Schlagwort-Archive: Design

Retro – the fanciless reuse

Cultural artifacts have now become economic products and services that follow the rules of the market – literature, music as well as the performing and visual arts. Artists thus become designers of new offers. A wide variety of channels have to be continuously supplied with content – television and radio stations, concert stages, theatres and museums. A quick way to expand your own palette is the fanciless reuse of existing offers. In the absence of subject matters, interesting outgrowths occur. Television stations live from reruns; cinema blockbusters become serials and remakes; pop music lives from cover songs and cover bands; theater plays are completely alienated under well-known titles. Do the artists lack ideas or is the market forcing them to reuse work without imagination?

Previously, the rule was: form follows function. Creatives came up with content and put it into a form. Do the markets demand the endless continuation of the form and fill it always with the same content? Are there rarely enough contents? The following elements are reused thereby.

  • The plot
    The red thread that runs through a story follows a certain rhythm that ensures that the attention of the audience is continuously refreshed once in a short while. The associated actions follow a conceivable sequence that is interspersed with suspense – in a thriller, the perpetrator is uncovered at the end, during the course or at the beginning of the story; through deliberately interspersed effects such as unknown cultures, unusual role models or elements from other genres (e.g. esotericism in an adventure). Depending on the culture the actual action is always the same – in the USA the investigation team and in Germany the commissioner with his assistant.
    Retro provides target groups fanciless repeated plots.
  • The format
    Depending on the target media, e,g, print, radio, film or Internet, the plots are differently offered. A new novel is planned like the rollout of a product – after publication, the book is discussed on the radio and the television, and reviews are launched in the relevant magazines and eventually sold to the highest bidder for further exploitation. What counts is the signal effect of the original title. Good examples of this kind of marketing are Perfume by Patrick Süskind or The Little Prince by Antoine St. Exupéry, which have already completed their rounds in various formats. The actual story doesn’t change – just the format.
    Retro often provides the target group fanciless repeated formats.
  • The theme
    The Zeitgeist brings different subjects to the fore, which, if successful, will be repeated by many – the psyche at the beginning of the twentieth century, totalitarianism after the Second World War or the GDR after German reunification. Today, scientific findings in psychology are used in television series such as Lie to me or Leverage to attract viewers with insights into non-verbal communication. The attraction lies in new insights that could be used in everyday life.
    Retro often provides the target group fanciless repeated topics.
  • The protagonists
    The introduced actors are the supporting pillars of a work – e.g. religious characters in the visual arts; mythology in music; contemporary people in stories. Honoré de Balzac with his human comedy showed the French society of the 19th century. Jules Verne had his courageous researchers who broke the boundaries of the world. Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrapped the South American reality in magic. Heinrich Boell provided a picture of the FRG during the economic upswing. Today’s protagonists are the same again and again: the crazy scientist; the spiritualized commissioner; the punk investigator. Seldom new personalities emerge, as in the book The reader by Bernhard Schlink.
    Retro often provides the target group fanciless repeated protagonists.
  • The Songs
    With the spread of records, the twentieth century became the age of popularized music. Whereas in the past music required musicians, music can be reproduced and enjoyed at any time of the day or night through the canning of records and today’s Internet. In addition, the countless radio broadcasts and films require a continuous flow of new compositions. Certain styles are reused. The fate of the new musicians is to sound like Led Zeppelin or Adele. And at the same time old pieces are re-staged as covers, at best interpreted in a new way. It is possible that music has reached its limits and new harmonies are no longer possible without repeating existing melodies.
    Retro often provides the target group fanciless repeated compositions.
  • The design
    Designed packaging is in the economy an important element of marketing. The customers accept an offer, if the packaging appeals to them – the performing arts use for this purpose a special stage; the visual arts the spectacular exhibition space; music and books the book cover. Part of the design is the attractive title that triggers the first buying impulse – The secret; What everyone needs to know; Passive income for everybody. The advertising poster, the flap text and the trailer are further components of the packaging that suggest certain quality criteria with their design and sometimes promise more than they can keep. The actual content takes a back seat – the design determines the business.
    Retro often provides the target group fanciless repeated designs.

Bottom line: The countless remakes in cinema and TV, the endless repetitions of quiz formats, the new cover bands and the adoption of classical themes in computer games enable the industrial exploitation of cultural brands. The fanciless reuse of old plots, formats, themes, protagonists, pieces of music and designs flood the sales areas with a look backwards. The approach of packing old things into new vessels and selling them shifts creativity from content to form and prevents that way that new things appear. Therefore retro stands for fanciless reuse.

Waste due to form without function

In the days of the guilds, the quality of the performance was the focus of interest and the figurehead of the masters, the responsible manufacturers. In the last two hundred years specialties have evolved with the advancing division of labor. As a result, the focus has shifted – from the product to fulfilling a subtask. The actual products have receded into the background. The success of the individual areas is determined by the continuous refinement of the particular abilities:

  • The development is delivering more and more prototypes,
  • The production produces ever more at lower cost,
  • The sales department is always acquire new customer groups and
  • The marketing delivers ever new campaigns.

As a result, the business units lose sight of the actual services and act based on the look at their own value creation that always covers only partial aspects. This goes so far that start-ups market their business idea before the actual product is available, leading to major, unnecessary efforts that have no effect. And this, although it is generally known: Form follows function.

The venture depends above all on the most convenient offer for which the customer is ready to pay – be it goods or services. A description of the available features is crucial to ensure that the various tasks are performed with minimum effort. The following points are of great value to the overview of the articles and services.

  • The service core
    fulfills the wishes of the clients – an MP3 player plays music; a hotel night offers a hotel room, incl. room service and breakfast; a Swiss knife cuts, screws, drills, saws, lights, up to a total of 56 parts in one tool.
    The service core can be identified with the following questions: Which customer needs are satisfied? Which features are required? What is relevant to the clients?
  • The design
    of the products happens almost by itself due to their physicality. The material must be selected, shaped, provided with a surface and colored. Intangible services can also be designed. The dealing with customers, such as friendliness and empathy, the reliable activities, such as consulting, training, advertising, and catering or the administration of facilities consist of processes and employee behaviors, which also can be designed. Nowadays, design not only serves as a temptation to buy, but also influences the entire life cycle of a deliverable –
    for physical products: from economic production and warehousing, through ergonomics and a predetermined lifespan, durability and ease of maintenance, to disposal; for services: from planning, through development and operation, to the sun downing of an offer.
    These design aspects can be identified with the following questions: How do customers perceive the services? How does the design influence the customers – and the life cycle? What other advantages can be achieved with minimal effort?
  • The add-on services
    include further offers for the customers, which are available free of charge or for a fulfillment fee of the core tasks. This ranges from supplemental assistance in the use and maintenance of the services, through extensive accessories, to performance-related tips as well as platforms for exchanging ideas, e.g. with online communities.
    The following questions provide some ideas: What else do the customers want? Which add-ons can be offered right away with little effort? Do the supplemental services increase customer loyalty or even the sales?
  • The brand aspects
    are the unconscious forces of attraction that bind the customers of a product or service to the company. Established brands, the name or logo, the type of advertising and key images already evoke positive associations – e.g. the famous Marlboro man or the Mercedes star, the elaborate Apple trailers or the Mazda humming, all trigger in the best case positive feelings in the audience – and they become part of the brand with the purchase.
    The brand aspects can be determined with the following questions: How does the customer perceive the company? Do the products match the brand? Do we send messages that do not match our desired image? Which activities support the brand?

Bottom line: The points described the service core, the design, the add-on services and the brand aspects are essential components of the business activity. Nevertheless, these points of view are rather late or not at all formulated. They are the meat of the deliverables. These descriptions influence the perception of the customer’s and, at various points, the life cycle of the services. A lot of momentum gets lost when the developers, manufacturers, and sales people have a different understanding of the deliverables. Describe your product, because form without function wastes already scarce resources.