Core77

Marc Gobe spoke on Emotional Branding, or Humanizing brands through Emotional Design. A snippet from the intro,

Relying on real case histories that have broken the glass ceiling of commodity marketing, Marc Gobé will demonstrate that the true measurement of a brand success is in how it impacts culture and lifestyles through an emotional meaning that is brought to life through design.

This was a fun presentation to sit through and see through the eyes of a creator how exactly deep insights into brands that have managed to touch our emotions do it. Gobe emphasized that design has changed, he mentioned the difference between what he referred to as "Brands in the Industrial Age" where every detail of the corporate logo was rigidly controlled and "brands in the emotional age" using Google's ever changing logo on holidays as a counter example.

"Make them cry"

A GM automotive designer who would surprise in each concept presentation by using different means of showing the same concept using different media.

After the gap, what its like to work with Karim Rashid.

Next speaker up was Desmond Loh of OXO, a strategic brand consultancy on Iconic design as a path to creating business value or 'Iconic Brands'. Expecting the usual iPod, it was a pleasant surprise to find out what its really like to work with/for Karim Rashid, the iconic brand of design himself. Public misconceptions about working with designers with a capital D include the fear that they're a pain in the butt, but Karim's not like that, he's a nice guy really, Loh tells us. He can be a bit emotional but that's quality that makes him the visionary designer that he is. On hearing that Karim's working on 60 projects right now, Loh was asked by Tonya Peck, a design team leader at Microsoft, how exactly did he manage, since even running 20 projects at a time could be a challenge in a design studio. Rashid has a team of designers supporting him, as no one can manage so many projects alone, and stays in constant touch with studios like Loh's in Singapore and elsewhere around the world via email, Skype and IM.