawing from the existing set, round 1 presented options which were extension of the old design but still followed the core design principles of the existing set in the market.

Colour logic It was a challenge to introduce distinct, memorable and recognisable colours for the new variants as the commonly known colours were already being used by the existing variant set. We decided to opt for lighter colours for the new cans and presented:

1. Option 1: Evolving from Play and Mystery, showed a greater divergence between the top and bottom colours.
2. Option 2: Evolving from Romance and Passion had a greater convergence between the top and bottom colours.

Pattern Styles The existing set followed a pattern style of dense to lighter linear elements travelling from the top to the bottom of the can. The darker colour dominated the top while the lighter colour was at the bottom. Extending a similar linear elements logic we showed six new patterns over a spectrum.

We also played with the brand identifier, the cat mnemonic. The Secret Temptation cat is expressive of its variant name. We presented 6 cat mnemonics for the three variants; the final choices were Crush (cat with butterfly in its stomach), Flirt (cat with a tilted head and naughty tail) and Wink (the winking cat).

Take away The client moved further away from the existing set and decided to not merely extend the visual design but evolve it by moving away from the established look. The presented set seemed too close to the old range, with the new round we wanted to introduce new elements in the design.

ROUND II

We moved away from the established look, the extension mindset was replaced with evolution. We had more freedom to experiment with patterns, colours and lettering. New possibilities came up with varying degrees of evolution. We felt the existing range was cheerful, bright, and youthful indeed but lacked energy, had toned down femininity and was, maybe, too young for the target audience.

Colour logic Two more routes of colour options which played with various combinations and were light, summery and fresh.

1. Option 3: We moved away from white lettering followed by the range and experimented with dark lettering which allowed us to play with lighter colours which worked well with summer and freshness. It also opened up the possibility of a yellow can which wouldn’t have been possible earlier due to lack of contrast with the white lettering.
2. Option 4: We experimented with a white range, with a coloured top and bottom white. It exuded elegance, went with Summer cues that the client desired to associate with the new variants and also did well on shelf throw.

Take away The client decided to choose the colour logic of lighter can colours and white lettering. It considered the white coloured range to be a little mature for its intended user group. In pattern options, it decided to go ahead with the route which presented recognisable shapes on the can, like moths, bees, flowers, little elements that a young girl associated with romance.

Design Development

We went through a couple of rounds to finalise the colour and pattern options of the three variants. During this stage, we continued discussions on a yellow can. Though we felt that the white brand lettering of the chosen route created less contrast with the yellow background for legibility but the client wanted to take it to production to take the final call owing to the differentiation it’ll make on the shelf.

We also presented more shapes for the three cans. While the previous round had patterns like flowers, moths and lips. We also presented: bumble bees, kisses, and blossom for a final selection of the patterns style.

Final take away The patterns selected were moth, flower and blossom. And all the four colour options were to be taken forward.

Design Refinements

We worked to achieve uniformity across all three variants and worked in detail on each variant to develop unity of graphic style. We had to make sure that as a unit of three, these form a group and do not have variations amongst each other.

The patterns had to look uniformly denser and lighter, the break between the dense and the lighter parts had to happen at the same heights, and the colour variations had to match across all three.

Adjustments were made to make sure that no one can looks any noisier, or lighter than the other.
We worked on the back of pack information including texts like mandatories, usage caution, addresses and the like. Reference images of how the final cans will look, front and back, were sent to the client for approval before test printing.

Take away Client approved all the references and also parked decision on the yellow can, which was to be based on the test print results.

Production

We went through two rounds of production. Round 1 was test-printing which showed the first look of the printed design on aluminium cans and helped identify variations and gaps that existed between the screen images and the final printed samples. We also tested the yellow can in this phase.

Based on test print results, the yellow can was rejected as it made the brand name too light in contrast and modifications and alterations were taken up to ensure conformity of colour specs and patterns of the printed samples to the screen images.

We shared revised artworks and round 2 of test printing was conducted which had a desirable outcome and received final approval from our team, and the final cans were printed based on these artworks.

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Brands place a premium on attention, firing images and words shaped into messages to inform and persuade. Indeed, we live amidst a war for our attention, an exquisitely perishable wisp that lives in the now.

But like breath, attention is a quick burning fuel that enables the flow of communication but does not add to its stock: exhale, and nothing is stored. While thieving attention can change behaviour temporarily—quick, here!—more sustainable is a stock of deep meaning. It’s a layered, mysterious lode which reduces our need to chase ever smaller amounts of attention with ever greater resources.

The focus on what brands “wear, say and do”, a popular heuristic, leaves out what the brand or product “is”, an objective, unalterable, and irreducible factual residue that outlasts the messages put out by attention-capturing armies. Provenance, for example, can be overriding: Made in Germany is ‘German’ and therefore a high-spec engineering product.

The focus on what brands “wear, say and do”, a popular heuristic, leaves out what the brand or product “is”

Deep Design’s interest is in the visual atom of this “is”, not least because it falls on designers to shape. I call it Physique: the mental imprint of a thing’s physical image, as a sensory perception (and sight trumps the other senses). The impact of physique is automatic. It precedes, escapes and even governs conscious thought. We sense it before we ‘read’ the thing, treating it as the most reliable indicator of its attributes, whether on a shelf or on a street.

The impact of physique is automatic. It precedes, escapes and even governs conscious thought. We sense it before we ‘read’ the thing

An example is race, which if experiments are believed, still shows up as racism in modern-day US: respondents consistently took a fraction of a second longer to tag faces, choosing between opposites (e.g. dangerous or harmless) when they were African American.

Physique creates stored meaning, or what we call an image, that can be exploited later. I’d wager a new Rs 2000 note that some of demonetisation’s approval ratings are because it targets cash, which is the physique of black money.

The Automobile Story

Physique isn’t simply an image stored like a photograph. It’s the attributes that it implies that stick, and can cast a long shadow on the brand. I’d speculate that Mahindra, whose roots are in steel, succeeded with jeeps and tractors, which register as industrial, rectangular, tough and boxy. SUVs, in physique terms are gentrified jeeps, and found acceptance, but in passenger cars and two wheelers, expect a long haul. Maruti’s iconic small car is burned deeply into memory; did it make the brand’s journey to larger models that much harder? The sales of Swift Dzire, a very compact sedan, overtook its little Alto to become a top seller only in 2014.

Physique need not be only visual: sound and smell can be exploited. Iodex (of old) and Dettol are two great brands whose signature smells signal their potency. Dettol retained a not identical, but clinical smell, and successfully extended into bathing soap. Iodex has sacrificed its smell (was it iodine, we wondered?), its dark, stain-prone unguent and thus its mystique; it has lost itself in a sea of similarity.

Louis Cheskin, Sensation Transference

In the 1940s, the pioneering researcher Louis Cheskin famously demonstrated in an experiment that housewives liked a meal cooked with margarine (then considered to not taste like butter), but coloured yellow, as much as one cooked in butter. Cheskin called this phenomenon ‘sensation transference’. An early proponent of the unconscious influence of form and colour, Cheskin’s elaborate empirical methods had wide success, from packaging to cars (such as predicting the failure of Ford’s Edsel on the basis of design alone).

Personal and Commercial Packaging

Naked form trumps clothes, but clothes can matter. Gandhi and Castro are two popular leaders whose clothes became part of their physique, and defined them: one pacifist, one militaristic. It helped build an aura that proved hard for detractors to attack, and seems to have given supporters the faith to ignore disconfirming evidence.

The commercial form of clothes, of course, packaging. Packaging research is starting to accept that the structural shape is as important as colour (the default no 1 in packaging). Consumers rely on it to perceive hard-to-spot product attributes, more than graphics. But the influence of physique on packaging should not be understood as simple differentiation or attractiveness. This is not to discount the effect of physique on those two parameters: surely the success of Toblerone chocolate owes much to its unique physique, especially for children.

Similarly, elongated packs look bigger than their more squat equivalents even when they pack the same volume of product, and consumers tend to prefer the taller ones even after they know that they aren’t getting more for their money. Natural cork stoppers on wine bottles ‘improve’ the wine, as does the correct glassware for reasons real and imaginary. Yet that’s not the true, subterranean power of physique.

Eventually, physique in packaging unlocks the clue to personality, that near-human relationship consumers can sense in the brands they love. Marmite’s round bottle tells a maternal tale more effectively than an advertisement. Its physique slips into your mind, unnoticed, to do its work.

physique in packaging unlocks the clue to personality, that near-human relationship consumers can sense in the brands they love.

The role of a brand’s ‘wear’ is to reinforce unalterable, favourable prior facts such as provenance and founding inspiration (which may have its own physique). Deep Design has discussed in an earlier column the success of Patanjali’s product line, underpinned by Baba Ramdev, who brings a unalterable, unfakeable physique to bear on his personal brand. Several consumers I talked to saw Patanjali’s gauche packaging as signalling an economical price. Others saw in it a lack of artifice, “not being an MNC” and by inference, a sort of authenticity.

Physique matters. Paradoxically, the more we take it for granted, or somehow look past it, the more insidious its power.

Physique matters. Paradoxically, the more we take it for granted, or somehow look past it, the more insidious its power. When we think we see it, we may talk about its attractiveness or lack thereof, rather than its primacy and the power of its imprint. We need to look deep.

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Patanjali Ayurveda (Rs 4000+ crore) is FMCG’s most salient brand, and the most analysed. A spectrum of theories tracks its rocket-like rise—a branded-house architecture, its distribution model, low cost structure, its promoter’s charisma. But most intriguing is the explanation that one of the boosters of the Patanjali rocket is: bad design.

one of the boosters of the Patanjali rocket is: bad design.

Patanjali’s packaging, advertising imagery and point-of-sale presence could be called dismal. One of packaging’s key jobs is to signal quality. But Patanjali’s sloppy, nondescript typography, garish colour palettes and crude Illustrations bring to mind ‘cheap’ rather than inexpensive.

No Unilever manager would pass this packaging; but Patanjali grew 100% last year, Unilever at 4%. What’s going on?

Patanjali grew 100% last year, Unilever at 4%. What’s going on?

I talked to a range of consumers and non-consumers, from those who read the Business Standard (or ought to!) to citizens of Delhi’s lower middle class. No fans of Mr Ramdev; mainly agnostics, un-believers and a couple unaware (yes!) of his connection with Patanjali.

Most see this crudity as a marker of genuineness and quality, (some said they wouldn’t buy it, but could see why others would). It casts Patanjali in a ‘rural’ persona, too artless to access design. This chain of meanings links to purity and an untouched-by-progress quality that account for the ‘true’ flavour of its ghee and the efficacy of its toothpaste. Just ask around.

Indeed this yearning for the ‘remembered village’ lies at the root of all ‘goodness’ products. It can also be seen as part of a worldwide, visceral distrust of the modern corporation and the city. The late Wally Olins, the influential British observer and practitioner of branding called it the ‘new authenticity’. It drives people to organic and ethical brands, no-label labels, rooted in place and made by people. At a higher level, it fuels Occupy Wall Street on the left, and on the right, a demand for a plain speaking ‘authentic’ Erdogan or Trump.

“actually very good design with an Ayurvedic feel, as deliberate as Baba Ramdev’s clothes and hair”.

Is this ‘bad’ design deliberate? Sumit Roy, a well known brand coach told me it was “actually very good design with an Ayurvedic feel, as deliberate as Baba Ramdev’s clothes and hair”.

But deliberate? Not unless you see Mr Ramdev’s kesh and vesh as pure brand projection rather than lifestyle choice. And not unless Patanjali actually instructs its designers to stumble, like the circus joker adept at circus arts who clumsily ‘falls’ from the trapeze, losing his pyjamas on the way.

(An interesting side question: is deliberate still authentic? Dabur, a leading Ayurveda brand that must be feeling the heat, proposes a science-based Ayurveda, and cultivates an Ayurvedic feel, designed with the acumen expected of a modern marketer. Home assignment: compare Dabur with Patanjali on the dimension of authenticity. Who wins?)

Notice that Patanjali’s designs are not simply earthy, or with a culturally specific or kitschy charm, like Rooh Afza is. Nor do they project a lack of means: their packs are well made, of expensive material. Patanjali’s design intent appears to be to emulate the ‘enemy’s’ visual style, in much the same way that urban ugliness is often an awful homage to international architecture. So bad, that they’re good?

Patanjali’s design intent appears to be to emulate the ‘enemy’s’ visual style

To say that specifically low-quality cues signal authenticity flies in face of evidence. Or is it that packaging doesn’t count for Patanjali? The mechanism at work is ‘judgement by priors’ or a form of confirmation bias. Since Mr Ramdev guarantees authenticity (prior fact), all later stimuli are seen as evidence of it; this is intelligence in its role as a rationalising machine.

The lessons for, and from, design are several.

One, personality matters in packaging, beyond personalities. Even Patanjali buyers who didn’t know Mr Ramdev was behind Patanjali, couldn’t help forming these impressions from the packaging:’economical’, ‘genuine’ ‘closest to fresh’. Clearly, these packs seem to tellingly convey Patanjali’s personality traits. Revealing Mr Ramdev’s role did not reverse their impressions of Patanjali, even when they were not approving of Mr Ramdev’s public persona. Clearly, some ethical perceptions trump others.

But would Patanjali fly higher with well-designed packaging that cues quality, reliability and trust? Anant Rangaswami, editor of the TV program Storyboard, says that Patanjali’s noodles would give Nestle a bigger fright if they were better designed.

Yes, with a caveat. Taste is a slippery guide to good design—it is a cultural phenomenon, dependant on class. There are no universals. Audience specific cues need to be understood and engineered.

A good story like Mr Ramdev may survive bad design, but good design, correctly defined, can further it.

Even Patanjali’s packaging holds some valuable clues, available to the interpreter. If it can extract its particular brand of ayurvedic appeal, and apply it to packaging and beyond, Patanjali can enlarge its audience to take in affluent doubters and earn a better price. It can do this without losing its grip on the imaginations of the millions who are driving its rise. Earthy, rural or authentic don’t need ‘bad’ design. A good story like Mr Ramdev may survive bad design, but good design, correctly defined, can further it.

This article first appeared in the 18th June issue of Business Standard under the column ‘Deep Design’ by Itu Chaudhuri.

The post Bad Design, my Goodness! appeared first on ICD | Blog.

This led us to dig up some of our all-time favourite products in the market, that still haven’t changed their packaging. And continue to have a loyal following. At least we love them.

What’s changed in markets and society that makes these products so special? Modern packaging promises efficiency, and speed lines of modernity; and marketing becomes more objective every day. These raw packs make a simple appeal to us: trust, unreasoned and authentic. A simpler life based on fewer questions and alternatives.

Change is good; we are in the business of change too. But sometimes, the memories that we have of products and their packaging enrich our lives decades after we first encountered them; they are a part of us. Our faith in them, and the comfort they provide while arrogantly defying marketing mantras and market realities is endearing and has everything to do with packaging. For these select few, a change in packaging amounts to a betrayal.

Here’s a list of these recalcitrant perennials which are like family—indispensable, and beyond reason, still in use—how do you throw away an aunt, however reluctantly loved she is? Some of these are branducts (one-brand products), some have product families; some are from family-run three generation businesses, and some are from major marketing or manufacturing companies; some are metro, and some mofussil. And some are regional favourites, with or without a national presence.

Bobby Sabun

A staple of the awful 80s, it infested the air waves with the following unforgettable and extremely long-lived radio spot (rendered from memory).

Woman: “Sun shah, Bobby saban da ki ‘bha?”
[Tell me sir, what is the price of Bobby soap?]
Man: “Sun meri billo, Bobby saban panj rupaye killo.”
[Listen sweety, Bobby soap costs Rs 5 per kilo]

Where: Delhi, pockets of Bihar, and Vividh Bharati

Boroline

Boroline was the go-to ointment for every scratch, burn or pain. It still is, in many households. Its dark green tube with black type (whatever happened to shelf throw?) is the defence against everything, and a near-beauty treatment. One of our studio members always carries it in her bag, and swears it’s the most effective thing.

Where: National, with a special place in the Bengali survival kit

Camel Geometry Box

The trusted equipment taken to every exam, mathematics or otherwise. One had to double check before the leaving the house, to see if one’s bright orange and yellow box was in the bag. Compass, protractor, divider: never mind that the last of these was mainly used to engrave Srilatha loves Arjun on the desk, or for a lunch-time duel.

As unarguable as Euclid’s postulates.

Where: As national as CBSE

Chiclets

The coolest thing you could chew on as a kid, apart from a seemingly witty comeback, was Chiclets. The classic is, of course, the white peppermint flavour.

The yellow and red packaging (you can see why we love it at ICD), with its bold Gothic type being antique and cool at once.

Where: Nationally cool

Sat Isabgol

The trusted box in the pantry that assured a clean digestive tract, producing, well, results from the time of our grandparents.

The lovely telephone and postal address does make us feel the call.

Where: North India, based on gut feeling

Lijjat Papad

Lijjat Papad’s creepy bunny and dopey boy endorsing the product, (hopelessly wrong perspective views) is a sight we have all grown up with. This little pack comes with a lot of heart.

Where: National, wherever women walk free

Mysore Sandal Soap

The familiar smell among your grandmother’s toiletries. She truly believes it’s good for your skin. And would gift you one when you got something she called ‘distinction’ in your exams.

The lush green box with delicate pink roses is enough to make anyone feel the old-school royal charm.

Where: National with a southern accent, in a Hema Malini way

Nataraj Pencil

Nataraj has been the trusted pencil for generations. It’s the stationery drawer essential, whether you’re a student or an 80-year-old.

Thank the Lord they don’t need new-age cartoon characters to endorse them.

Where: Pointedly national

Parle-G

Parle-G is a quintessential part of the snack dabba. It can be your meal, it can make you smarter, healthier, most of all, a very good child.

The pack that hasn’t changed since inception. Not in any essential manner, barring tinkering from time to time. The constants have been the little girl and yellow lines, that have survived and flourished on the shelf. Anti-depression comfort food for ever.

Where: National genius

Phantom Cigarettes

This little work of genius made you astronomically cooler and feel all grown up, even if you were just three feet tall. Phantom Cigarettes were, and are, chalky little sweet sticks that had a red ‘lit’ tip to boot. The real deal, you see.

This one should never go out of circulation.

Where: National, and the forests of Denkali

Roohafza

Withstanding the onslaught of newer summer drinks in the market, this dangerously red syrup remains a faithful staple of many endless summer holidays. The thick, gooey stuff, poured over a couple of ice cubes for the style conscious, was the easy-peasy drink was served to your aunt from out of town or your landlord. And which Itu swears cures heat strokes.

Where: National symbol of integration and a syncretic way of life

Swad

This little shiny silver packet that stood out in the kiryana dukaan. It’s a candy! It’s a digestive! It’s a mouth freshener! No, it’s Swad!

Where: Distinct North Indian flavour

Amul Butter

We will not insult this one by describing it.

Where: Utterly butterly everywhere

Laxmi Dhoop

The dabba found in most Indian pooja rooms. The goddess Laxmi, looking very Ravi Varma-esque stands in all her glory, endorsing the product.

Can’t argue with that.

Where: National and Godly

Pitambari

One doesn’t simply wash one’s brass ware, one uses Pitambari. This peach coloured powder is pulled out before every pooja to make  the utensils godly. Give it a place in the pantheon, we say: Lakshmi, Saraswati, Pitambari…

Where: National, with a special corner in the pooja rooms of the South

Sabena

Also a utensil cleaner, of the more ordinary kind. ’To clean anything’ as the pack declares, this power is, if we dare venture a guess, found under the sink of most kitchens. Not displayed like the more respectable bar soap, but beloved for its unfailing efficiency.

Where: National, with a spot under the sinks of the South

Kismi

You’d imagine that a toffee which proclaimed its primary flavour as elaichi, couldn’t have possibly been so popular. But it was. And it is.

Kiss me?

Where: National, but on the cheeks only

Finally

Your memories don’t belong just to you.

Join us and add to our list. May it grow, and may these packs never reach their expiry date.

The post We are Still Like this Only: Packaging Nostalgia, the Indian Way appeared first on ICD | Blog.