Your product can be copied, your service beaten, your prices undercut and your people poached. But there is one thing that can’t be taken from you. Your brand.

During the 1990’s, design became obsessed with the need to learn software and balance technical skills with visual and critical thinking. But once the software is understood, understanding why to do certain things becomes more valuable than how to do them. How is a process, and learning a craft is more than following instructions. How is important for avoiding costly mistakes. Why is for those who wish to push and are not risk-averse. Why is for those who seek to improve. How is a process for finishing tasks, Why is fulfilling objectives. How usually results in more. Why usually results in better.

After five years as a creative at Dunham Bremmer producing ten years worth of work, I found I am more interested in supporting individuals and companies that value quality and realise the distinct difference between more and better. To value better means to believe that the taste of the food will always trump the serving size. (If you’ve had a good meal, you know it does.) Better is always attainable, products, services and experiences can always be improved. More has its place, but it was better that made me intolerant of mediocrity and set me off on a mission to support fine craftsmanship, thoughtful goods and great service.

Graphic Design can have a myriad of purposes: to inform, to persuade, to sell or to delight. To delight an audience is to present them with something that is different in its point of view, but achieves a simplicity in communication. Help them see the their world in new and different ways. We are taught a set of skills important for our growth and survival as people: communication, arithmetic, wellness, and others. But no one teaches us how to perceive the world. To delight someone is to give a small lesson in how to see the usual in an unusual way.

My first ever design job was for David Levene back in the late 80’s. Yes I have been working longer than Apple has been making computers. Although I didn’t know it back then, this was to be my most formative experience with the power of true branding. In an industry where the default is to fake and to assume others are doing the same, David sort out sincerity, honesty and authenticity. True Brands don’t focus on being cool, instead they are usually so passionately enthusiastic about something they are the exact opposite of cool. It was this intense genuine caring that allowed the brand to grow in a recession and light a fire within me.

Twice I worked for a design firm called KTISMA. The first time I figured out that people love shortcuts. The second time I figured out that if you have a secret, you can sell it. It was a time when the business of inventing secrets that could be used as short-cuts to help someone get to a desired point without much effort. I worked out anything worth doing is difficult. And any one that tells you there’s a cheap or easy way to get every thing you want is probably trying to sell you some thing. Experience can not be downloaded, you can only live it. I was empowered and I went forth and set up Fusion Communication Ltd.

Working in an ecosystem where helping = free (small to medium NZ businesses) your currency becomes enthusiasm. Quality is important because it gives people a legitimate reason to become excited. Sincerity is what creates the line between real enthusiasm and empty hype. This sounds like a lame-brain observation, but things are better if creative people produce work that incites excitement in both the creative and the audience. If something lacks passion in the studio you can be sure it will fail to engage.

I don’t know what the hell is going on. Neither do you, and neither does any one else, really. We’re all lost and making things up as we go. We are making things before we know what they do and breaking stuff before we know what replaces it. We’re all just here tinkering, speculating and listening to see if our shovels hit something hard while we’re digging. I suppose that’s what world- building is, though, so let’s get used to it. We need to learn to tolerate ambiguity.