Pop-Up Collaboration

Q: Is it a marketing agency? Is it an exhibition space? Is it a pop-up store?
A: It's all of them. And it's called 303 Grand.

I can't work out if this is the future of collaboration and making stuff tangible or an attempt to ward off the credit crunch by making the most of the space you've got. But either way, I'm in.

303 Grand is a store owned and operated by Street Attack in Brooklyn. From 1 day to 3 months, brands, artists or organisations have the opportunity to create an experiential pop-up store, plus they get the assistance of a marketing agency thrown in.

What a great way to collaborate with a tangible focus and outcome.

AT

Signs That Say What You Want Them To Say And Not Signs That Say What Someone Else Wants You To Say

Gillian Wearing exposes in her art the opposition between public and private faces. She called her work 'editing life'.

When I look at how people use brands I often think how we use them to tell the public world a story about who we are: or rather how we wish to be perceived by others. They are a way of protecting our private selves from disclosure. We carefully edit into our lives the ones which best represent our desired public persona.

And look at how brands are facilitating this in the way they present themselves to consumers: linked-in says I'm networked; facebook says I'm social; fairtrade says I'm ethically aware; Nike says I challenge myself. The list goes on.

Perhaps in the future, brands will start to facilitate a more open, revealing dialogue: a collective experience. A confessional platform for group catharsis, closing the gap between all of the fragmented versions of ourselves that exist out there digitally.

AT

Optimistic Design

Rochelle Canteen

Labour and Wait

Canteen

Design as culture

While not being explicitly 'british' - all these brands tell a story of a very classic and understated form of british design and lifestyle. They carry a sense of improvement through design, and refer back to the mid centruy period of design and industry that had such optimism and drive that it is still inspirational (for me at least) today. They express a form of design that is open, eclectic, collaborative and thoughtful, and also is aware of it's place in a wider movement of modernism which swept across northern europe through the 20th century.

And they do all this through the combination of space, product and people. Their spaces are meticulously designed expressions of what they stand for. They represent the 'content' perfectly and help tell the story of the brand in a well balanced and implicit way. Their product / content is of course the main reason to visit these places - and in each case they are outstanding examples of their genre. And the people who work there appear to live/love the brand - embodying the values through the way they interact with people - the best kind of brand advocacy.

And so, on the subject of expressing identity through design and objects, these are perfect examples of businesses and organisations who manage to tell a story of themselves, of what they believe in and what they are inspired by.


RT

Telling your Story to the World

Enough said (and eloquently, too). Hear, hear to Strategic Design and Branding company Swink.

AT