So the other day I pulled out of my wallet a twenty, a ten, two fives and a couple ones. The fives had two different designs, the ten was a different color than the twenty, and the ones looked like they were relics from a bygone age. The question entered my mind, why does our money have to be so ugly?

Look, I’m not complaining about the big purple 5 on the new bill, I’m complaining that there’s no system enveloping the design of our money. It’s just a mishmash of vaguely related-looking concepts. It’s like whatever new idea they had for an individual design was added without regard to what came before or what would come next.

When the Supreme Court got kicked out of the Capitol building in 1935, they didn’t just house them in a couple of chicken coops in the back yard of the White House. No, they designed and built a suitable home for a co-equal part of the government. One that fit with the overall look and feel of other notable facades in Washington and reflected the court’s position relative to the other branches

In contrast, our current lineup of legal tender is a garish collection of individual thoughts that refuse to work in concert. A wad of our currency has all the design integrity of an airport parking lot filled with VWs, SUVs, and station wagons, all painted different colors, all from different manufacturers. Our money is supposed to be a reflection of the full faith and credit of our country. In a way, it’s the most widely distributed and most tangible reflection of our national brand. Shouldn’t it get the same level of thoughtfulness as our great buildings?

We could learn a thing or two from the British.

This is brilliant:

Funny, but NO: Rejected Valentines

Obviously, they totally understand their brand’s relationship with its consumers and are unafraid to capitalize on it. Good for them.

Just to prove that money can’t buy branding sense, two examples from Microsoft:

• IE.Next
  Apparently, IE 8 is going to be called IE.Next. Question: What’s the version after 8 going to be called? IE.After.Next? Next.IE.Next? IE.360? Maybe the guy responsible figures he’ll have been promoted by then and the problem will be for whatever schmuck comes after him.
• PlaysForSure
  Microsoft recently stiffed several “partner” companies — and at least twice as many consumers — when they set the world on fire with their Zune music player and its closed, incompatible, and (apparently) much more important (to Microsoft) DRM technology. Now, they’ve “rebranded” PlaysForSure as “Certified for Windows Vista”. I kid you not. It would be funny if it weren’t true. Even funnier is Nokia still releasing PFS devices.

Postscript: The “PlaysForSure” disaster should be a warning sign for the marketing kids at Microsoft. The cruel irony alone of using such a confident name (plays for sure…until it doesn’t) and then unceremoniously axing it should be enough to give them pause and consider the exit strategy of whatever new brand names they’re conjuring up.

As anyone who’s driven across Wyoming a couple of times like I have knows, it’s got to be one of the top five most beautiful states in our current collection of fifty. Its got Yellowstone, Old Faithful, the Grand Tetons, the Bighorn Mountains, Devil’s Tower, dinosaur fossils, and breathtakingly beautiful vistas. With all that, here’s their new commemorative state quarter:

What a missed opportunity. I know that cowboys and buckin’ broncos are a big part of their heritage (and that is their state symbol) but with all that natural beauty at hand, they pick what appears to be a chrome silhouette better suited for the mudflaps of an 18-wheeler hauling cattle to market? It’s not even an attractive engraving. It looks more like something cheaply produced in a South China metal stamping plant.

Today, the New York Times got smaller. Like, a lot smaller. It’s only an inch and a half, but as you can see above, when compared to the previous size, it’s quite noticeable. They say it will save them $10 million dollars a year and conforms to the way other papers are made. They didn’t change the layout; it’s still six columns, but they’re narrower by a quarter inch each. The masthead is smaller, as are the story headlines, but the typeface for the text appears to be the same size as before. Personally, I hate it. From a design perspective, I think the type is too big for the narrower columns and the big beautiful masthead seems just a bit too small. All in all, it’s a more awkward experience.

The bigger problem, though, if from a branding perspective. See, the Times is the greatest paper in the world. As the paper of record, it’s our first draft of history. It holds that position above all other American papers, and it’s well deserved. The fact that the paper was physically bigger than most other broadsheets helped reinforce it’s position at the top of the journalistic food chain, even if it was subtle. “We’re bigger because we’re more important. Deal with it.” Honestly, in some way, it helped justify its higher cost to readers like me. Now, with its diminution, it feels and looks like just another paper. In fact, they used that standardization argument in their justification of the move.

I know some will say that in this era of the embattled newspaper, this was bound to happen, even to the Times. They’ll say it makes good business sense. Ten million dollars is a lot to save. Sure, but what will it cost to save that money? The Times, like any other company marketing a product, needs to remember that a lot of consumers don’t base all their purchase decisions on the quality of the product inside the packaging alone. Premium brands differentiate themselves through experience. My experience enjoying the Times just decreased. It feels cheaper. It feels smaller. It feels standardized.

Honestly, I’d have paid a little more to keep the bigger sheets.

Doesn’t this feel a little like this? How well did it work the first time?

Real people (like your mom*) don’t buy things based on the number of bullet-pointed features found on the outside of the box. Apple knows that now. They learned it from the iPod.

* And don’t bother telling me that Helio isn’t selling their product to your mom. I know that. However, your mom (or, at least my mother in law) absolutely wants an iPhone.

One of the things that makes Apple’s product experience terrific is the first couple of minutes you interact with whatever shiney new thing you’ve just purchased. Clearly, Apple spends a lot of time engineering a dramatic and rewarding box-opening for consumers. In fact, I’d guess that Apple spends more time thinking about a consumer’s first interaction with a device than most companies do on their product’s entire user experience. It’s all part of the Apple show and is one of the reasons you see so many box opening ceremonies recorded online in step-by-step photo albums the moment the new goods hit the street.

Contrast this with my recent experience buying a Palm Treo 755p. Not only was the packaging all Sprinted-up (yellow…who picked yellow as their corporate color?) and totally utilitarian in nature, but the phone geek behind the counter got the privilege of breaking my phone’s seal by ripping open the box, turning it on for the first time, peeling all the protective plastic off, and basically manhandling the poor thing and mashing down all its buttons for 10 minutes before handing it over to me. I mean, it was warm and a little moist when I got hold of it and it was brand new. Can you imagine something like that happening in an Apple store? Who wants to get a brand new iPod all smeared up with someone else’s fingerprints before you even leave the store? Nobody.

In my opinion, Apple will need to figure out a new way to sell cell phones if they want to maintain their product’s mystique. I predict they’ve worked out a way to sell and activate their phones through AT&T that only entails the scanning of a bar code on the box. Everything else will happen automagically as soon as you boot the thing up. Anything less would not be a good show.

Now this is an Olympic logo. Beautiful work.

The graphic designer(s) responsible for the new London 2012 Olympic games logo should be dragged out of their office(s) and drowned in the same vat of 80’s nostalgia they drew from when creating their abomination. Oh. My. God. It’s ugly.

Via Daring Fireball.

Effective in branding itself as the low cost leader, Wal-Mart’s efforts to attract purchases of higher end merchandise have not met expectations according to a leaked report to The New York Times. Brand perceptions take years, if not decades, to craft and the report showcased a disconnect with Wal-Mart’s approach to reach new audiences. A key takeaway is that consumers are looking to the overall values of what the brand represents – not just “lowest cost”.

Special call-outs were made to local firms Target, BestBuy and Kohls on how their differentiating brand strategies have been successful in reaching new consumers.

All was not dire for the Bentonville crowd, they do take a leadership role in what is termed the “zero-time”shopper:

That [Wal-Mart's] environment is conducive to “zero-time” shopping, in which a customer spends just a few seconds thinking about a product, like a new bottle of dishwashing soap. “But people don’t buy electronics, home décor and apparel in zero time,” the report says.

Of course, I have to feature my favorite loyalty program to address zero time shopping. It’s all about the brand perception at the point of purchase while consumers are making the on-shelf decision.

Via The New York Times