This text-only record is part of the interactive AIGA Design Archives where you can view more details, zoom into images and explore other works in the definitive online resource on American design.
 |
Design Category
Information design, 1996
Design firm
Cahan & Associates (San Francisco, California)
Collection
(1997) Design of Understanding 2
|
Our charge from GVO, an industrial design firm, was to create a glossy, perfect-bound 32-page brochure with nice pictures of their product design to get CEOs interested in the firm. After extensive research, we found out that GVO employed an ethnographic approach that focused on how people live in the real world, doing everyday things like cleaning toilets and washing dishes. This approach runs counter to other industrial design firms intent on creating beautiful products to attract consumer interest. We decided to go beyond the brochure idea, and created a five-tier direct marketing campaign the size of the Wall Street Journal—a size and medium familiar to CEOs. Each week, the target audience of CEOs would get a different brochure delivered in a brightly colored plastic bag, with a different message on what it takes to create breakthrough products.