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February 19, 2007
Inspire 2007 - Are stories necessary?
This past weekend I was fortunate to attend the Savannah School of the Art's Inspire 2007 Symposium. Right from the website - "INSPIRE 07 is a one-day symposium held to encourage the discussion and exchange of creative ideas in broadcast design, motion graphics and media art." Pictures were taken - you can see them here, if you're into the antics of my co-workers and I :)
I was a bit dissappointed that the speaker from Schematic was a no show ( due to weather/flights I think ) - personally, that seminar sounded the most appealing in terms of creating and deploying for various mediums.
One of the best stories/examples shared during the symposium was by
Jakob Trollbäck of Trollbäck + Company. He was talking about brand identity and how in Sweden, the post office had really played on their corporate color, yellow, in their campaigns. At one point, the post office had a huge billboard where it was just yellow - nothing else, no logo, no tagline - just a big billboard of yellow. And everyone knew exactly what it was - the connection was immediate and unmistakable.
One night during the conference, a bunch of us started talking about creative/interactive work - and someone asked the question - "does a story always need to be told?". I love diving into the conceptual and even abstract - it's nice to go past the doing to ask the why. I argued the point that of course you need to be saying something in interactive - and soon had to back peddle the more we discussed the topic. I think I am more of the mind that its not that you have to say something - but that you have to present something - that a concept has to be present - and that its not a bad thing for the storyline to be more of a result of the user interactiion - and therefore inevitably shaped by that interaction, than be what guides the interaction. What is a story, then? Is it something that has a beggining, and end, and a middle that somehow connects a to b? So then I began to think - story isn't the correct word - and perhaps, more so, the big ole buzz word of interactive narrative - perhaps is misleading as well, or rather, its more misused that we think.
It boils down to the interaction. When I think of that billboard story about the yellow campaign - I think - wow , Swedes are smart. They don't hand it to you on a platter and ram it down your throat in one sitting. Its more about deduction - allowing your user to interact to ideally create and establish the association you wish/hope is deducted - rather than presenting some abstract material and then dotting the i and crossing the T at the end with a big old logo and call to action that's the drive to.
It makes you question everything you have learned about brand and identity - but it also makes you think alot about the user - are we intelligent enough users right now to make those associations, or have we become complacent and lazy - embracing the literal and refusing the abstract.
Posted by bitch at February 19, 2007 12:33 PM
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