Basically, mind share relates to the extent to which a brand holds the attention of a consumer. I don’t have any scientific evidence, but I believe products that have a greater share of my brain jump off the shelf at me. For example, when I go into Safeway to stock up on chips and soda I naturally spot Coca-Cola and Doritos first. Definitely not because they have the sharpest designs, I’d say Kettle Chips are nicer to look at from what I remember, but I digress… I see the Coke products because there are a million choices all within the same price range and all with marginally different tastes. It’s just too much effort to consider all my options when the Canucks game is starting in 15 minutes. I can’t spend time analyzing brands of soda that I’ve never seen or tasted before. I go with the one I trust simply for the sake of getting on with my life.

In that scenario, I think mind share plays a massive role in my selection.

When I really start thinking about it, I feel as though the concept of mind share can be broken down into several parts. First, advertising attempts to impose qualities and attributes they desire their brand to have. Depending on which chip flavor I go into Safeway craving, the brand that best represents that tasteual experience will jump out at me. The other side is the visual side, probably more realistic and tangible. The more I see advertising from a company and experience their colors, tones, logos, etc., the more likely I will be to pick those out of a massive aisle filled with competing products. I suppose it really goes hand in hand with the psychological attributes of a brand. The logo or packaging is merely used to ignite those psychological qualities.

What best demonstrates this concept is when I walk into the Asian foods aisle. I never see advertisements for noodles and spices (do Soya Sauce makers even run ads?!). Therefore when I walk down this aisle I am completely unencumbered by knowledge that, first of all may be a complete fabrication and secondly may unwittingly influence my decision. So when I am looking for Soya Sauce, I actually spend the time analyze what I’m buying I look at everything from its name and logo to the calories and cooking instructions on the side.

It’s quite a treat shopping for something new, because you realize there’s more to the world than the products you see on television.

It’s both a blessing and a curse being influenced by advertising. On the one hand I make it home for the opening faceoff, but on the other hand I am probably missing out on a lot of great alternatives to things I buy without a second thought.

It’s funny that the amount of choices we have in life really become moot because, well… lets face it, there are just too many choices.

– Sir John Dalberg-Acton

Instead of squinting into the future, I’ve decided it would be more interesting to see what today looks like from 30 years from now. It’s Impossible summarize the Present from the present as easily as it would be from the future. I would like to jump ahead in time just to take a quick Snapshot of this era. I wonder what it would look like.

I wonder what we’re doing today that’s defining 2010 for the Future?

To give context to this rambling, the main issue I’m dealing with is where to focus my attention for employment after school. Realistically, my choices will probably be limited to “who will take me,” but I like to think that if I apply myself I have a chance at most of my goals.

My sights had always been set on working for myself, or running my own business of some sort. It was a clear goal and I knew the steps I had to take to achieve it. Recently I have been completely rethinking that stance. I feel that I can more or less be working for myself my whole life if I make the right decisions and follow a path that keeps me happy.

I started thinking that working at a small design studio would be great. Just working with a few designers in a very close-knit environment on innovative projects. On the other hand, I also began thinking about how interesting it would be to be part of a larger firm, one involved in projects on a massive scale that reach and affect a global audience. On the complete opposite side, I have great admiration for the start-up entrepreneurs that develop a personal project to the point of financial stability.

Looking past the range of job types, I began considering where in the world I would be able to put myself. I always wanted to move back to Europe at some point. Then I started thinking about how amazing a job in a place like Boulder, Colorado would be. Minutes from some of the best skiing in the world, employed at one of the top advertising agencies in the world. On the other hand, I have to look no further than out my window to realize how amazing a place I’m already living in. Perhaps a simple move downtown would sort out that decision.

The thing that scares me most is the thought of becoming comfortable in something and spending too much time with it and simply discarding the many other things I had envisioned doing. If I’m searching for the perfect life, and I find something good, what is going to tell me if I have found it or if I should keep pushing on.

While thinking about all this, I’ve decided that life is too short to make decisions. Unfortunately, life is also too short to not make decisions.

Lists are great. They are powerful tools and, used correctly, can simplify very complicated information. That said, I want to vent on a trend that I have become tired of seeing when browsing the web. That trend is lists. So many websites I come across are putting their content into a list format. Sure this method allows the content to be easily scanned and digested, but in my opinion this trend is subtly addressing two bigger issues.

Firstly, when authors post their content in list format I feel it is a blatant admission that the author has no opinion, no writing ability, and no creativity. So many of the lists I see revolve around a single theme, a theme that if the author had taken the time and effort could have been made into an interesting article. I recommend these people form an opinion around their observation and develop some real content rather than simply reblogging things they have found on other blogs. Lists to me is an easy way out, a way to blog regularly with minimal effort. There are too many people simply sharing their discoveries on the internet without questioning, analyzing, and discussing these findings.

On the other hand…perhaps an increasing laziness with readers is hurting content creation?

The second issue I see in this trend is an increasing laziness among readers. Perhaps it is not so much laziness as it is the overwhelming amount of content they have access to and attempt to go through. Readers have so many sources to keep track of, and apparently such busy lives, they expect content to be spoon fed to them and are not willing to exert effort in exploring content. I think this perception of internet users, right or wrong, is what drives the dumbing down of content in the first place.

It’s quite a vicious circle, but I believe the solution lies with the content creators, we can’t allow users to get patience and thinking atrophy. If authors started putting more effort into writing their content users would start putting more effort into reading it.

Even more shocking to me is the penetration of mobile phones in Western Europe. It’s an almost unbelievable number: 110% of Western Europeans have a mobile phone. That is per capita. Not just adults, but infants, children, deaf people, elderly people. Around 2.4 billion people or 36% of the planet’s population actually carry at least one phone.

The list of mind boggling numbers continues, and that’s from a 2007 article. More statistics can be found here.

As I found out time and again, it takes a lot of time and dedication to fully implement an experimental website interface. At least it takes more time than I’m willing to spend on one, simply because I’m always seeing something new I want to try out and play with. I can’t open Firefox a single time without seeing something that sparks my curiosity and before I know it I’m building a new website.

It’s just not practical redesigning my website every time I want to try out a new trick with flash, java, css or I decide that I’ve found a new favorite typeface. It’s way too much work building a site from the ground up and whats the point in having an identity on the interweb if it’s always mutating into something different.

the solution

After months and months of changing my mind, I’ve settled on an idea that I discovered over the summer. Jason Santa Maria, Dustin Curtis, and David DeSandro are running a system that allows them to tailor the design of an article to the content they are writing about. Basically their websites are like magazines which have independently styled articles, rather than a set blog theme.

Thanks to them I’ve decided that I don’t need to settle on a single look, instead I can change it whenever I want to/have time without needing to do the work a major website overhaul requires.

to summarize

I have a feeling this whole thing might just sit here collecting internet dust, but I’ll do my best to find the time and will to update it regularly! Also, and probably more importantly is the thoughts section which I will use to dump my ramblings and findings on [mainly] graphic design related things.