The architecture in brand building

How many of you remember your freshman year of college? Was it eons ago or was it just a handful of years in the past? However long ago, you understood that the leap from high school to college was going to be a big one. You may have experienced a range of feelings: being overwhelmed, nervousness, excitement, intimidation and the list goes on. Some crossed that threshold to "the rest of your college days" and others might not have made it.

For me, the end of my freshman year was a seminal moment in my life. With two semesters of engineering classes under my belt and a dismal GPA to show for it, my gut was telling me that my future wasn't going to be in thermodynamic analysis of electrical systems for aerospace technology (or something like that). So remembering a drawing class that I had in high school, and knowing I wasn't too bad in it, I made the leap to architecture.

One of the best (and least informed) decisions in my life.

So ever since, I have been developing my tapestry of ideas from my work as a designer, telecommunications consultant, a Return Peace Corps Volunteer and a marketing and recruitment strategist. It's been an interesting journey that has only just begun.

So now it's always interesting when people ask what I do (brand building and creative marketing) and then they say: "oh cool, did you go to school for that". My response is "no, I actually studied architecture". That's when I get the confused looks. This is how I explain it:

Whether it's yesterday, today or tomorrow, relevance, for brands, is the bottom line. Now being relevant means you are optimizing both creativity and strategy in producing a viable and successful brand idea. A brand that speaks to what people need, want or desire. This means taking design thinking (engaging in courses of action that change existing conditions into preferred ones) and developing ideas and transforming them into tangible and/or intangible benefits - exactly what an architect does. Today, shifts in the market (that have begun rendering businesses and their business models irrelevant) aren't one or two isolated incidents. The entire system is changing and systems thinking is an architect's specialty. 

Now what I do is a work in progress.  I'm constantly thinking, designing,  and building and then rethinking, redesigning and rebuilding again. I'm eternally in the design lab.