This week marks the two-year anniversary of Design & the Bottom Line retail and branding blog. It’s been an interesting journey including forty posts, over two hundred tweets and over 5,000 page views of the site. When one begins a journey you’re never quite sure where it will lead and that’s certainly the case with this Blog. Interestingly the three most viewed posts to date include: New Boeing 737 Interior, one post titled Why are Hospitals White and another on Hip Hotel Interiors. These are diverse topics but utilize concepts of design and branding to illustrate why these solutions are, or perhaps are not successful. What I have learned in the process is that what interests me the most are not necessarily the most popular topics that viewers are interested in. So look for more and varied topics in the future.
In my first post I stated that my interest in branding came from my own experience in using a ubiquitous household tool – an electric drill. A standard commoditized Black & Decker drill which lasted barely through one construction project, compared to the use of professionally branded and positioned DeWalt drill that I am still using fifteen years later is instructive. My emotional connection to the DeWalt product line is tangible and visceral; it’s a customer’s commitment to a brand that most retailers only hope to achieve but rarely do. It is this type of emotional connection as a result of effective branding that the blog will continue to explore in future posts.
Bottom Line: Thanks to all who have signed up to receive posts and tweets from Design & the Bottom Line! The topics on the blog will continue to be diverse while drawing connections between disparate design realms, across industry and product lines in an attempt to provide tangible examples of branding that works. Here’s to the next two years.
Design & the Bottom Line 