La la la la la! We go hunting for inspiration on Pinterest, the visual library. Casual strolling, or rather scrolling, usually leads us to intimate and serendipitous discoveries (aha!). These discoveries make us feel great about our fine taste. The behaviour exhibited here is much like flipping through a magazine. Except here, there is a constantly improving algorithm trying to pair you with your dream products while you are in a planning mode.

A wedding, a house, a party, a baby, a holiday.

A life.

These are very significant moments in our lives and we take inspiration from applications. Where the feeds are full of carefully curated and composed renditions of ‘experiences’. Experiences we are not having. It’s like our life is a film or an ad and we need production design and these platforms help us do exactly that.

We lose out on engaging with our experiences, stories and surroundings to come up with ideas and desires. We don’t use our intuition, senses, or our bodies that are present and constantly engaging in this environment to design our life HERE.

The whole point is to take design inspiration from life not from online to design life. That’s upside down. (An expression borrowed from a friend)

This mimicking the trendy

It’s an interesting phenomenon, lots to observe. Behaviour, market, relationships.

But it also leads us to a blunted sense of visuals that are neither local nor contextual.

We insert off minimalism anywhere, whenever in doubt.

• Straight geometric lines
• Cement planters
• Random Indoor plants
• Avocado toasts & Blueberry granolas
• Exposed walls
• Raw wood furniture
• Industrial lighting
• Even 2nd and 3rd tier cities now want pastel-shaded kurtas

I am guilty of many of these myself. It’s amazing how it seeps in. How fast the local tailors and manufacturers catch on. So spontaneous. And the results are also great to see, often turning into great jokes. The barber/parlour shop posters and names are a great example. Like a fascinating game of visual Chinese whispers.

In a way, we don’t know how to party anymore

Sorry I know it’s a very grim statement. When we were younger, there was still a way of putting together celebrations. We would have our mothers bake and cook elaborately for parties. All the raw materials had to be bought, cooked, prepared, laid out and so on.

Now we outsource the whole party. The cake, the food, music, plates, fragrances, conversation the entire experience.

It changes the way we socialise.

Over the years I have noticed it’s a chore for people to party even. When did that happen? It’s an obligation for the party to be thrown and attended. Strange no?

I don’t know where I am going with this. But doesn't it have something to do with losing the plot? Why do we get together? The motivations of celebrations are not clear. It’s overridden by visuals that are shown to us. That becomes the driving force rather than the togetherness.

Our living rooms only look wrong. It’s not well designed for long chats. At least not the Pinterest living rooms.

Brands and pinned up boards now have effectively trained us in a way that emotionally motivates us to desire a certain narrow way of imagining our lives. Geography does not exist, rather it’s online. All these spaces are being designed with the same inspiration boards. When you travel, it doesn’t matter where you are, the cafes, the bathrooms look and smell the same. These kinds of platforms have homogenised groups of people’s aesthetic sensibilities to a scary level. There is a visual framework where everything must fit in. So none of us bothers to engage with our personal life to reveal anything. There are lesser discoveries. We all have the same syllabus. Our brains are becoming tiny. Imagination has gone to sleep.

We inject everything with so much borrowed details that there is not much room for products or experiences to surprise us.

I was working as a textile designer in the beginning of the last decade. It fascinates me to see how things have changed. What aesthetic means. Everyone’s house and interior look the same. It doesn’t even look lived in. There is hardly anything external dictating how you organise your spaces. Everyone has a reference link. We can’t articulate our desires without one.

How realistic are minimalism and Marie kondo for most of the average citizens of India?

What do you mean it doesn’t spark joy? Yeh kya hai? The idea of cleanliness is bungled with minimalism. Have you seen the way our (Indian) outdoors are.

How do we practice listening through the eyes? I think that could be a way to unlearn. A good way could be to draw and doodle. You don’t have to be an artist type to doodle. It would force us to see things slowly. And that’s when you will really start questioning, Who the hell decided to change our terracotta planters to cement? Why are we buying things that look recycled and are clearly anything but that? Maybe before making or buying something we could ask ourselves quickly, what % of us is really in it?

Aesthetics is a very subjective term. Apparently derived from the Greek aesthesis, meaning “sensation” or “feeling.”

How do we get to that when the intention is always to get a photographable frame?

How Pinterest Is Killing Our Aesthetics was originally published in Write Leela Write on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

What does this phrase ‘constructive feedback’ even mean?

The definition of ‘feedback’ on Google says:

Information about reactions to something (a product, a person’s performance of a task, etc) which is used as a basis for improvement.

Notice how it is information about a reaction. Not the reaction itself.

Constructive, or to construct, means to build, or make.

Not

Not puke, not scream, not eject.

Not dismantling something and giving it back.

Not spewing out unrelated ideas in response, to feel creative.

Not criticizing or shaming.

Not negating.

Adding something. And how do you add?

I feel like most of us don’t know how to do that, generally, in life. Myself included. During my formative years, in the formal learning spaces at home or classrooms, I have only mostly heard about how I know nothing and how I am not capable of anything. It’s a succinct and clear messaging. It sticks. Thik hai!

This tendency to speak in absolutes with great confidence is cultural. I mean, every parent or teacher back then spoke like that. You can’t really blame them; they heard such beautiful motivational words from their teachers and at various points, there was evidence that this worked.

The places I learn from, or my learning structures, are informal.

Over the course of my working years, I have had to deal with a lot of ‘feedback’. I have learnt to not take things personally because in the beginning I really didn’t know much, so if someone said “you don’t know anything, do it this way”, I just tried again from scratch. And that sometimes gave me a better output.

Gradually, what started to happen was that I realised many clients didn’t really even know what they wanted. So every time they didn’t like something and they couldn’t articulate the misalignment in our approach, I was paying the price with my time, trying to fix innumerable existential problems with no dedicated skillset in that department.

At some points, you learn the tricks of demanding better and timely feedback, drawing up contracts stating stages of the process etc etc. All the dances of a creative service provider.

Most of the time, feedback revolves around comparing and contrasting.

“Look at them, look at her, look at Nike”.

I think this makes you blind to what is unique about your reality and you miss out on spending your time and energy to bring that out. It’s a problem when you just point at all the shiny objects around you and say, we want to be that.

I understand your dream. I get your mission and vision. But again, can we talk about actual, actionable things when we talk about feedback? We can’t hit our goals with nothing, we have to build small things to reach them.

The problem is between demand and supply. Too little genuine demand (for feedback) and way too much rubbish supply (of feedback).

Somewhere on the internet, there is a survey on feedback and it says most of them are not brain-friendly. I will not give further information on this. I don’t have it.

I am not suggesting we be rosy for the heck of making something digestible. There is time for strong negative feedback. That has a function. A great one. But can we use that ammunition responsibly? For the right moments. Can we not get carried away because that makes us feel powerful. I am also not advocating for clinical appropriateness or very structured, template ways of communicating, definitely not. I am just saying let’s keep the song in tune. In professional or otherwise scenarios. Let’s talk openly but sometimes there are SOO many words and just zero sense and logic. Minimising those situations will only give us that extra time for all the other important commitments we might engage in and not overuse the excuse of being too “busy”.

Agreed?

We are all here to make the end product not shitty.

The product can be anything. A conversation, a project, a relationship. A fish curry.

Timing

Can we make sure it’s the right season? Is the recipient expecting it?

Feedback moments can happen anywhere( formally or informally)

Suddenly in the middle of a conversation or in a beauty parlour while paying money to get your “dry” hair washed, nonverbal meetings. And at that moment it’s between the F giver and F recipient. And the product is the result of the surrounding culture of these two. Seeing so many things coming together, that we have no say over - the least we can do is manage our timing. Surprise in this category is not appreciated.

Give feedback to someone who is definitely seeking it or bring it into the living room with some kind of preparation.

Quality

Try and keep it high yo!

Let's not use vague words that could mean anything depending on where we come from. I am not going to go into the strange things designers have to hear from clients. There are very talented people who have covered this with a lot of humour and creativity and in great depth.

Like, Specify exactly what you want to be increased or decreased. You can also elaborate on the causes of something. This affects this in a good/bad/ wanted/ unwanted way.

It’s always a collaboration. Everything is.

No matter what you do or say affects the next outcome. Being lazy is not an option for the person seeking or giving feedback. We have to act from a place where we genuinely care. And that doesn’t take more time and energy, than not caring. That’s the point.

Every time we say or write something it takes up space and we have to be a bit more mindful of that. This space is someone else’s time and mind. And really that is the only thing we have that is not abstract. When you waste a good conversation, an email, a meeting on things that are unrelated to the collective goal and serves only yourself and in the production of your happy hormones. It’s burning something real. Time is the real currency.

We all played office-office when we were kids, or at least most of us did. We don’t need to play that game anymore. We are in the office now.

A Rant on Constructive Feedback was originally published in Write Leela Write on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

— Julie Andrews as Maria Von Trapp, in The Sound Of Music

Even branding has its ABCs.

If Maria Von Trapp ran a branding agency she would insist on starting with the ABCs — tone, purpose, and style. Before we can communicate a brand’s offerings cogently, or, further still, make branding poetry, we must know our ABCs.

The challenge with a new brand language is that, unlike with the ABC’s of music or language, we have no preexisting rules developed over the centuries. And that is the best part! We get to riff and create these rules from scratch. The end result is a set of guidelines for the brand.

Working from this predefined set of communication guidelines (or brand bible, if you will) is the essence of brand communication. But not everyone invests enough time and discipline into this initial groundwork. Seeing a brand communicating without a solid foundation is like watching musicians of different genres competing on stage. You end up with a confusing cacophony. It rarely happens, and it never should!

Let’s not reinvent the alphabet with every piece of brand communication.

A brand bible, when developed well, can help set a consistent tone in brand language across platforms, and create a unified visual personality. As a result, content and design teams can use the brand bible as a starting point for ideas, a common ground between different mediums, and a foundation to build each brand communication on.

Eventually, a consistent and unique brand language can achieve high recall value and recognition.

We love our brand bibles.

Here’s a little bit about how brand communication guidelines help us work efficiently and effectively at Write Leela Write.

Need to make a new website? Copy and design teams can quickly come up with a coherent solution to communicate the brand’s purpose and offerings, because the brand bible puts us all on the same page.

Need to extend your brand to packaging? We won’t get bogged down by the minutiae of which font or colour to use, because we already know. Designers and content writers can work instead on clutter-breaking visuals and on-the-shelf recognition.

Need a last minute event booth design? Designers can ready print files before the deadline because the brand bible lays down basic visual units that can be used, replicated, and adapted, for the specific purpose at hand.

Need your brand to quickly add its voice to a trending topic on social media? This can be done quickly and accurately, because we’ll know what your brand sounds like if it were a person. With the help of the brand bible, we can extrapolate the tone, language, and vocabulary your brand should be using for each market and platform.

We’ll also know who your brand would be if it were a magical animal, a super hero, or even a character in the Sound of Music.

Now, wouldn’t you like to know too?

Julie Andrews Was Right About Branding was originally published in Write Leela Write on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We’ll be honest. We’ve received plenty of panicked calls from people who need ‘quick branding’ so their company can go live. These are people who have invested time, money and research on a new product or service and sacrificed high-salaries and family time just to be able to live their dreams. And yet, branding, the soul of their product, is just an afterthought. Truth be told we can’t blame them. We’re living in an era which encourages instant gratification. We’re taught that a product or service should be the end result and branding is just a quick matter of getting a logo and website done. We’ve survived three years in the industry doing exactly the opposite. We’ve always believed that branding is a story, and this story is your unique way of offering an idea to the world.

It’s Not The Idea. It’s Your Take on It.

Your product or idea might have many competitors. It might be new in your specific market, but there must have been a past version or attempt at it. This is why a successful start-up is not just about the product you offer, but how your product talks to the world. How will your narrative be different? What are the values you will be most excited about promoting alongside with your product? Your idea comes from the past, but your way of representing it to the world makes it your own.

You Can’t Fake It

Okay, the narrative doesn’t have to be different for the sake of being different. If you are not trying to imitate, then it’s your own brand story. You have obviously made a product that is different or better. There is enough you can work with right there. And it has to tie in with what you are offering. You can’t be selling flats in the outskirts of the city and talking about wildlife .

Good Branding Means Consistency in Character

When we sit to analyse a new company with our clients we always recommend workshopping it’s story before we even get into designing a logo. Your brand must be a living breathing person, one that has a history, one that has values, a sense of humour and most importantly, one that will evolve with time. If you’ve done the work on your brand and its story, then you’ll already see that it knows how to illustrate itself to the world visually and textually. Your brand begins to know itself. This doesn’t mean that your brand can’t evolve or throw in some surprises. But it does mean that your brand is reliable and that people come to expect certain qualities from it.

Don’t Jump On The Bandwagon

If recent events have taught us anything, it is that your idea cannot survive on hanging on a trend and providing little else. We’ve seen the Ubers for *insert human convenience here* crash and burn, merely serving as cautionary lampoons for other brands. And yet, every other month something comes along to take it’s place. What you need to do is give your brand the time and nourishment it deserves, we promise that it will serve you exponentially. Trends come and go, but do remember that your brand is in it for the long haul!

4 Reasons Why Branding is Much More Than A Logo and a Tagline was originally published in Write Leela Write on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Successful Indian Start-Ups Must Move Past Copy-Paste Ideas

In the past 3 years our company Write Leela Write has worked with more than 30 Indian Start-ups in Bangalore. It’s no surprise that most of our clientele have been in the start-up space, after all Bangalore has been bustling with enterprise for a while now.

I think we’re pushing past the ‘silicon valley’ boundary as well. Every educated urbanite over the age of twenty has some aspirational dream that features a Start- Up marquee.

So what’s happened in the last decade that makes entrepreneurship such a viable choice for so many?

I’d reckon it’s rapid globalisation, more money to spend on luxuries, and dynamic consumerism fuelled by education and changing trends. Urban India is fertile ground, and everyone wants a piece. It’s finally time for all those western ideas, products, and all that accessibility to thrive in India. It’s time for hyper-custom needs and services.

And here’s where start-ups can make or break it long term.

Let’s not mince words. Let’s lay it out clean. India has a problem when it comes to originality. The closest we come to an original approach is our ‘jugaad’ way, which in itself is cutting corners and getting stuff done without doing the hard work. While I still think jugaad can be charming, it really can crush the way we’re building ‘New India’.

Here are 3 things we think every start-up needs to think through before ‘pasting’ an idea onto the Indian demographic.

Copy, Don’t Paste

No idea is original. And yes, the Indian market is quite ready (or soon will be) for a host of services, products, and lifestyle perks that new start-ups stand to offer. But here’s the problem. People are just taking old ideas, slapping on a new logo and getting right into it. One quick website later, they head right into the market. Hold on a second, though. Just because you found a new gap in the ever widening market doesn’t automatically translate to a successful start-up. At least not long term. What counts is your unique DNA on the idea. What counts is how the rhythm of your brand will pick up and curve around new cultural realities. What counts is how your brand connects to its people and evolves with them.

Acknowledge Cultural Baggage

Yeah, we all love to glue people together as cosmopolitan and globalised. Makes it easier to identify with our target audience. A good chunk of the Indian urbanite population can very well fit into the globalised customer suite. And here’s where the friction starts to build. Start-ups are confused about what tone to use. Should they just go all out and create a smorgasbord of millennial catch phrases? Should they be more conservative? Should they be more experimental? If you don’t deconstruct the cultural nuances and appreciate the specific history of the Indian market, then you’ll have a hard time creating a lasting brand.The answer to this is ridiculously simple. The truth is if you put the work into your brand, your brand itself tells you how to communicate.

Branding = Creating a New Person

A brand is, as we often tell our clients, a living breathing individual. It has a sense of humour. It has a background, a history, a reason for it having certain values. Your brand will evolve, it will have personal growth moments, and will want to try new things. Your brand tells you how to interact with the world and has solid reasons for doing so. We’ve gone through this process so many times with our clients, and after they put in the work with us to deconstruct what their idea stands for, it’s so much easier to talk to the world.

So here we are. An exciting time, an entrepreneurial era that promises to stick around for a while. We’re hoping to see a lot more enthusiastic entrepreneurs embracing the value of their idea. We’re hoping to witness more people falling in love with their work because they pushed past the temptation to slap on an old idea without further thought, because they pushed themselves to see an idea through a new lens. Because they were courageous enough to add their own spin on an idea and walk it down a new block.

Successful Indian Start-Ups Must Move Past Copy-Paste Ideas was originally published in Write Leela Write on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.