INDN 312: Brand Research: Apple, POC, Dyson, Muji

To think about how the scenarios that we're going to develop, one of the considerations that I need to take into account is the different companies mentioned in the brief, and how they actually convey their brand's identities and the way they present their products. One of the important aspects of a brand in today's market is the ability to cultivate a certain culture around themselves as well as generate a certain image that can be conjured at any time by a consumer looking at their brand.

The four companies that I'm tasked with taking a closer look at are POC (A Swedish adventure wear company), Apple (An American multinational consumer electronics company), Dyson (A British household electronics company), and Muji (A Japanese household and consumer goods company).

POC

Image acquired from: http://www.pocsports.com/

POC is a Swedish corporation that designs adventure and sporting wear for a variety of activities. As well as making beautiful and well designed gear, they also push the limits in terms of material usage as well as material research. The brand has been endorsed by a large number of athletes, and as such prides itself and bases it's image on being at the forefront of adventure wear design and technology. The technological advances are mostly in material research as well as fittings and comfort, and while most of the gear POC develops in terms of types is fairly standard, there are a good deal of products that are very unique and serve purposes and needs beyond that of the average adventure sports person.

POC's aesthetic is texture and pattern low, relying instead on block colours and large sections of colour to drive the unifying design aesthetic. Since the company is responsible for developing clothing, a very standard way of displaying one's personality, the company sells products in a very large range of colours. The one-size-fits all mantra cannot be found, although anything that you buy would very definitively be "designed by POC". The brand's logo is to be found on everything, and it certainly isn't always discreet. The brand uses a futuristic sort of style to it's products, and this style works well to underpin the brand's value set.

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Apple

Image acquired from: https://www.apple.com/ipad/

Apple is a very familiar company for any industrial design student, as go to any lecture and you'll be guaranteed to see an Apple MacBook out on someone's table. Apple's consumer electronics division is huge. They have received a host of both negative and positive critiques for their design styles as well as their design choices. Advertising is a huge aspect of what makes Apple Apple. Employing a vast array of emotionally manipulative techniques in it's advertising and PR, Apple has firmly cemented it's position as the brand of designer electronic devices to own.

Utilising excellently minimal design choices for the majority of their products, the Apple brand is something that isn't conveyed through logos, but through an extremely distinctive look. Their current primary choice for materials is brushed aluminium and polished glass, with several other materials coming in in certain situations and products as backups. Apple's brand has been so aggressively marketed that certain products of theirs are now synonymous with that type of product. An iPod is now synonymous with an mp3 player. Apple makes a lot of highly considered material choices, as well as aggressive development into efficient material usage and electronic consideration.

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Dyson

Image acquired from: http://www.dyson.co.uk/vacuum-cleaners.aspx

Dyson is a brand that manufactures and designs vacuum cleaners, hand dryers, blade-less fans, and heaters. The company prides itself extensively on it's founding, whereby James Dyson developed the original Dyson bag-less vacuum cleaner after extensive iteration into a workable product. The company uses this story as a basis for their design identity, but primarily the company looks at creating products that work in different or better ways than their competitors or predecessors.

Dyson has created an identity that presents their products as the ultimate expressions of their development. With the company being primarily an engineering company, the design of the unique vacuums have presented a very interesting design challenge to the company. While other household electronics designers attempt to hide the products and the way they work, Dyson seeks to exemplify and highlight the mechanics and functionality of their products, by using both strong colours and interesting forms.

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Muji

Image acquired from: http://www.muji.eu/pages/online.asp?Sec=19

Muji is a Japanese company that expresses it's identity by being a brand that has no distinguishing brand. The goods it sells are designed to be quality goods without being excessively branded or extremely distinctively designed. The products are designs with a minimalistic style in mind, as well as encouraging recycling and avoiding waste in product manufacturing and packaging. This no-brand attitude is a very interesting one, as it immediately seeks to position Muji as a brand that is just great as well as being reasonably priced without being dominated by a particular identity or logo.

Muji is in a way also a blanket brand that occupies multiple different types of products. The distinction that separates it from other brands is merely in terms of the products being well designed, and yet this lack of distinction is a key importance for making sure that people feel they can buy everything Muji without everything looking identical. In that regard, I find the concept similar to Ikea. There is a unifying aesthetic, but it doesn't overtone everything else.

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