I was watching a TV programme about Philippe Starcke.
It was the only format that seems to be allowed on TV these days.
Twelve people get selected to compete for something.
Then every week two of them get asked to leave.
So this show was like “The Apprentice” with a barmy French designer in the Alan Sugar role.
They had twelve design students competing for a job at his Paris studio.
Personally I’m not crazy about Philippe Starcke’s designs.
They seem a bit too whimsical for me.
Nice perhaps, amusing even, but a bit trivial, and short term.
My start point for design is Bauhaus principles.
Form Follows Function.
First you define the problem, then judge the answer by how well it does that job.
With Starke it seems to be the other way round, Function Follows Form.
But as I was watching the twelve students present it struck me.
Although he and I are totally different kinds of creative people, this is exactly like every advertising class I’ve ever taught.
The students don’t get it.
They’re treating him like a teacher and he’s not.
They’re treating this like school and it’s not.
He set them a project that was “Design something that will be of benefit to the world”.
So they thought that was the brief.
But it wasn’t.
This wasn’t school and he wasn’t their teacher.
This was a TV programme and two of them have to leave after this project.
So the brief is actually, “Beat the other students”.
In which case the consumer has now changed.
It isn’t the population of the world.
It’s Philippe Starke.
So how can you convince Philippe Starcke that you are different to the other students and should be kept on the programme?
Well what he wanted, what every creative director wants, is to be surprised.
To be engaged.
To be told something we don’t already know.
In which case the brief isn’t to just sit down and start designing the same old stuff in new and exciting shapes.
The brief is to amaze him.
Tell him something he doesn’t know.
What we call, in our creative department, a “Holy shit!” factor.
(What Americans call a “Gee whizz” factor, or a “Wow” factor.)
Something that you look at and say, “Holy shit, I didn’t know that.”
So now the brief has changed.
Before you pick up a pencil or magic marker, you turn on the laptop and start doing research.
You start to investigate, to discover, to trawl through information.
Eventually something jumps out that makes you go “Holy shit!”
(Or “Gee whizz” or “Wow”.)
Something that, when you tell your friends in the pub, they’ll have the same reaction.
Now you’ve got something that the rest of your competition haven’t got.
You’ve got something different.
Something to make you stand out.
And that’s exactly how it worked here.
The first guy decided that, in future, we would need to live on the ocean and use the land for growing food.
Starcke said, “You ‘ave ‘ad a week, and zis is ze best you can do? Zis is boring, we ‘ave seen it all before. Zere is nussink new ‘ere.”
And the guy had to leave the course.
The next guy had designed a tunnel full of sensory experiences to make everyone appreciate the gift of life.
Starcke said, “Maybe you are a great marketing person and you weel make a lot of money. But you are not a designer. Zere is nussink new ‘ere.”
And he was thrown off the course.
Then a girl presented.
She didn’t show any designs.
She said, “Only 10% of the world has clean, drinkable water. We waste an amazing amount of it just by taking it for granted. I think we should have a small meter on every tap to show us exactly how much water we’re using every time we turn a tap on. I think that awareness will cut water consumption drastically.”
Starcke sat quietly for a moment.
Then he said, “Zat is amazing. Only 10% of ze world has clean drinking water? You are right, a meter weel make us see what we are wasting.
You weel make us think about zat every time we turn a tap on.”
And she went straight through to the next round.
Not by doing tons of beautiful designs for water meters.
I’m sure Starcke could do a better design than whatever she did.
But what she did was surprise him.
She told him something he didn’t know.
Something that made him think.
And that’s what he was looking for.
And that’s why watching that show was like watching every advertising course I’ve ever taught.
And every interview I’ve ever had.
Students forget what the real job of student work is.
They’re not doing real work to actually run in the real world.
They’re doing work to get a job.
Students forget who their audience is.
They never work out the real brief.
Except the ones who get the jobs.
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“Form follows function” is all very well - but what IS the function of a designed object? If the advanced function of an object is to inspire an emotional response (a smile, a feeling of wellbeing, a sensory pleasure in a shape within the hand), then Starck’s creations can be seen to achieve that function, over and above pure practicality.
Ha ha Dave.
Think what you said carries through to computers and software too.
Quite often, software people - even Apple - don’t care if something works as well as it should.
Just as long as it looks good and cool.
Amazingly, the world has become forgiving.
So people spend thousands on software (and other gizmos).
That don’t work.
But no serious complaints.
Because many have come to accept it as a way of life.
Hi Dave,
Enjoying your stuff.
Following the same reasoning - would you agree that winning a pitch is about winning a pitch, not actually providing a solution to a problem? The audience for one is the potential client but a consumer for the other…
I feel the same about pitches - the brief is never what they tell you it is, it’s usually ‘Make this brand manager look good in front of his colleagues’. Which then makes you feel like Gok Wan.
Dave
You constantly come up with things that are interesting and that make you think. Just like good advertising and design.
As you infer here, the world isn’t always what it seems. Phillipe Starke, like most, are not who we think they are. Most of the time hey are not even who they think they are. Sometimes the client says one thing but really means something else. It always pays to listen to what isn’t being said.
Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful - William Morris
Hi Dave,
I saw the first show of this. I thought of your classes when i watched it and because of those classes i thought exactly the same as you. If you saw the first show, they had to go to a supermarket and pick one product that was good and bad. Everyone did the same thing. Everyone looked the same. One guy (who i saw on the tube this week) planned on just taking pictures of the items instead of buying them (as it was about sustainability) but some of the girls changed his mind and therefore Starke hated it! His choices were awful (a cheap bike being one of them) but if he had just taken pictures he would have been different and went straight through to the next round. I sat and almost screamed at how these idiots could be on this show. But the point is, i think like that because you taught me that, so thanks!
Is that not the fault of our education though? A system that puts theory and memorising over thought and creativity. Design and marketing courses that teach you to answer a fixed brief in a fixed way not think like a real creative and (when needed) challenge it.
Rob
The answer surely is two books (portfolios).
Paul K.
Try this link:
http://www.cstadvertising.com/blog/2009/02/16/
Mike,
I agree, there’s a saying in basketball that sums it up for me: “You can’t shoot the ball if you ain’t got the ball.”
Rob,
I think the problem is people who put the onus on the teachers to teach them, rather than on themselves to learn.
If the teachers aren’t any good don’t blame them, change who you’re learning from.
Thanks for that link, Dave - I might have known you would have answered my point even before I raised it!
Now, who’s going to take on that comment of Robin’s - that Apple “don’t care if something works as well as it should. Just as long as it looks good and cool.” Not a remark that anyone who has used Mac OS and Windows, or an Apple Mac and a Dell, could possibly agree with…?
I agree dave, the teachers are themselves taught and pressured to teach in that way. It why most creatives (from what I hear from our senior creatives) come out of uni with completely unrealistic unimaginative books and have to be pushed to think like a real creative!
Liam and Mike,
(It’s great that you spotted that Liam.)
In getting-on-the-shortlist situations you don’t have to be better, you just have to be different.
When it comes down to the final two, then you have to be better.
As one who ‘educates’ others in creative thinking, creative advertising with a bit of strategy in the mix, i too have a problem with a great deal in education. we do take risks though, and we do get noticed - look at the chip shop awards, our students did well [ taking risks]. ironically, some agencies they have spoken with since are too scared to hire them as they are too \close to the edge\ The fact that they are standing out is actually going against them, despite having sound strategy and reasoned ideas.
what i was bemused at regarding the design for life programme is the post grads being unable to focus on a specific problem, ‘human beingness’ - they didn’t actually look at their audience, participants, potential market and find something that has yet to be created. our thing here is simple - thanking is questioning then question your thinking, and all the while remove unnecessary noise - i believe the same applies to design. there is clutter everywhere, so why create more? a bit of 180º thinking was required here…
I’m a student from Bucks and we had a talk from Steve Henry today, who had a similar viewpoint. He gave the example of the Gherkin building in London as something that you would look at at exclaim ‘you can’t do that!’ and is marvellous as a result of it being so different. ‘Codebreakers’ he calls them, succeed as they are unpredictable.
A few times on book crits, we’ve been told the client would never do this- drop it. Mostly we’ve been told to go mad with the brief, no matter if it would run or not, which ultimately sounds more fun for both parties.
Hi Sarah,
Think of all the advice everyone gives you a massive self-service buffet.
You take whatever you want, leave what you don’t, and how you put it together will be what makes you unique.
You can’t do anything totally 100% original, nobody does.
But what you can do is be a unique combination, and that’s new.
Hi Dave
I just started studying Advertising and Brand communication at UCA in Farnham-(being from London long communte)
I have to agree with you on students needing to teach themselves more and not just depend on the teacher. I think for the first time in a long while, im finally getting a tutor who is letting me use my brain more and not just depend on the brief. Time and time again we as students, go through education \sleepwalking\ through courses and getting the shock of our life when we are left to create our own paths. I love the blogs and the more i read, the more i get inspired to think outside the box.Being from south east london you are set in a mould and made to think by peers there is no way out. Aiming higher the everyones expectations is the only way to go.
Sometimes when you try and teach students these days, some of them are too cocky for their own good.
One must learn to crawl before one can walk.
Aside, why does advertising only look for creative talent from colleges these days, Dave?
Good question John.
It will make a good subject for a post, thanks.
Not being from London, I might be wrong about the hiring from colleges thing.
Read somewhere that the trend these days is to hire graduates from other disciplines.
Nothing wrong with that.
I mean, I think people should be hired according to their abilities.
But the new ‘trend’ seems to be to deliberately hire folks from other fields.
Not because they are good.
But to show the ‘liberalism’.
“One must learn to crawl before one can walk.”
exactly. I miss that too with today’s students.
http://ex-blank-page.blogspot.com/2009/09/in-reply-to-daves-great-posts-80.html
Dude this article rocks.
I gotta say, turn on your full feed in your RSS. I saw the first two lines of this and had no idea how brilliant, fun and engaging it was going to be. Almost missed it.
Hi Sean,
I tried to turn on the full feed RSS, but it seems WordPress won’t allow it.
If you can tell me how to do it, I’ll do it.
It’s already on, Dave.
Thanks Anca.
Technologically, I’ve reached the limit of my ability when I’ve turned laptop on.
His work is obviously not communicating his intentions to you too well if you have a gander at his TED lecture, but as barmy Frenchmen go he’s good value. http://www.ted.com/talks/philippe_starck_thinks_deep_on_design.html