120 Films about Passat
The new 2006 Passat has “120 not-so-standard” features. To highlight this they commissioned 120 15-second films from different artists, one for each feature. Of note is Chrome Front Grill Frame.
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David Berman’s New Book Do Good Design
Do Good Design: How Designers Can Change the World
The follow review by Mark Busse was originally published on TAXI Design Network:
David B. Berman has been demonstrating inspired design leadership for nearly three decades and this book is no exception. After decades of volunteer work as an international ambassador for the communication design industry, Berman’s book Do Good Design: How Designers Can Change the World is another fine example of his tendency toward helping others—and not just graphic designers, but all of us.
The book presents a well-researched and clearly articulated argument that design matters—more now than ever before—and like the First Things First manifesto referenced in Erik Spiekermann’s foreword, Do Good Design serves as a call to action to designers everywhere to stand up, take our seat at the boardroom table and start changing the way the world looks at design.
Industrial Brand Hosting FunctionFox Webinar on Choosing the Right Partner
Choosing the right partner to expand your design business can be just the thing you need to survive and grow, especially in these uncertain economic times.
Recently we published a short article about partnerships which was well received. Now the fine folks at FunctionFox have asked us to create a more comprehensive presentation called Partnership: Choosing the right person to expand your design business with and host one of their popular webinars on February 12th at 11am PST. We’ll try to jam all our thoughts into a concise 30 minute presentation followed by a 15 minute Q&A session. Here’s the promo copy from their website:
Choosing the right partner to expand your design business can be just the thing you need to survive and grow, especially in these uncertain economic times. Creating that partnership can also be fraught with complexity and the best solution may turn out to be going it solo after all. There’s no right answer, just a real need to cover all the angles. Join as design firm principals and business partners Mark Busse and Ben Garfinkel share their perspectives and advice for design professionals considering a business partner, and learn from Mark and Ben’s personal and professional experience.
For more information or to register for the webinar, visit FunctionFox’s events page.
How Design Can Help You Survive a Recession
As President of the BC chapter of the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada (GDC), I recently wrote an article on behalf of GDC called How to Use Communication Design to Weather a Recession for Business in Vancouver (BIV) Magazine. The article, which can be found in the special How To Book coming out early 2009, is reproduced below:
Continue reading "How Design Can Help You Survive a Recession"
Lee (October 17th, 2005)
Who is the actress in the Chrome Front Panel short film? Haven’t seen her before.
Matt Galloway (November 2nd, 2005)
Horrible, horrible, horrible microsite. Here’s why: Link.
-Matt
Ben Garfinkel (November 3rd, 2005)
Matt makes some interesting observations in his rant about VW that are hard to refute. Reading the other blog entries in which he’s written about his poor experience with VW, it seems VW dropped the ball in their marketing transition from the 2005 to 2006 models and at the dealership sales level. They should take note as it cost them a sale. As for the 120 films, it appears as if many of the features included in the list are simply there to trump up the count to 120 to make a single point (misleading or otherwise) that the car comes with “120 not-so-standard features”. Personally I could care less if a manufacturer wants to give me a chrome grill and list it as some special feature I should feel lucky to be getting with my new car. In fact, it could easily find itself as a negative if I dislike that particular design feature. The films are funny/clever/visually interesting in varying degrees, but I applaud VW for doing something unique and creating another dimension to the more traditional (boring) automotive marketing campaign (besides, you can get all the standard info from the primary Passat website). Diesel did it better with their Diesel Dreams films for sure, but I’d rather see VW’s 120 fun little films than literal representations of how you can open your trunk from within your car or some studio shot of the front grill.
Matt galloway (November 4th, 2005)
Ben,
I agree that they are funny and it’s refreshing… but this IS the Passat website - shouldn’t I be able to learn about the features here?
I guess the thing I dodn’t understand the most is why the films had to be SO irrelevent. I still don’t know what an Automatic Trucnk Release is even after reading their “glossary” entry for it. But, if they had shown an elephant opening the trunk of the Passast with his truck - that would be entertaining and explain the feature. With the Automatic Truck Release the turnk is so easy to open that it can even be done by an elephant with his trunk.
My guess is that you aren’t in the market for car and find this amusing like you would a cartoon of TV show. But that’s not the point. Think how frustrating this site would be if you were seriously interested in buying a Passat and wanted to actually know about these 120 features.
Finally, I defy you to give me a good explanation of exactly what an “automatic trunk release” is from anywhere on any VW website. This information is simply not available.
Funny and entertaining, yes. Waste of serious potential customer’s attention - also yes. This second point makes this anti-advertising - equally likely to piss someone off as make them likely to buy. This is horrible marketing.
-Matt
Ben Garfinkel (November 4th, 2005)
You’re correct in that I am not currently in the market for a car, but certainly have been. I think web savvy people will do much more research online, while others only need to be engaged, intrigued or amused enough to start their quest with a trip to the dealer. Maybe the 120 films will do that, maybe not. Unfortunately, your dealership experience demonstrated a failure in that critical part of the process where you could get all the answers to the questions raised during the research phase. Perhaps I’m more up on my automotive terminology than some, but it seems obvious that “automatic trunk release” is the button or level that ‘pops’ open or unlocks the trunk from within the cabin. I did find reference to this in the Specifications PDF available from the Passat section of the VW website. It states: Remote releases for trunk and fuel filler door with valet lock out, located on driver’s side door.
Matt Galloway (November 4th, 2005)
Hmmm. Interesting. Every one of the 120 features does have a link that says “Learn More” - some of these little descriptions are valuable - more are as worthless as the films themselves.
When you click on “Learn More” from the “Automatic Trunk Release” film you get the following description:
“You don’t always have two free hands. So, the trunk is easy to open with the touch of a finger, an elbow, or even a heel, depending on what’s free at the time.”
Does this sound like a feature that is within the cabin? It sounds more like something outside the trunk to me? Sure, I could guess what “Automatic Trunk Release” is - I originally thought it might be a remote on the key chain. You thought it was inside the car. The description makes it sound like it is on the outside of the car but I can’t imapgine how you trigger it with your heel. And if the trunk is that easy to open, is that a good thing?
The point it that we get that this “feature” somehow opens the trunk and that VW thinks it’s cool. Maybe if I knew for sure what it was I’d think it was cool too. Oh, oh, oh… I know - how a bout a short 15 second video to SHOW ME what it is?
That would be revolutionary marketing.
-Matt
steve (November 7th, 2005)
Referring to VW’s TV ads, and not necessarily the website - I say, THANK GOD! somebody is finally putting out an ad campaign that’s at least somewhat useful for the consumer in making an informed decision about buying a car instead of just another one of those idiotic ads that show a car going down a road as fast as humanly possible with the usual “closed course, professional driver” disclaimer at the bottom.
I lived in Europe for about 10 years (didn’t have a car ’cause the public transport was excellent, but that’s another story) and when I returned to this country a few years ago, the first thing I needed, of course, was a car. What I remember most about TV here in the US when I came back from overseas was that 2 types of commercials dominated the scene. First was the prescription drug ads - (something I’d never seen before and was somewhat shocked and disappointed that this nonsense was allowed). The other 49% of the airwaves were taken up by car commercials - and every single one, from then until now, simply showed the car driving as fast as possible, over the speed limit, no regard for pedestrian or other driver’s safety, (despite the disclaimer for those who live in a fantasy world), and absolutely nothing is said about the features of the car, price or why I would possibly want to buy this over the competitor’s.
Personally, I’d like to see these speeding car commercials outlawed because I think they must contribute in some way to people thinking that they, too, can drive anywhere as fast as possible.