What type of business would you refuse to work with on ethical grounds?

Here are some of the answers that were shared (thanks, folks).

“I stay away from anything I don’t fully understand (and can’t see if they’re beneficial). Financial products are a good example.”
— Richard Baird

“Cigarette branding for obvious ethical implications.”
— Ben Powell

“Extremist religious/movement groups, family.”
— Phil Stringfellow

“Gambling. Their business model should not be dependant on the illness of addiction.”
— Mel

“Online gambling and classified sites/businesses that include an adult services section (i.e. Village Voice Media).”
— Amara Poolswasdi

“Tobacco and religious organisations.”
— Mark Bradford

“Oil/petrochemical, tobacco, companies with shady practices such as Monsanto.”
— Abbas Arezoo

“Anything even remotely to do with the adult entertainment industry.”
— Tim Phelan

“Tobacco and gambling are the two I would never touch.”
— Guy Moorhouse

“Any type of business taking advantage of slave labour in third world countries.”
— Lejla Kuric

“Our ethical policy excludes companies with poor human rights/exploitation or environmental records. Nestle, BP, etc.”
— Dave McCourt

“If you work in the quasi-public sector (as I do) the only business’ you can refuse to work with are those operating illegally or those which can provably ‘bring [your] institution into disrepute’.”
— Gabriel M. Clarke

“I’ve just refused to do pics for an abbatoir training resource *vegetarian shudder* for obvious reasons.”
— Leanne J

“Trophy hunting.”
— Josephine Jost

That last comment reminded me of one company I choose not to do business with.

Has your ethical stance ever ruled out (or won you) a client?

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Update: 14 May 2012
My understanding of the difference between ethics and morals isn’t as good as it could be, so my thanks to Andy and Melissa for offering their help in the comment thread.

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Resources:
Ethics in Graphic Design, a blog by Eileen MacAvery Kane
A quick primer for ethics in design

Crumpled note image via Thinkstock

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Created for a bespoke tailor by graphic designer Greg Healy. Creative, appropriate, inexpensive (you could finish those yourself with a ruler and craft knife).

And something a little more magical, Ritornell’s business cards are inspired by the project’s live show.

With the aid of laser assisted milling, nine micro compositions consisting of circles, triangles and Ritornell’s contact information were applied onto a long musicbox paper stripe. Before handing out the cards to interested addressees, each individual subdivision is played back through a specially designed musical box — providing every business card receiver with a tailor made musical experience.

Designed by Katharina Hölzl for musical duo Ritornell.

A bit more card inspiration in the stationery category.

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There are plenty of positives (such as the time saved on a daily commute) and some negatives, too (like missing that daily interaction with other designers), but overall, I’ve been happy where I work, and although I sometimes wonder, it hasn’t seemed to hamper business.

What interests me more are your surroundings, and it’d be great to learn from the business owners among you.

Do you work from home or do you rent/own a studio elsewhere?
Has your workspace directly caused you any problems or led to any success?

P.s. Many thanks to Luke and Tom for replying to my tweet yesterday.

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“Well I’ve met him — I’ve even done a vodka bottle for him as a matter of fact. I don’t know how to think about him. He’s an example of the power of the ego. How can anyone be so totally egocentric to not understand that there are others in the universe. It also shows the power of that position: When you don’t think there are others, everything is attainable for you. I just find that the combination of incredible ambition and a lack of modesty can be a terrifying prospect. And if you’re in a roomful of people like that, you realize that that’s why the world is the way it is.

The Milton Glaser label design for Trump Vodka, bottle by Bruni Glass

“And the other thing is: I can’t figure out his hair. From the point of view of someone who is into art and form-making, I can’t figure out the structure of it: where it’s coming and where it’s going. And then I also wonder, what does he think this object on his head achieves? It’s just a great mystery.”

Catch the rest of the interview on New York Magazine. The same questions are asked to other New Yorkers in the magazine’s 21 questions series.

From the archives: Milton Glaser on design studios.

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If you’re like me (and most others) you’ll give Maluma the curved symbol and Takete the sharp angles. This is also known as the Bouba/Kiki effect, written about by German psychologist Wolfgang Köhler (1887-1967) in his book Gestalt Psychology (excerpted below).

Book scan via ofazomi.org

According to an article in Scientific American 98% of people choose the same pairings.

Sound also plays an important role in product alignment. Consider these two, Clorox (producer of household bleach) and Chanel (high-end perfume). Switch the name and product and you get the idea.

Learn more about sound symbolism through these links:

Sound symbolism, on Wikipedia
Phonological clusters of semantically similar words, on LINGUIST List
Reflections on the evolution of language, on University of Hawai’i
The phenomenology of synaesthesia, PDF download, on Imprint Academic

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Experiment first discovered on the Lexicon Branding website, via Bernadette Jiwa.

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“The era of Ed McCabe, Lois, etc. is gone. There are NO leading creative voices in todays ad world. The stars of our time are relegated to be stars among other creatives only, relegated to the fame of the awards, not business success.”

An interesting quote from George Tannenbaum’s Ad Aged. Could the post just as easily reference the design profession, instead? Via @MilesNewlyn.

Drink packaging that makes you thirsty just looking at it. Via @MatDolphin.

Bofrost drink packaging

“Our most difficult client.” Mytton Williams reminisce about their past self-promotional work.

Pencil calendar by Mytton Williams

I like this quote about blogs by Trent Walton.

Head along to London’s V&A for British Design 1948–2012 — an exhibition running from March 31st to August 12th. Via We Made This. The johnson banks blog has a whistlestop tour of the show.

100 logos from American and Canadian railroad companies.

Great typographic cover design for Marketing Magazine, by The Partners.

“If you’re working in Accounts Payable and you hate the company’s new logo, the people who created it should and must ignore your opinion. It just doesn’t matter to anyone but you.”

Quoted from Seth Godin’s post about opinions and entitlement and why you need to be careful who you’re really listening to.

Another post from Seth, the essential question to ask before extending your brand.

Kind of intrigued by the Mosser project.

Khoi Vinh talks about one aspect of paperback books that isn’t available in their electronic counterparts.

“One thing I had completely forgotten about is how communal popular books can be. A few people have spotted “A Game of Thrones” in my pocket or saw me reading it on the subway and then started friendly conversations with me about it, something that never would have happened if I were reading it on my phone, where every book is effectively invisible to everyone but me.”

I suppose many would prefer that public reading didn’t attract communication from others, and I can appreciate that, but it’s a shame, really.

I’ve had a Titanic overload recently, particularly living in the birthplace of the ship, but this five-minute data visualisation is very well done. Via Russell Davies.

For the design students and recent graduates, NYC-based Wolff Olins is accepting applications for a paid summer internship — one I would’ve loved back in the day. Closing deadline April 18th. Be quick!

Previously: From the reader #8

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In September 2009, Neil Stansfield of Northamptonshire was jailed for over two years for buying own-brand, non-organic supermarket food, repackaging it as well-sourced organic produce and selling it on at a huge markup to highly reputable food retailers.

On the one hand what he did was a shameful act of manipulation that undermined an already beleaguered organic market and the honest work of a lot of passionate food producers. On the other hand it was a hilarious example of how branding can increase the perceived value of a product.

For five years Stansfield and his staff of twelve were purchasing pork pies, smoked salmon and much more from the likes of Tesco and Aldi, stripping the outers, and re-wrapping them in their Swaddles Organic branded packaging. In doing so Stansfield not only made a name for himself as a highly regarded organic food supplier, but also managed to sell his products to discerning retailers like Fortnum and Mason, a coup of which he boasted to the local paper.

“Fortnum and Mason searched for the finest British classic pie throughout the UK and after arduous searching they came upon ONEfood and Swaddles, sampled the product and found it to be the best in the UK.”
— NEIL STANSFIELD

He called Swaddles’ parent company ONEfood — where the ONE stood for Organic, Natural and Ethical — and recorded annual sales of between £500,000 and £2.5 million.

Above are some examples of the packaging taken from the website of ONEfood’s design agency. The fact is, it’s good design and ticks all the boxes required of a mass distributor of organic produce. We have the wonky, cursive script, a colourful palette and some emotive photography. And above the main logo — like a cherry on the cake of bullshit — is the Soil Association logo, a stamp that certifies produce as organic.

After this controversy emerged, the design agency must have wondered whether to keep the designs on their portfolio. But why not? They did a fantastic job, demonstrated by the huge success of the Swaddles Organic range.

The fact is, if anyone was going to enact a mass swindle in food packaging, Neil Stansfield knew exactly how: by spending money in the right place to ensure that the packaging gets in front of the right audience, and is trusted when it does.

As any branding consultant or designer worth their salt knows, the perceived value of a product is what makes it sell. As David himself mentions in Logo Design Love, the Skoda is consistently voted ‘Car of the Year,’ delivering excellent mileage and value for money at a fraction of the cost of, say, an Aston Martin. And yet people are willing to pay well over the odds for an Aston Martin; for the prestige, literally for the ‘badge value.’

Photo credit: carpictures1.com

But packaging can have an even more profound effect than just making us believe we are paying the right price for a product. In his book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell reports a fascinating case about 7UP. In the 90s the company changed the can design very marginally, adding more yellow onto their label. This proved to be a bad move. People were up in arms, claiming that the company had made 7up more “lemony” despite the fact that the drink inside hadn’t changed at all. People wrote in to complain that 7UP had done a “new Coke.” There are countless examples of this kind of activity showing that a label affects not only the price people are willing to pay for a product, but can also psychologically impact upon the taste.

Perhaps this is how, once upon a time, Fortnum and Masons came to believe a Tesco pork pie to be “…the best in the UK.”

In the end Neil Stansfield was arrested when, following a tip off, the Food Standards Agency bought a salmon from Swaddles (at £51) and discovered it to be neither wild nor organic as it claimed on the label but in fact bought from Waitrose the previous day (at £20). He was sent down for 27 months and his wife and business partner were given compulsory community service for their part in the scam.

What they did was terrible, dishonest and wonderfully entertaining. But what it teaches us is the incomparable value of good branding and design.

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About the author: Mike Kammerling is creative director at London-based Tinder + Sparks. You can read his blog here, and follow him on Twitter here.

Reported in The Telegraph (2009): Organic food company guilty of selling non-organic food.

Salmon photo credit: Thinkstock

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Juniors cover design by: Omnific/Philip Thompson

Personality cover design by: Omnific/George Mayhew

Half Way There cover design by: Omnific/Martin Causer

Ageing cover design by: Omnific/Derek Birdsall

Males & Females cover design by: Omnific/Derek Birdsall

Courtesy of avid Penguin collector Richard Weston.

You can view Richard’s complete series of covers in the Penguin Books Flickr collection.

Related: Designing book covers

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davidairey.com
logodesignlove.com
identitydesigned.com

You have a combined readership of more than 200,000 subscribers and you attract 1M+ monthly Pageviews. But you want to do things better. You want to contribute to positive change in the profession and you want to give more back to those who have been returning week after week, year after year.

What would you change?
What would you remove or introduce?
How would you do things better?

As a small incentive to those who offer suggestions I’ll sign a few copies of Logo Design Love and ship them anywhere in the world, no charge.

I’ll draw five book recipients from the comment thread on Monday 16th April and notify each by email. I’ll update this post with names, too.

P.s. The offer’s still open if you want a mention in my next book.

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Update: 11 April 2012

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Update: 16 April 2012
I’ve drawn the five winners: Julie Oakley, Brandi Koepke, Ricky Patrick, Christine Roy, and Mark Scott Carroll. Each of the five have been sent an email to ask for mailing addresses. Thanks again!

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“Bruno Aveillan celebrates 165 years of Cartier in his latest short film L’Odyssée de Cartier. In the brand’s most epic and sumptuous spot to date, the viewer is taken on a journey that follows the iconic Cartier panther from the Grand Palais in Paris through magnificent moments and locations throughout time.”

Comparatively few people (about 12K) have watched the behind the scenes video — something I found much more interesting.

Interviewed in the “making of” are director Bruno Aveillan and music composer Pierre Adenot.

“It was clear that we had to shoot the film with a real panther from start to finish.”
— BRUNO AVEILLAN

The role of the panther was played by three young panthers, Cali, Tiga and Damou. All took turns playing the part throughout the shoot. The big cats were taken to locations in France, Italy and Spain.

For the theme music Pierre Adenot conducted an 84-piece orchestra comprising string, percussion and wind sections, harp and piano. It was recorded in London’s Abbey Road Studios.

Graphic design and development: Marcel, Paris
Director: Bruno Aveillan
Production: Wizz Quad
Score: Pierre Adenot
Animal handler: Thierry Le Portier

Official L’Odyssée de Cartier website.

I won’t guess the budget. Let’s just say it was a lot.

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