It is interesting when you listen to the 80′s pop genre. The music you know, you think of as ‘amazing’ and then once you hear B-sides or tracks on full lengths that you have not been exposed to, they sound, well, dated. Or shall we say ‘cheesy’, and often plain embarrassing.

The same holds true for the record sleeve designs, as you can see in the examples below:

We see all the 80′s had to offer: The haircuts, the neon, the bad typography, the ‘wild’ angles and effects. Sadly, the same forgettable design is to be ‘heard’ on a lot of the tracks that are hidden behind those album covers.

Yet my  top two 80′s albums, Depeche Mode’s ‘Music For The Masses’ and U2′s ‘The Joshua Tree’ seem to be immune to what is going on around them, in sound as well as design sophistication.

There seems to be a formula. Timeless compositions equal timeless designs. Great artists, regardless of their background and genres know to stay away from styles and trends and like working with like minded individuals or firms. It seems that they create work solely with inspiration that comes from within, a gut instinct, driven by just one fundamental thing: a strong concept.

Looking through design annuals of the past years this thread holds true. Trends become a big wash and the only items that truly stand out are new concepts; fresh ideas that are followed through with a smart and appropriate design solution.

Designers, let’s live by this rule! And for those Entrepreneurs and Marketing Managers looking to hire an agency; this might be an important variable to consider when interviewing the agency that creates your brand atmosphere, so that come 2011, no one feels that your brand feels ‘oh so 2010′.

Today I read an article in the online edition of Forbes about the importance of the right, aspiring, positioning of luxury brands, especially during hard economic times like these. I read the article because the individual who wrote it is an Executive at one of the world’s leading branding agencies, so a brand I trust. I also lend Forbes my trust. The problem is that I spotted a typo half way through. Instead of ‘They’, it said ‘The’, which changed the meaning and made me pause for a second. It changed my trust in the article, my brand perception of the agency as well as my trust in Forbes. Could it be that editorials, even just short columns, are being written at the speed of blog entries, or maybe even faster? As I am typing this entry I clearly understand that it comes with the responsibility of representing the brand of Geyrhalter Design to everyone and anyone, a brand that I built over years through intense work, a brand that many individuals are nourishing 24/7 to remain in tact to aspiring and current clientele alike.

Consumers want brands they aspire to to consistently show that extra attention to detail. In your customer’s mind there is no difference to the way your brand gets communicated, may it be a 20 second tweet or a 30 second campaign, it is all about how it makes them feel afterwards.

When we received our edition of the latest hardcover ‘bible’ on Graphic Design, from the publishing brand Creatives have trusted and aspired to over decades, Graphis, I was greeted by a horrific mistake in the second intro paragraph, followed by a slightly amusing typo, if it only was not in our very own company name, as shown below. After thousands of brand interactions over decades, it only took seconds for us to decide that the brand has lost its appeal to us.

To further make my point I was greeted by the below ad in the online edition of the New York Times, one of the world’s most important and highly regarded papers, just minutes before writing this entry.

Do we really not take the time to evaluate how much these little mistakes or decisions harm our brand? Maybe the advertiser does NOT suit our brand. Maybe the – already much delayed – book should yet NOT be rushed off to China without proper proof-reading and maybe a leading branding agency should watch out for their own affluent brand while advising others on what to do with theirs.

The times are changing, we do a thousand things at once, but none of them to perfection.

Maybe we should strive for perfection again (even if we do not reach it), because emotional connections to brands are still being built on the foundation of excellence that leads to trust and last but not least to sales.