Obscuring the meaning of content

"Debates within design about ‘service’ are often polarised between ‘the agents of neutrality’’ in one corner and ‘the aesthetes of style’ in the other. There is, however, a third faction whose voice tends not to be heard amid the clamour of modem communication business: namely ‘the champions of diversity’. In other words, those graphic designers who are prepared to defend the rough terrain of content from the steamroller of branding and corporate identity. The designers in this third faction tend to be more involved in editorial, curatorial and information design. This includes the making of things (magazines, books and exhibitions, etc) rather than the selling of things (through marketing collateral design, packaging design, corporate identity and branding, etc). "

This quote is interesting, Nick Bell believes that there are designers out there that are into keeping messages pure and clear and not hidden or obscured by the branding or corporate id. But they tend to work in the field of making rather than selling. Is this because when it comes to selling the brand message is so important, people are buying into a brand (a way of life)

"But the aim of a designer is to develop a repeatable way of working that is recognisable and lasting, whilst being versatile and of-its-time for as long as possible. The balance between repeatable method and specific response, between style and content, is hard to maintain. The desire for notoriety tips us in favour of repeatable methods as we tend to spend more time honing the formal attributes of our style than we do learning about what our work says and means. The pressure for economic efficiency leads us to devising ingenious systems that organise and simplify our work because it takes less time to fit content into preordained arrangements than it does to redefine a system under new conditions. The danger in going the other way, of making all our responses specific, is that no one will recognise that we did it and that it will take us so long that no client will foot the bill."

It seems there are so many factors that could obscure a specific message's meaning or add another level of meaning. Be it the ego of the designer adding their personality (so the piece is 'recognisable' – is this not surreptitious self-promotion, therefor branding the piece with themself?) or the brand message being more important than the product message.

All quotes by Nick Bell
The Steam Roller of Branding
Eye Magazine 53 Autumn 2004