Movember is on, second year and running. One would like to argue that
there's no better excuse of growing a Mo than this. Growing a moustache is
like rebranding (or debranding) your face.



Movember  (the month formerly known as November) is a moustache growing charity event held during November each year that raises funds and awareness for men's health.

In Finland Mo Bros and Mo Sistas are raising funds to benefit Hopeanrahasto. Hopearahasto funds research that is accelerating the discovery of better treatments for prostate cancer. 80% of the collected funds are allocated to research and 20% to counselling and guidance.

Movember challenges men to change their appearance and the face of men’s
health by growing a moustache. The rules are simple, start Movember 1st
clean-shaven and then grow a moustache for the entire month. The moustache
becomes the ribbon for men’s health, the means by which awareness and funds
are raised for cancers that affect men.  Much like the commitment to run or
walk for charity, the men of Movember commit to growing a moustache for 30
days.  

We won't cancel any meetings in Movember because of our MD's brave attempt
to a grow a Mo. All our clients, please show support. You may even donate
here, no registration needed.

In my previous career, I chose to join in United Airlines' Mileage Plus program much because I could use SAS from Helsinki to European destinations and United in transcontinental flights. However, the bigger reason was that ten years ago their mileage system was lightyears better than for example Star Alliance's. Everyone knows upgrading to business class in flight from Europe to West Coast USA is just plain awesome and with United that happened more often than with other carriers.  

 Past decade has been really traumatizing for the airlines operating with traditional (should it be written old) business model. Chapter 11, mergers and lay-outs have been dominating the airline industry news. Following that trend also United Airlines and Contintental are merging to create a world's biggest airline. No news there. 

 However, the really intriguing part is the anger towards the logo change of some United Loyalists. 

Here is a discloth that we really like. Wonder why? Well, you can order yourself one from the German online shop magazin.

Whenever I meet someone, the second question is always what is it that we do in Werklig? The answer – a design agency – usually raises more questions. And rightfully so.

Design as a concept is so overwhelmingly undefined, yet so crucial to identify what we actually do. Everything can be designed but not everything is design.

Design is, as we see it, a solution to a complex set of problems. Let’s look at corporate identities for example. CI is a complex problem, not merely a challenge. If we leave the two other elements of corporate identity mix aside, these being communication (advertising, PR, sponsorship etc) and behaviour towards customers and stakeholders, we are left with corporate visual identity. Visual identity can be solved but not without thorough knowledge of the organization in question.

Why it’s a must to understand your client and their business? In order to visualize corporation’s identity we are creating something that visually embodies the core existence of the whole organisation and fulfills the most prominent presumption of marketing: differentiation. To put it more simply:  great visual identities fulfill two things; they fit and they differentiate.

Being or looking different, without any fit is not that hard. Achieving a fitting visual identity is not that cumbersome either. However, creating a great, fitting and differentiating visual identity is complex. Design is the answer to this complexity.

For that purpose we must get to know the organisation in order to create something that can be rightfully labelled as design. Without thorough knowledge of for what, who and why we would be simply creating something hollow, something meaningless, unfitting or the same as everybody else. It's labeling instead of design. We are not in labeling business, we must not be. Labeling happens when something is just done instead of questions being asked why it should be done.

Werklig is a design agency. We ask questions. We want to know our clients. We need to know why. Luckily our clients understand this. 

Organizations spend a vast amount of money and resources to differentiate their visual identity from others. They hire an agency to create a perfect visual match to their strategic objectives. Countless hours are spend in honing the logos and emblems to differentiate the look & feel from the competitors. While typography is an integral part of the identity, being so pervasive it's usually left up to agencies to decide. Then is the third integral part; the color palette. 

When it comes to deciding the colors, the decision is usually driven by history of the organization, communication objectives, strategy and oftentimes the clients own personal preferences. The decision criteria is true and valid to all visual elements. Surely colors affect our emotions but those emotional associations are tied to our cultural background, personal experience and associations, even to our age and gender. The crucial thing about colors is that all of them have both negative and positive associations. This equals that there's is no all-evasive positive or negative color. Therefore, there are no right or wrong colors. 

All in all, if the color does not matter that much, why is this still the reality? 

Everyone who's been alive the past ten years should be aware of TED. It's an expanding non-profit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. TED brings together people from the world's of Technology, Entertainment and Design. And those people share their absolutely amazing ideas and insights through their through-the-roof presentations. In addition to the two TED main events, local events are happening around the globe as well. Gladly, one of these local events called TEDx, is being organised here in Helsinki. The x signifies an independently organised TED event. 

Alex Nieminen, founder of N2, took the initiative with other commendable people and they are proudly organising it in Helsinki 22 October. Max kudos for making it happen.

According to TED site the presenters lucky enough to be asked to speak at TED are given 18-minute slots maximum, some are for even less time such as 3- and 6-minute slots. But it's not only the burden of time management. There are ten TED commandments for the presenters as well.

(via shoplifwindchimes)

Novelist Amy Tan described the arrival of the TED Commandments as “something that creates a near-death experience; but near-death is good for creativity…”.

You can check Amy's TED presentation here.

You can apply for a ticket here. 

Werklig is a Helsinki based brand design agency.Our clientele varies from multinational corporations to small but ambitious up and coming entrepreneurs. We consider  thorough understanding of our clients business as the requisite of excellent creative work.