DK Holland

I took this photo of a jute bag in 2002. It was being sold in a bazaar in Dharamsala, India. Dharamsala is nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas, overlooking Pakistan and not far from Tibet. It’s home to His Holiness the Dalai Lama (and many of his fellow Tibetans) while they are in exile.

The bag was such a strange thing to find in this peaceful environment. What does it mean? Is it hostile to America? Is it sympathetic to the people that suffered because of this tragedy? Is it a statement about capitalism? Is it not totally ambiguous?

The World Trade Center has certainly become a brand since 9/11. But it’s not one that can be exploited. Not with integrity. Most certainly not as an image on a tote bag.

I’m headed back to Barcelona – to teach branding for nonprofits at Elisava, the design school – and, in preparing my presentation I keep thinking of Antoni Gaudi: an architect who was considered either insane or a genius in his time – loved or ridiculed yet today, nearly three quarters of a century after his death, Gaudi is undeniably one of Spain’s most important and cherished brand names.

In fact, this faithful servant has become enshrined by his native country and religion: He could soon become Saint Gaudi and he has, posthumously, uplifted the tourism of his beloved Barcelona, with long lines cuing up to worship his still unparalleled architecture, sculptures, furniture.

Barcelona is aglow with Brand Gaudi: A club bears his name; products (keyrings, door knobs, chocolates, games, baby bibs, mousepads, etc.) bear his work and are sold under his signature; Gaudi tiles pave the streets of Barcelona; and no less than four museums are devoted to the man and his vision. A team of architects and artisans are completing his masterwork – Sagrada Familia, the cathedral, which Gaudi, a devote Catholic, dedicated himself to designing for the last 43 years of his life. Sadly, he left this huge undertaking largely incomplete: He was struck by a tram leaving the Cathedral. Gaudi, by then an elderly man, cared so little for his physical appearance that he was taken for a bum and barely made it to the hospital where he died in a coma. The whole city came out to mourn his death.

Most of the major properties designed by Gaudi have been restored and are open to the public (a handsome fee is paid for tours). Finally, the world has grown to appreciate the vastness of this man’s mind. Gaudi, sickly as a child, a poor student, who had no family but his clients, has become an icon – of individuality and genius; of devotion and purity of focus.

Last year I photographed these two huge undulating, organically designed apartment buildings – Casa Mila – which were designed by Gaudi a full century ago. Yet are they not thoroughly avant-garde, even today? And practical! You can see Gaudi’s design genius at work in the Chimney Witches (as they are called) which are actually clever solutions for allowing smoke to ventilate from the buildings while not interrupting residents out for a stroll on the terrace. The undulating roof actually strengthens the structure of the building without increasing its load.

The new branded Product (Red) campaign (conceived by Bono and Bobby Shriver) is designed to sell Gap clothes, Motorola cell phones, Apple Nanos, Converse sneakers and American Express cards – to benefit The Global Fund’s effort to eliminate AIDS in Africa. The partners have already paid licensing fees totaling $10,000,000 into the fund, money which is already hard at work in Africa.

Color is the most emotionally powerful of all the branding elements since it bypasses intellect: it’s instantaneously linked to an emotion. AIDS is a blood disease and red means blood, sex, love, caution and danger. So it’s simple to understand the universal color connection for this campaign. And the color red is being used in the boldest possible way in this campaign. And if you look carefully, you will see that this red is hot. But red is not enough. It’s one of this season’s trend colors. Which means next season it will not be around.

Macy’s used the same deep red in a campaign recently. It could well have been mistaken to be part of the Product (Red) campaign by the consumer. But The Product (Red) designers are not dumbies: a typographic treatment is also being used by all Product (Red) partners as well as brackets and the idea of using (Red)in clever ways.

The most successful application of Product (Red) so far is the Gap campaign (Converse and Motorola’s seem, by comparison, weak). The branded graphics on Gap clothes modeled by the likes of Dakota Fanning, Steven Spielberg, Chris Rock are direct, lively and well considered. And Gap’s photography is, as always, the best. Gap created an additional branding thread – distressed typography expressed as one word concepts on product: INSPI(RED), ASSU(RED), ADMI(RED).

Quakers typically eschew commercial messages. And proof of Gap’s success hit me when a weighty Friend arrived for Meeting this Sunday in an INSPI(RED) red tee shirt. Gap has tipped the balance through Product (Red): commercial has become political.

Product (Red) partners are manufacturing products in Africa as part of this program which adds a holistic element to the campaign – bringing their business to a part of the world that needs so badly to participate in global commerce. Bon, Bono! Go, Shriver!

Saying doesn’t make it so. This hotel in Brooklyn cannot deliver on its promise. Sorry. It’s blatantly obvious that the only people ’seeing this manager’ will be those with no other option.

But on a more global, much more complex scale, think about BP’s brand image – including the sunflower logo – which promises alternative natural fuel. Even the name BP (originally British Petroleum) now means Beyond Petroleum.

But does it really mean Blotted Profits, as some propose? Or worse yet, after the recent oil leak fiasco in Alaska, Broken Pipes?

We hear that BP is working on eliminating the creation of greenhouse gases and exploring alternative fuels – but are they? Unlike the hotel which we can see with our own eyes is incredible, how would we know for sure the BP is on the up and up?

What incredible brands annoy the heck out of you? Comments, please!

Teaching Branding for Nonprofits at Syracuse University in their masters program this summer was much more fun than you can imagine. These students came at the subject with such intelligence, passion and delicious humor that the days just breezed by. All students are working professionals, most are from the United States, but some are from beyond our shores – notably Mexico, Lebanon and Canada.

The Syracuse Independent Study Degree Program, which has been around for decades, is quite virtual – and its students and teachers travel the world so that their experience is not at all US-centric.

ISDP First Year Students: Scott McNany, Javier Escalante, Professor John Milligan, Arlene Cheng, Helena Yoon, Julie Zack, Jeremy Cranford, Professor DK Holland, Heidi Cies, Monica Ross

ISDP Second and Third Year Students: Maya Labban, Professor DK Holland, Chasity Stevens, Joe Knezic, Eileen Baumann, Roby “Bubba” McEuen, Mark Bevington, Scott Sherman

About three years ago I taught a brief class in design to Tibetan adults – refugees in the foothills of the Himalayas – in Dharamsala, India and it struck me how utterly universal the concepts of design and branding are, even in the remotest spots of the world, even to people who barely spoke English. So I am starting to teach the concept of branding for nonprofits beyond the US (as a start, I will teach at the design school, Elisava, Barcelona in December).