So what does vision have to do with advertising?

(From a Jay Fields & Company web site sketch)


Given the rush of our times, it's easy enough to perceive the graphic arts--and everything to do with branding--as a steaming, frenetic, Mac-based, overnight kitchen works.

I'm reminded of the "Let's do an ad" New Yorker cartoon where four ad-types luminesce in delight.

I'm also thinking about Witold Rybczynski's recently published biography of Frederick Law Olmsted, A Clearing in the Distance, and the grounded sense of practicality Olmsted brought to landscape architecture--along with his intuitive understanding of what something will look like and feel like twenty years, fifty years, one hundred years from now.

Much in the way of Olmsted, much in the way his great park designs--like Manhattan's Central Park, Montreal's Mount Royal or Boston's Back Bay Fens--were indeed public art, it would seem for a brand to last the creators of that brand would best have feet in two worlds; the one being the world of the New Yorker cartoon, the other being the world of "what can be," the world of imagination, the world of vision.

The benefactors of visioning--whether it be Olmsted "seeing" Central Park and sparking the imagination of New York City commissioners in the mid-19th century or an agency presenting a long-range campaign--are not only the targets of the communication itself but everyone engaged in the process of "becoming" what the communication expresses or implies. Make no mistake: communications reflect intention, energy, grace and vision. Without consideration of "who are we" and "who we want to be," thoughtless, marginally strategic communications can actually bury a brand, or at the very least, do it serious bodily harm.

Along this line of thought, it's arguably reprehensible for a design group or agency to respond to a client who needs something yesterday without considering the effect on the brand and the total context within which such an emergency exists. Further, any designer who is new to a brand needs to understand where that brand has been so that, with new work, any reasonable foundations can be cherished and enhanced rather than automatically blown up or relabeled as lost civilization. For marketers and stakeholders of any stripe, the manual in the glove compartment says: respect the brand, respect where the brand has been; and, above all, respect what the brand can be.

The American Institute of Graphic Arts has recently studied and refined the language of process, drawn from case studies with many successful designers and from conversations with executives at IBM and Herman Miller and Hewlett-Packard and other companies (as reported in Communications Arts in May of '03).

AIGA articulates three phases in arriving at approach--defining the problem, innovating and, finally, generating value. Under the first, the team defines the problem it is trying to solve, then envisions the end state. As CA reports, "Knowing what victory is becomes vital as you embark on the journey of solving the problem." And, "If you've ever been part of a team that seemed lost, it's likely they skipped this step."

Talking about a step under the innovating phase, about enabling the team, the article explains, "When integral to the project, designers can help the team work as a team by helping them make choices, envisioning different outcomes, seeing the 'white space' between and connecting divergent views and approaches."

And, in a step under generating value, called "choosing the best solution," there's this: "(Designers) can often be the pivotal voice in this stage, helping to argue for the best overall solution. We can visualize the case, see different sides of the problem and lay out a path for making a commitment to a given solution."

Inherent in this model for creativity and decision-making is the notion of vision. It can pull up to the station as part of a brand discovery process, as part of long-range planning, as part of on-going conversation and dialogue between team members. But mostly, it has to show up--and the more articulate, the more inspired, the better.

Years ago, as part of a creative team positioning the City of Asheville, a long-term process that kept getting more and more refined, our communications began to fall into the elegant arena of a place that had the finely-hued sophistication of a true city fully surrounded by breathtaking wilderness--both environments a delight to the spirit. Our original campaign, in fact, used the line "It will lift your spirit," the topography borrowed from the cover of Harper's Magazine, the spokesperson George Plimpton, a great choice to represent the tone and voice we wanted to convey.

In its finest hour, a well-presented brand represents an appreciation for "what is;" it sustains the earth, makes a difference, engages customers in an experience that will bring them back 20 years from now or even 50 years from now.

Given that opportunity and that sort of perspective, well yeah, hey--let's do an ad.