Happiness by Design

(Goodbye 2020!)

31.12.20

This year has stop and made us all reflect. Below are some thoughts, and lessons from the year, as we say goodbye 2020.

Ask “Why?”

It’s the ‘why’ I keep coming back to.

During our strategic approach we ask our clients — Aside from profit, why should your company exist? Asking our clients this simple question cuts out the core and reveals the company’s truest purpose.

Through our design process we want to get to the the “why”. When we remove financial gain, why does the company exist? Why should it’s staff get up every morning and go to work? Why should customers give a damn about this company?

“People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it.”
— Simon Sinek

Asking “Why?” reveals purpose. Purpose can be deconstructed into an organisations core values. Core value pillars can be translated into visual metaphors. Visual identities are then created from visual metaphors.

Our goal is clarity

Our craft and expertise is distilling complex ideas into clear and understandable concepts. Brands must communicate so much through a simple image. If a picture speaks one thousand words, then a logo speaks a million.

Our role is to to filter, digest and communicate ideas into the most clear and communicative expression. Consistency and clarity are the foundations that a company needs in order to develop its brand. A company needs to be first understood, before it is memorable.

“Less but Better”
—Dieter Rams

We curate and filter then categorise and order, so that we can ideate and communicate.

“I admire projects that keep things small. Design is like a huge ship controlled by a tiny switch. Design is the power of this switch. I want to keep small, always doing the right things in design.”
—Naoto Fukasawa

BrandCraft exists to add order and simplify, communicate value and to help our clients navigate change.

Small teams do extraordinary things

“A camel is a horse designed by committee.”
—Sir Alec Issigonis, designer of the original Mini

Small teams cuts out opportunity for miscommunication. United by purpose, small teams get things done. Cutting out account managers, bureaucratic processes and hierarchy results in transparent and fast progress, in depth brainstorming meetings where everyone’s opinion is heard and valued.

Here’s to a great 2021.

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About the author, Adam

Adam is the design director of BrandCraft. BrandCraft is a branding and design consultancy based in Hong Kong. We specialise in branding, visual identity, corporate identity and rebranding.

Adam is a branding consultant and has worked with clients in the UK, USA, Hong Kong, Tokyo, South Korea and China. He has had self-initiated art and design projects exhibited at various galleries and museums including the Victoria & Albert Museum of Art and Design and regularly writes about branding and design theory.