Design Rush Features Verhaal in Best Beauty Product Packaging Designs for 2023

The popular design website DesignRush is honoring the work of Verhaal Brand Design by featuring the brand identity and packaging design work we did for Marie Bertrand, Founder of SkinScience in launching the private label line of products, Aliquote Skin.

We’re proud of the work we did in developing the Aliquote Skin line and are happy to be receiving the recognition of our branding and packaging expertise.

You can access DesignRush’s feature of our work by visiting this page..

Here is just a sample of our Aliquote Skin work. You can view the full case study here.

Ground Control, to Major Brand

Last month in the town of Port Isabel, Texas they had a bit of a problem.

SpaceX had just test launched Starship Rocket, with the most powerful engine they’d built to date.

SpaceX expected the event to go down in history.

It did.

But not for the reason they were hoping it would.

The rockets engines ignited and a massive cloud of debris and thousands of basketball sized chunks of concrete were blown in all directions.

One of the chunks damaged the rocket causing it to explode moments after lift-off.

The good news is the rocket was unmanned.

The bad news was that for nearby Port Isabel it meant being blanketed in a gritty layer of sand, dirt and concrete.

It all happened because SpaceX, in its rush to launch, had not engineered the launch pad with a trench system to divert the rocket’s energy away from directly impacting the ground.

Months before, NASA had told SpaceX that their launch pad design could mean disaster.

But SpaceX ignored them.

So the launch pad got blown to smithereens destroying the rocket, and leaving Port Isabel buried under the remains of SpaceX’s crater of failure.

In my agency work, I’ve seen a number of brand launches follow a similar story line.

The client (SpaceX) is in a rush. The branding agency (NASA) recommends a proven approach. The client ignores it.

The launchpad (the brand) gets pulverized and the customer target (Port Isabel) gets covered in a lot of crud.

You usually refrain from telling your clients outright that ignoring your branding recommendations could mean disaster.

You might not tell them you’re the rocket scientist in your role as launch partner.

But when it comes down to it, you are.

And it’s your job to act like it.

Advocate for what’s right to create a successful launch.

And if you’re ignored, it might be a good idea to take a few steps back.

Put On Your Squirrel Suit

Have you ever seen those people who jump off cliffs in squirrel suits?

A squirrel suit (or ‘wingsuit’ as Wikipedia calls them) is basically a big onesie that has fabric panels sewn between the legs and between the arms and torso.

When you jump off a cliff, if you hold your body just right, you can achieve a sort of gliding flight, as opposed to just, well…free falling.

The first guy to try using a squirrel suit was a 33 year-old Parisian tailor named Franz Reichelt, who in 1912 jumped off the Eiffel Tower to test his invention.

Witnesses say he stared over the edge for quite some time before jumping.

It didn’t end well for Franz, but that’s beside the point.

It got me wondering about these more modern day squirrel suit flying people.

My big question is: “How do you practice this?”

That is, before jumping off a cliff.

I’m sure there is some way. A wind tunnel, doing it with a parachute, maybe.

But the real answer is…

You don’t. One day you just jump.

Eventually you just have to decide that this is the day you’re going to jump off the cliff.

Joey Cofone, the author of “The Laws of Creativity” once said, “Jumping off cliffs is the only way to grow.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Additionally, I’d have to add this: It’s also the only way to find out if you can fly.

Just last week, Lauren Williams, a member of the Brand Design Masters Facebook group from Australia had been staring at the edge of her personal cliff and thinking about it for quite some time.

“…literally months.” Lauren told me.

She made the fortunate mistake of posting a comment in the group about her hesitation and fear of starting to post content.

I say “mistake” because of course, I seized upon it and challenged her to post something by the end of the day…ok, it was a little encouraging push closer to the edge.

But that’s my job, right?

I told her I was going to check up on her about it, too.

And guess what happened? 

She put on her squirrel suit and did it. She jumped.

The most amazing thing about her first flight was that her first post was about…wait for it….being terrified about posting!

Honest, authentic, funny (I mean, come’on there’s a cat and a cucumber involved…) and IMHO totally brilliant for a first post.

If you’re curious about the cat and the cucumber, here’s the post. Maybe you can follow her to give her a little encouragement. 

The other Facebook group members cheered and congratulated her for leaping.

And flying.

Today I went back on her Instagram profile and there’s a 2nd post up there now!

This time it’s a beautiful reel of her portfolio and her services. A higher cliff. A more ambitious flight.

So, if you’ve been anxious, procrastinating, and staring over the edge of your personal cliff for quite some time.

Don’t think about the jumping part.

Think about the flying part.

And put on your squirrel suit.

Build That Wall

The Newhouse Wildlife Rescue in Massachusetts had a video go viral last week.

The video features Nibi, a resident rescued beaver who recently got a new beaver roommate, Ziibi. It seems that Nibi and Ziibi didn’t immediately hit it off.

In fact, Nibi hated Ziibi’s guts.

So the Newhouse staff decided to separate them for a while to cool things off and took Ziibi out of the room they had been sharing and put her outside in an attached enclosure.

As soon as Ziibi was outside, Nibi couldn’t stand still.

Let me set the scene: The internal enclosure is room with a tiled floor with cages, food bowls and toys to keep the beavers occupied. They also keep a bunch of sticks laying around, because...beavers like sticks.

Nibi immediately started gathering every stick she could find and started to build a dam in the doorway to keep Ziibi out.

One by one she’d pick up a stick and flip flap her little beaver feet across the tile floor and start stacking them upon the doorway.

She had to build it. Now.

It wasn’t perfect.

It wasn’t pretty.

Maybe it wouldn’t even work.

But she had to start because this was her chance to carve out her territory.

Teddy Roosevelt once said, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

When we have a troublesome new competitor or business challenge, we often hesitate, doubting whether we have exactly the right answer.

We weigh whether we are in exactly the right place in time to work on it.

We might spend hours pondering the decisions we have to make or the resources that we might need.

We’ll take an inordinate amount of time designing what will be the perfect solution.

But to carve out your territory, you just have to start.

You do what you can.

With what you have.

Where you are.

It’s not going to be perfect.

Or pretty.

Hell, it might not even work.

But starting is better than standing still.

How Short-form Content Is Taking Over the World

Let me ask you a question:

Why are you reading this?

Probably because you’re interested in content marketing, but also my guess is…because it’s short.

Well, short-er as far as blog articles are concerned. 

I mean it’s certainly not a 5000 word keyword-packed bloatware piece that’s going to require your entire lunch hour to consume.

You wanted some fast, actionable, bite-sized pieces of information to make your business better, to get your marketing mojo pumped up again, something you could use to help your clients.

Let’s call it ‘snackable content’.

What else is snackable? Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, 5-minute podcast episodes.

It seems like short-form content is taking over the world these days.

The 800lb. Gorilla

So, why is this happening?

The bigger sociological trend influencing short-form content is that we are all strapped for time. Folks want their content delivered like they were running out to the 7-11 for milk. A quick in and out.

But the bigger influence is that there happens to be a new 800lb. gorilla in the room that everyone is freaking out about.

TikTok

TikTok recently became the most heavily trafficked website in the world. They now get more traffic than the Google’s search engine. A stat that is blowing a whole lot of people’s minds.

And everyone wants a piece of TikTok’s viewership pie.

YouTube is trying to compete with YouTube Shorts. Instagram has Reels. There’s also Snapchat Spotlight, Triller, Byte, Hippo Video, and others jockeying for position.

Instagram has started leaning so heavily into promoting ‘Reels’ that they’ve begun taking ‘regular old’ images users are posting and are turning them into reels – without the person who posted it even knowing it’s happening.

Adam Mosseri, CEO of Instagram, recently posted a reel acknowledging that many O.G. Instagrammers are pretty upset about what is happening to the platform. So much so that he decided he needed to respond to their concerns in a post, explaining how “Instagram is still committed to its account holders who mainly focus on posting images.”

Personally, my ears perked up when he used the word “still”. 

In my experience, tech leaders have a tendency to say they are ‘“still” committed to something just before it goes away.

Time will tell.

On the audio front, many podcasts are experimenting with short-form podcasts that are 5-8 minutes in length. 

With short-form audio, as a listener, it’s easy to slip from one episode to the next when episodes are so bite-sized. You get to hear more topics with less fiddling with your podcast app interface. 

Much to marketers glee you also happen to get exposed to more ads and sponsored endorsements in a shorter amount of time.

Faster Pussycat
Our collective attention span has decreased to the extent that people are even getting impatient with the long-form content they’re consuming. 

YouTube notes that viewers often skip ahead many times during a long-form video. The platform recently introduced ‘chapters’ functionality to try to address this fact, so people could self-navigate, or curate longer-form content to reduce the time it takes to consume it.

YouTube viewers are also increasingly watching long-form videos at faster playback speeds. YouTube says 1.5x speed is the most common, with 2x coming in a close second. 

Now, for content creators and marketers the tidal shift to ‘snackable content’ has some benefits. It takes less time to create it, so you can create more and post more often. 

Because you are posting more frequently, your chances of getting a brand impression are higher – even though that impression might not be as deep.

Also, short form content feels more shareable, so your chances of consumer-amplified exposure are higher, too. 

Most importantly, you’re showing your audience that you value their time, that you are paying attention to how they want to have value delivered to them.

It Needs a Spark

One important consideration to bear in mind when creating this sort of content is something you might not have spent too much time thinking about. 

That’s ‘entertainment value’.

This is another notable side-effect of the TikTok phenomenon.

With short-form content, because your time communicating to the viewer is shorter, your content has to have a bit of ’spark’ to it. It has to have some energy. Maybe even a bit of fun.

Mainly because it could very well be bookended with a video showing the latest internet dance challenge and another one of a skateboard kick-flip fail.

That’s because the algorithms that are deciding what videos to serve up to you are still in the toddler-stuffing-Cheerios-into-the-dogs-nose phase of development. In fact a few of them, Instagram most notably, are pretty broken. 

Now, all this is not to propose that long-form content is going away. It’s not. There are some ideas and topics that you just can’t do justice to in short-form content.

Rest assured, the 5,000 word, SEO keyword packed, heavily referenced and backlinked blog post still has its place in the world.

Turning Tides

But when the tides change like this in the world of content and business, it’s best to be paying close attention. 

It’s never a bad idea to pause, re-evaluate your analytics and adjust your marketing efforts to be sure you’re still hitting the targets you’ve laid out, both for engagement and conversions.

The data in HubSpot’s 2022 video marketing report speaks for itself:

     •  Short-form video ranks #1 for lead generation and engagement

     •  Marketers will invest in short-form video more in 2022 than any other format

     •  85% of marketers say short-form videos are the most effective format on social media

With these stats in mind, if you aren’t actively experimenting with the creation of some type of ’snackable content’, you’re very possibly missing the biggest wave in social media since the invention of the Tweet.

Succeed in the Creative Economy - Verhaal Brand Design

Check out this great profile that Go Solo did on us on Substack via SubKit.

HERE’S THE ARTICLE

If you want to know more about Go Solo and SubKit:

GO SOLO on SubKit

Instagram: @subkit

LinkedIn: @subkit

Twitter: @wearesubkit

The Marketing Miracle Diet

I’ve always been a tall person.

But for most of my life I was also pretty thin and could eat just about anything I wanted. It never affected me much.

My wife, Beth hated me for it.

But then, I hit middle age.

Slowly the proverbial ‘spare tire’ made an appearance. The progression was sneaky, a pound here, a pound there.

I just hadn’t been paying attention.

At 6’3” I’d always hovered around 185 lbs. But I realized somehow I had ballooned up to 225. None of my pants fit. Something had to be done.

So I asked Beth what I should do. She suggested that maybe I start counting calories.

Calories mattered? Who knew!

So I said to myself what any techie middle aged guy would say: “There’s gotta be an app for that!”

I found an app where you enter in everything you eat and it totals the calories so you can control your intake.

To tell you that I had no idea at all how many calories were in food would be an understatement.

Did you know a Hostess Apple pie, (which up until then qualified as ‘health food’ as far as I was concerned) has over 500 calories? That’s 1/4 of what my TOTAL daily intake was supposed to be!

So I counted. I paid attention. I tracked my numbers and put in the work.

And guess what? In just a few months I lost 40 pounds and got back down to 185.

So what does losing weight have to do with branding and marketing?

Maybe you have been using the same marketing tactics for years.

Running the same ads. The same copy. The same platforms.

Your results slip a little, a couple fewer leads each month,a little less engagement. Nothing dramatic.

Just a slow leak of branding effectiveness.

And suddenly you realize your brand has gained 40 pounds and is eating Twinkies on the couch at 11:00am on a Thursday.

Analytics really matter? Who knew!

So what’s the solution?

You start paying attention. Start tracking your numbers. Put in the work by changing some behaviors.

...I wish I could say that there is an app for that.

But there isn’t.

One Man Brand

You may not know this, but I’m not just a design and branding guy. I’m also a musician.

I’ve been playing guitar and bass since I was a pre-teen and am now learning to actually read music and play piano.

I’ve done multi-track recording from the days of 4-track cassette machines to today, recording digitally with Logic Pro.

The cool thing about multi-track recording is that you can play all the instruments yourself and sound like a huge band.

Which leads me to a TikTok video I saw yesterday that completely blew my mind.

Maybe you’ve seen it too.

It shows a somewhat chubby guy (hey, I’m not shaming here, the dudes got his bare belly hangin’ out and you can’t not see it) who’s playing the guitar, while he’s playing the drums and singing all at the same time.

He’s actually hitting the drums with a drum stick and strumming chords with the same hand simultaneously.

He sounds like a full-on rock band that’s pretty much kickin’ ass and takin’ names.

But he’s also working really damn hard to do it.

What kicked on my branding brain though was a comment someone left on the video:

“Why doesn’t he just get a couple pals to help out? Can you image how much more awesome he would be?”

When we consultants, freelancers and entrepreneurs first start running our businesses, we need to keep expenses low and take huge pride in doing everything ourselves.

We try to be a one-person band. We do the branding, the marketing, deliver the products and services, we do the books, we do all the admin.

In the beginning, we can kick out the jams solo for the most part.

But eventually one day we realize it’s really damn hard to do it that way.

And then we ask ourselves: What if I got a couple pals to help out?

We have to figure out how to scale.

Because when we do that, we find out how much more awesome we can be.

So Hot Right Now

Hoy Fung Sriracha, also known as "Rooster Sauce”, is a billion dollar brand.

The sauce was first produced in the 1930’s by a woman named Thanom Chakkapak in the town of Si Racha in Thailand.

Sriracha started off as a condiment for pho and fried noodles, but it now is also eaten in soup, jams, cocktails, eggs, burgers and even lollipops.

Hell, Lay’s even puts it in potato chips.

Sriracha is one of the most recognizable hot sauce brands in the world.

It has very distinctive packaging. A simple clear squeeze bottle with a white rooster illustration showcasing bright red product inside and a green cap.

But the most remarkable thing about Sriracha isn’t its popularity.

It’s how it got that popular. 

It’s that Sriracha became a billion dollar brand without advertising.

Not one dollar spent on ads.

Instead, Hoy Fung relied entirely on word-of-mouth.

A word-of-mouth marketing strategy relies entirely on the quality of the product.

It relies on the brand delivering a remarkable customer experience every single time.

But it only works if your product is so damn good that everyone wants to tell their family and friends about it.

So good that people can’t not talk about it.

And Sriracha is that damn good.

And that’s what Hoy Fung did. 

They delivered a consistently exhilarating flavor experience for 90 years.

Of course, word-of-mouth has existed since the beginning of time.

But with the mass adoption of the internet and the social sharing technologies that have come with it, the power of word-of-mouth has become supercharged.

You might even say red hot. *sorry, couldn’t resist*

So if you want your customers to do your advertising for you.

You have to start with the product.

Make it that damn good.

So people can’t not talk about it.

And let the internet take it from there

slip and slide

Something was happening at the house with the slip-and-slide.

What was happening was that there was a lot less happening.

A few blocks away from us is a house where the kids have a slip-and-slide that was an irresistible magnet to all the kids in the neighborhood when the weather got hot.

That yard was packed with neighborhood kids running around, getting wet, laughing their heads off.

But then it wasn’t, and the kids who lived there were wondering where all the other kids had gone.

What they didn’t know was that the family two doors down from us had recently purchased a palatial bouncy castle water slide complete with rotating sprinkler arms.

But the kids at the slip-and-slide house didn’t know that.

They just knew that no one was showing up to play.

Clients come to me with the same problem.

Customers aren’t showing up like they used to and they don’t really know why.

And they don’t know what to do about it.

When I am assessing a clients brand, one of the things that I am frequently amazed by are blind spots they have in really knowing who their competition is and what they are doing.

A competitive audit is one of the most illuminating phases in a brand re-design project.

How does your brand stack up to others in the competitive landscape?

How are they articulating the problem/solution/capabilities message to prospects in a compelling way?

How are they creating differentiation?

Assessing the competition invariably makes it very clear what the problem is and what needs to be addressed.

Because if you don’t know there’s a new bouncy castle water slide down the street…

You’re just going to be left standing in your yard wondering where everyone went.

Hot Then Not

Everything was going great in high school until that new guy showed up.

Let’s call him Fabio.

Fabio was tall, wore the coolest jeans, but what really did it was his hair.

Fabio had long hair and it was driving all the girls to distraction. All they could talk about was Fabio’s hair.

In the halls they were always staring at Fabio.

Fabio was hot.

It goes without saying that all the other guys in school were feeling - let’s just say: under-appreciated.

So what did they do? One by one they all started to grow their hair long.

Even that guy with curly hair. He was the only guy with curly hair. He had to grow it twice as long because it took twice as much to look long.

Now he just looked like everyone else.

Then it happened.

One day Fabio showed up to school with short hair.

Now short hair was hot.

The other guys were now thinking: ‘Damn, I just spent all this time growing my hair out. I used to have short hair! What was I thinking?’

Well, that’s what’s happening in social media right now:

Fabio is TikTok.

Long hair is short-form video.

And the curly haired guy is Instagram.

TikTok recently announced they are going to be accepting 10 minute videos soon

....and everyone else is still deeeep into growing their hair long.

In fact Adam Mosseri, CEO of Instagram just announced to accountholders that Reels weren’t going to replace photos. He said Instagram is ‘still’ committed to photography.

Even though it certainly doesn’t look like that to anyone paying attention.

The moral of the story is that one minute what is hot, the next minute will very likely be not.

So it’s usually best to hold on to your core competency.

I’m not saying short-form video is going away. It’s not.

But when everyone starts looking just like Fabio...something is bound to change.

The Numbers Game

Before I was a branding guy, I was a fine artist.
I actually have a masters degree in painting - not graphic design. Graphic design I picked up along the way. But that’s a story for another day.

What I really want to tell you about is one of my favorite artists of all time, Pablo Picasso.

In his lifetime Picasso created over 150,000 works of art. Drawings, sculptures, prints, engravings, murals, ceramic sand paintings.

It could be argued that he was one of the most prolific artists in history.

He banged stuff out right and left. Boom, there’s another drawing.

His studio was literally littered with...well, Picasso’s.

Boom, here’s another one...

He didn’t get caught up in perfection.

Now, let me ask you a question:

How many of these 150k works of art are considered to be masterpieces today?

Probably less than 100.

I know there is some curator out there turning red in the face right now thinking...”But every Picasso is a masterpiece!”

The fact is, less than .5% of the artistic content he produced ever mattered in the long run.

So if you’re creatively stuck and are being a perfectionist about that one piece of content you have had on your marketing ‘to do’ list for weeks...

Bang it out.

Because creating masterpieces is a numbers game.

You just have to start.

All Together Now

Somewhere along the line when I was coming up in my professional career and just starting to pay attention to business and brands and marketing, I heard an interesting little factoid that stuck with me:

There has never been a major war in a country that has McDonald's.

At the time, this is how I parsed that statement:

Big companies and global capitalism is so invested in making money that they (by hook, crook, or political maneuvering) won’t allow a war to disrupt commerce in any way.

It said that big business controls us all, controls culture, that we exist to serve them.

But something happened a few weeks ago that made me question that assumption.

What happened was that McDonald's announced it was closing 850 stores in Russia in response to that nations unprovoked attack on Ukraine.

For a monolith like McD’s to close 850 stores as a show of solidarity, as a reflection of the will of the people to protest, to sanction, to fight back is pretty freakin’ cool if you ask me.

Cool, because it shows me that big business can serve us.

When we unite, we control them.

And because McDonald's listened and responded to the will of the people, they increased their brand loyalty in the hearts and minds of billions around the world.

It gives new meaning to the words on their signs:

"Billions and Billions Served".

First Off the Starting Line

When I was growing up a local newspaper sponsored an amateur bike race to engage the community.

At 13, I had just gotten a new Schwinn 10-speed bike which were the new thing. It was a serious move up from my Schwinn Stingray. Although I have to admit I missed the racing slick, banana seat and sissy bar.

My Dad encouraged me to put my new bike to the test and sign-up for the race. I thought, “Why not, I have a 10- speed now. It’s a piece of cake.”

The race was taking place in a hilly industrial park. There were no age groups. It was mostly adults, I was one of the few kids.

They blew the whistle. I sprinted off the starting line. I left the whole group in the dust.

Everything went great until I hit a hill at about mile 2. My legs were burning. I was sucking air.

And then one by one, over the next 3 miles, every other racer passed me by. Even the other kids.

I’d started first and finished dead last.

I suddenly realized all those other riders had one thing I didn’t have.

It’s something I carry with me to every client meeting and every project I work on today. Whether it’s branding, marketing, product development, competitive positioning or innovation.

To come in first you have to have a strategy.

Then winning is a piece of cake.

Good luck ignoring the alligator

In 1933 a German psychiatrist named Hedwig von Restorff did a study.

She presented human subjects with a list of categorically similar items, with one distinctive, isolated item on the list.

When their memory was tested about the list of items, the memory of the distinctive item as always better than the rest.

The phenomenon became known as the “Von Restorff effect”.

For example, if you have a list where one item stands out against the others, for example: desk, chair, lamp, table, rug, bed, alligator, couch, dresser, armchair.

“Alligator” will be remembered the most.

It also turned out that the effect happens when you alter things like size, shape, color, spacing, fonts and underlining.

In this case, let’s say you have a shopping list with 20 items on it including: eggs, milk, bread, apples, chicken, lettuce, onions and cheese, etc. Then you color the word “apples” with a yellow highlighter.

Almost everyone who reads the list will remember that the list had apples on it.

In trying to win in todays market, many brands focus their time and energy trying to create better products or deliver deeper functional benefits or more meaningful emotional experiences.

But the fact is - that in the war for consumer attention, the most powerful method of establishing brand recall is to be different.

Just somehow noticeably - different.

We are now all doing business in an “Attention Economy”.

So, if you can just stand out in a sea of sameness…

You win.

Wish You Were Here

Our national parks are a treasure. They are some of the most beautiful and awe inspiring places in our country.

Yosemite, Yellowstone, Zion, Grand Canyon, Arches, Sequoia, Grand Teton. The names alone spark visions of splendor in almost everyone who has visited one.

Almost everyone.

With more and more people’s travel limited by Covid - our national parks are experiencing massive surges in visitor volume.

Now, if I know one thing about marketing, it’s that people write more product reviews when they hated something than when they loved it.

When people love something, the last thing they usually think about doing is going back and a writing a glowing review. They’re too busy being happy.

But, when people didn’t have such a great experience, the chances are pretty good they will look for a way to vent their displeasure.

Here are some reviews from our national park websites:

Sequoia National Park: “Terrible. There are bugs - and they will bite you on the face.”

Grand Teton National Park: “All I saw was a lake, some mountains and some trees. That’s it.”

Yosemite: “Trees block the view and there are too many rocks.”

…and my personal favorite:

Grand Canyon National Park: “A hole. A very, very large hole.”

So if you - or your clients - are getting some rough reviews or less than glowing comments on your content, products or services, take heart:

There are many, many more people who loved it than will ever make the time to write about how happy it made them.

You Think it’s a Mistake but it’s Actually Perfect

At the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey perfection was my goal.

I wanted to create perfect logos and websites. Upload perfect videos. Publish perfect blog posts. Send perfect emails.

But it was paralyzing.

And because of that, nothing was getting done.

Five years ago this month, when my finger was finally hovering over the “send” button for the very first issue of this newsletter, I was sweating.

What if I made some grammatical error? What if one of the links goes to the wrong page?

What if something is inaccurate and makes someone, somewhere, somehow irritated at me?

But it turns out I had it wrong all.

Since the 16th century, the Japanese have practiced an aesthetic concept that they call “Wabi-sabi”. It celebrates the slightly flawed, the not-quite symmetrical, the unrefined.

It can be seen in pottery with rough uneven edges or intentional chips, in architecture with off-center roofs, in the patchwork robes worn by Buddhist monks.

It embraces the idea is that imperfections are where the beauty lies.

That the true value resides in the flaws.

We should all remember Wabi-sabi when we go about our marketing work, design work, project work, our conversations with clients.

Because perfection isn’t the goal, it’s the enemy.

It’s the imperfections that make us relatable, interesting and authentic.

And they also help us get things done.

Shedding Some Light

There’s a star at the very tip of the handle of The Little Dipper.

Its astronomical name is Polaris. But, we call it The North Star.

The North Star sheds a lot of light. In fact, it’s 4000 times brighter than our sun.

The really cool thing is that when you look at it, the light you are seeing was actually generated in 1587.

Its light has traveled for 434 years to reach us.

To fill us with wonder and to help travelers navigate.

When I was reading about the North Star I was reminded of a video I did 4 years ago called “9 Things Your Brand Design Must Have”.

When I shared that video on YouTube I didn’t really know what would happen.

I just posted it and hoped it would help someone.

Time passed...

Then someone watched it. Then another and another.

Now, 4 years later it has 382,000 views. And it still gets about 7,000 views a month.

That video sheds light on a topic that has helped a lot of people navigate brand design.

As marketers and creatives we do this stuff all the time.

We produce creative work, content, media, share valuable information. Then we post it out there in cyberspace.

We don’t know who it’s going to help. Or when it will reach them.

But we have to remember that providing value takes time.

And that it will continue to shed light for years to come.

The Wrong Ingredients

There is a marina in Lahaina, a small town on the western coast of Maui, Hawaii and it's home to one of the best scuba diving sites on the island, Mala Wharf.

Mala Wharf is a collapsed pier that extends hundreds of feet into the marina. The submerged slabs and pillars of concrete create an artificial reef teeming with tropical fish, eels, rays, lobster and octopus.

The wharf didn’t collapse with age. It didn’t collapse because of a hurricane or some natural disaster. The wharf’s demise was the result of a bad recipe.

You see, when you make concrete with fresh water the material essentially becomes stone and will last for decades.

But when you cut corners and use salt water instead, the concrete seems OK for a few years, but then it begins to crumble.

Unfortunately, they used the salt water recipe for Mala Wharf.

After the wharf collapsed it was going to be far too expensive to clean it up. So they just left it there - and let the marine life take over.

Building a successful brand is like building something out of concrete.

You need to use the right recipe.

You need a solid brand strategy, a stunning brand design and to create an impeccable brand experience.

If you cut corners, before you know it things will start to crumble and cleaning up the mess gets expensive fast.

But if you use the right ingredients and a proven recipe, that brand will last for decades.

Create Your Wonder Wall

A couple years ago they made an amazing discovery in the Colombian Amazon. They call it Serranía La Lindosa.

It’s an 8-mile-long rock wall. A “canvas” completely covered with ice age drawings of mastodons, giant sloths, geometric designs, human figures in hunting scenes and nurturing plants and trees.

The ochre pigment has lasted for over 12,000 years telling the story of the indigenous people who painted it.

Now let’s be clear...

These people didn’t paint an 8-mile mural in a day.

It started with a single drawing. Then the first tiny scene. Then, over hundreds of years it became a vast panorama of images crowded together, mile after mile.

But what if they’d decided after the first mile that it was enough. That it had all been said. The wall was already so crowded. Who would see their pictures? Why bother adding to it?

We’re glad now that they resisted that impulse.

The stories they used to document, to educate and even possibly to entertain, are still informing us now.

Fast forwarding to today. Many of us are creating content to communicate, to build authority, to make our presence known.

We need to take a lesson from these Amazonians.

Don’t be intimidated by the vast crowded canvas of the internet.

Don’t think that your story is just adding to the noise.

Make your mark. Build upon it. Invest time, effort and intellectual capital.

Build a body of work that speaks for you. That works to tell your story.