ThisIsInspired Chats About Brand with David Ansett

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ThisIsInspired sits down and chats every once in a while with noted artists and designers – finding out how they got started and what gets them inspired. Each interview will give you the designer’s perspective and angle on their work – and on creativity in general.

Who Is Dave Ansett?

Dave Ansett (Twitter.com/Brandamentalist) is the Creative Director at Storm Design & Brand DNA (which itself is in the process of a rebranding as Truly Deeply) in South Melbourne, Australia. In his almost 20 years of design and branding, Dave has worked on design for everything from youth services to clothing labels to some pretty dang good looking ice cream. ThisIsInspired got together with Dave and talked about his take on design, on brand, and on inspiration in general.

The Interview

ThisIsInspired
How long have you been in design, and what made you love design in the first place? (was it a childhood passion or more a business prospect, etc) What was it that made you love branding?

Dave Ansett
I’ve been working in design for 19 years and studying design for 5 years before that.
I have drawn my whole life. At school I’d begin my exercises from the front page of my workbook and drawing from the back page. There was always a race to see which reached the middle of the book first.

“At the age of 12 I went to my first graphics class at school. I remember we spent the hour drawing topographic maps, but I was hooked. I ran all the way home to excitedly tell my mum I’d discovered a career where you got paid for drawing.”

I was hooked from then-on.

Running a studio after graduating from design college we were constantly searching for a competitive edge. We discovered branding early in the game and have evolved with the industry to become a creative branding agency. Many of the problem solving skills required to be a great graphic designer translate across to becoming a great brand marketer.

ThisIsInspired
I see on your website you’ve done some very sharp work in the branding and identity arena (clothing, food, etc). What would you say makes *brand* design differ from graphic design or even interface design?

Dave Ansett
Great question.
Graphic design has long been a passionate battleground of concept vs. aesthetic.
Brand Design is the purest form of conceptual design. Brand Design draws its entire rationale from a business and product positioning strategy. Inputs include market and customer trends, competitive analysis, and layers of brand definition delivering a brand proposition. The creative skills to translate that data into an evocative brand identity or piece of brand communication are in my view the pinnacle of ‘graphic design.’ The subtleties of crafting visual language to communicate subtle and complex information in a simple and memorable solution are a great challenge of creativity.

ThisIsInspired
Graphic designers – even type designers and advertisers – can look back on specific design periods (Art Nouveau, Art Deco, etc). Are there “periods” of brand design that you like(d)? What I mean is, I guess, is, Can you point to a specific ‘period’ of brand design and say it was influential?

Dave Ansett
The brand industry is still at a relatively young age. It is maturing and evolving at a fast rate of knots. Rather than a specific period, there have been brand design practitioners who have been influential, instrumental and inspirational in the evolution of branding:

• The initial partners at Pentagram in the early days of the brand design industry
• Wally Olins – first at Wolff Olins, now at Saffron
• Australia’s own Trevor Flett at FHA – now Futurebrand

ThisIsInspired
Everybody in the graphic design field seems to love a few certain designers (like Paul Rand, for example). But even then, most of us simply look at his work and see it’s completed design. As someone who works more with brand and identity, are you able to look at designs (such as Rand’s) and get an idea for how a creative process might have unfolded?

Dave Ansett
Absolutely. Regardless of the era, the classic visual designers had a logical framework around which they constructed their creativity. The creative process is often visible sitting just below the surface of the end result. The great designers each had their own methodology, but their work reads like a beautiful, poetic puzzle.

ThisIsInspired
“Brand” is like a buzzword, but it seems few designers know how to work in it well. What separates a designer (or design house) who jumps on the bandwagon from an established brand design team like your company?

Dave Ansett
I think I’ve covered this in my answer to question 2.
Plenty of design houses talk about brand – you could effectively differentiate yourself in the market these days by saying ‘we don’t do brand’, but few have the experience and skill set to understand and creatively translate the brand definition data into visual language.
Our creatives understand the layers of brand definition and market intelligence, they know how to identify and decode the visual language of a competitive marketplace, and how to take all of that data and translate it creatively into visual language that tells a rich and evocative brand story.

ThisIsInspired
Everyone has down days, and times when ‘creativity’ doesn’t come so easy. What do you do for inspiration? What’s your “Muse”?

Dave Ansett
I’ve always found the company of other creative minds to be the greatest inspiration. Whenever I’m glued-down with my thinking we start to bounce ideas and directions of each other, breaking the paradigms and introducing dislocated thoughts into the process. Once the framework for the creative solution is established, we collect a wall-full of creative stimulus and inspiration from the broadest possible range of sources we can find. The internet provides a bottomless resource of creative inspiration.

ThisIsInspired
Let’s say, hypothetically, you have a company (big or small) get in touch and they need a sharp new brand for an entirely new startup. It’s up to you to create a new brand and image from scratch. How do you start your creative day? (eg: Get up extra early and start with a sketchbook; have a cup of coffee and take some quiet time to collect your thoughts, etc)

Dave Ansett
The starting point is always strategic.
In simple terms, we begin with what we call brand immersion – gathering insight and intelligence into our clients’ customers and their competition. We flow that information into our brand DNA definition process, which provides all of the cues required for the creative brand expression. Whilst seemingly dry, this starting point provides the framework and the inspiration for endless creative expression. Once I’ve immersed myself in the brand strategy, I like to spend a couple of hours (preferably in the morning with a fresh mind) in our library of design books and on-line searching for creative jumping-off points and sketching down the thoughts and connections that spring from my search.

ThisIsInspired
There may be design principles that never change, but we can all look back on an old design and say “I could do this differently if I handled it now.” The design still works, but experience and personal taste may change. How has your work (or even your viewpoint on your work) changed over the years you’ve been involved in design?

Dave Ansett
My work has changed significantly over the years, and continues to evolve. I have grown from a designer with a love for concept, to a strategic brand thinker with a love for design. As a result my work has become increasingly honed as brand communication. It has grown in complexity of message, but simplicity of solution. I now see my role as a creator of rich and evocative brand stories that play a critical role in positioning my client’s brands in order to meet their companies business objectives. I’ve transformed from designer of nice things at the end of the chain, to being responsible for a critical component in the success of the business.

ThisIsInspired
Last question: What’s your take on that new look for Pepsi?

Dave Ansett
Apparently simple questions like these usually have a complexity of answers, each with a potential barb in its tail.
What I believe is that Coke has successfully evolved their brand identity over decades, maintaining and strengthening the power of their visual assets; the Coke red, the iconic Coke bottle, and the coke signature mark – rich with authenticity. Over the same period, Pepsi have failed to build a single, high visual brand asset – choosing instead to constantly evolve in an attempt to stay ‘current’. The latest look for Pepsi is yet another evolution, following the current trends of brand identity visual language, but devoid of a deeper connection to meaning, tradition or brand story.

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On a last, personal note I’d like to say that despite an already busy schedule, Dave was right on the ball as we worked out the details for the interview. Dave, thanks so much for taking the time to sit down and talk.