Death to Habits and the Vanilla Box
As a student of fine arts, I’ve been subjected to numerous stylistic lessons on drawing, painting and design. From the basic principles of color to aesthetics of element layouts, I’ve been engrained with ideas to enhance pleasure to the eye. Beyond that, artistic expression, boundaries and interpretation are all defined by its creator and how it’s best served to deliver its message to the viewer.
Despite freedom beyond extraordinary limitations, most of us are still boxed in by tradition and habitual conformity. In one particular exercise, our classroom was given an assignment to produce an outdoor landscape, consisting of fields, grasses and trees. Regardless of artistic talent, regardless of instructional enlightenment and regardless of that expressive freedom, a vast majority of students struggled to articulate beyond the idea that grass was to be depicted by skewed lines, trees were to be depicted by a morphed set of circles and sun light was a shape.
Creating an optimal environment for receiving information must first come with a deconstruction and rebuilding of our own principles and habits for what our audiences need. Despite an increasing palette of tools from which to create this channel, we often design around a vanilla box of standards that our habits have allowed us to fall in love with. It’s time to kill habit and blow up that vanilla box. It’s time to represent our grasses as dancing strokes in wind, illustrate trees as a silhouettes of color and sun light as an array of warmth and shade.
Instead of strictly focusing on the message, the channel for delivery is most critical and its design is what will be the ultimate successor. And in order to properly design this channel, we must identify the medium and palette of tools for which our audiences will be receptive. As a sponge for information, I know that not everything that I see, hear, taste, smell or touch will be retained. However, I know that if that channel or environment has entrenched a memory, the message is likely to endure as well.
Identifying your palette is predicated on your message and your audience. Picasso painted “The Old Guitarist” after the death of a close friend and much of his emotion is expressed through the palette in which he used. That message would be muddied had the painting been a watercolor with bright, warm colors. Understand you message, destroy the habitual, traditional palette of delivery and design a new one that better suits your evolving audience.
I’m a big fan of step taking as a metaphor for building success. I’m also a believer that one way to take steps is to envision yourself at the top and take those steps backward. A new friend of mine, Lisa Petrilli, recently wrote about the importance of identifying your vision before you start building. Instead of starting at the beginning and succumbing to the vanilla box, identify what success looks like in your meeting or exhibit space. What does a satisfied attendee look like? What have they taken away? This is not to be defined by comment cards or surveys…this is your message, idealistic and received effectively and pure. Defining this success is the first step, followed by the backward steps. And with each of those, identify the palette of tools that make it possible.
Yield to the cultured routines for developing your canvas of learning. Put habits inside your vanilla box…then burn it to the ground.
(image by Tony the Misfit via Flickr Creative Commons License)
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- Do You Know What's Outside Your Vanilla Box? | C-Level Strategies & Awakenings - [...] This post is inspired by Eric’s artistically-written and insightful post entitled, “Death to Habits and the Vanilla Box.” [...]
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Bio: Marketing director at Echelon Design. Social Media evangelist, marketing strategist, graphic artist and tech nerd.
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Great article Eric! We are definitely in an era of “experimental marketing” and I strongly believe we need to explore new ways of sending our message!
Yep. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve asked a client what their message is for an opening conference video and received a blank stare. Or “We want to get them really excited and pumped up for the conference.” “Ok, but what are you trying to say? What are they pumped up about? Why should they be excited to be here?” And *then* the blank stare. A little vision goes a long way…
Eric,
This is an absolutely inspired post and I could not be more honored to be mentioned. You brilliantly capture the importance of vision – but in an artistic manner that is deeply inspiring.
You’ve reminded me how constricting our habits can be, and how they often prevent us from seeing color in the nuances that exist outside of that vanilla box.
Thank you again for the honor,
@LisaPetrilli
Eric, Great summary of the challenges of expression. As a student of design (life long pursuit) turned marketer, I have attempted to create a sensible balance of my right brain and left brain tendencies. The quest for order and logic benefits from shaking it up and relying on intuition and experimentation. Challenging conventional thinking or the predictable path is tiring, yet rewarding.
In college, the day before a big race, my cross country coach would have the team visualize our race from the gun going off, to each hill, turn, rut on the ground, our breathing pattern, muscle movement, competitors around us, boxing us in as we try to make our move etc. We would play out every detail of our race right down to the end result we wanted. Then come race day we play it out in real time.
This post is pure art. Beautifully written and well stated. I’m a firm believer in baby steps and this is very nice take on visualization from a desired feeling/result/outcome.
As someone who works in a training and meeting design environment, I truly enjoyed your article. I completely agree that the way in which we design meetings needs to continually evolve and sometimes we have to leave behind our conception of what “good looks like” and re-invent our environment. Having a vision of the outcome is key to staying on course in the design of an effective meeting or training program. Thank you for putting into words what has been a constant thread of consciousness for me.