Hey, Whipple squeeze this & Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products(5,6/52)
Hello… If you are new here, you might be wondering what’s this 5,6/52. I am participating in 52 Book Challenge 2019 in Goodreads.com
5, Hey, Whipple squeeze this
I am super excited to write about this book.’ Hey, Whipple squeeze this’ is one of the best books about advertising and creativity, I ever read so far. Luke Sullivan covers about every aspect of advertising and not just the ones we expect or normally read. He explains the ideas with real ADs. He not only covers the creative thinking process but also the different types of clients and their habits too. He is giving clear clarity on how an ad should be created, what are the hurdles we face in the process. He explains the steps to write copy for ads and make it simple. It’s highly recommended if you are working (or wannabe ) in the creative field.
My favourite quotes from the book.
“Good advertising, it has been said, builds sales. But great advertising builds factories.”
“It must be relevant. It must matter to somebody, somewhere. It has to offer something customers want or solve a problem they have, whether it’s a car that won’t start or a drip that won’t stop. If you don’t have something relevant to say, tell your clients to put their wallets away. Because no matter how well you execute it, an unimportant message has no receiver. The tree falls in the forest.”
Bernbach once said, “Dullness won’t sell your product, but neither will irrelevant brilliance.”
“People don’t buy quarter-inch drill bits. They buy quarter-inch holes.”
“Remember: Every category has its own version of Tired Old Visuals. In insurance, it’s grandfathers flying kites with grandchildren. In the tech industries, it’s earnest people looking at computer screens. And in beer, it’s boobs. Learn what iconography is overused in your category, and avoid it.”
Howard Gossage, a famous ad person from the 1950s, said, “People
read what interests them, and sometimes it’s an ad.”
“As a creative person, you will discover your brain has a built-in tendency to want to reach closure even rushes to it. Evolution has left us with circuitry that doesn’t like ambiguity or unsolved problems. Its pattern-recognition wiring evolved for keeping us out of the jaws of lions, tigers, and bears — not for making lateral jumps to discover unexpected solutions. But in order to get to a great idea, which is usually about the 500th one to come along, you’ll need to resist the temptation to give in to the anxiety and sign off on the
the first passable idea that shows up.”
“As it is in dancing, one should lead, one should follow. If your visual is a hardworking idea, let your headline quietly clean up the work left to it. And if the headline is brilliant, well-crafted, and covers all the bases, the visual (if one exists at all) should be merely icing on the cake.”
“Remember, the rule of thumb is never show what you’re saying and never say what you’re showing.”
“In my opinion, the best ever written was for Nike: “Just Do It.” That’s not about shoes. It’s not just about sports, either; it’s about Life. But it sold a lot of shoes.”
“You will spend most of your career trying to decide whether crisp or flaky is the right word to use. Keep reminding yourself: Let the fun be in the chase.”
“This is a business. The whole chaos-is-good, whiskey-and-cigarettes, showing up-late-for-work thing is fine for artists and rock stars. But advertising is only half art. It’s also half business. The thing is, both halves are on the deadline.”
“Stay in touch with the real world.”
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6, Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products
It’s not the same as other biographies. This book gives more idea about Jony’s work and his career with Apple. How these beautiful products became a reality from the thoughts and dreams. The struggles and challenges they faced. It’s an interesting journey.
Almost all designers I know, admire Steve Jobs. And they talk about him and the aesthetics of Apple products. Was he a designer? Art director? Still designers like him too much. Let me quote from the book
“Johny acknowledged, he could have never accomplished what he was without Jobs. “In so many other companies, ideas and great design get lost in the process,” he said, “The ideas that come from me and my team would have been completely irrelevant, nowhere, if Steve hadn’t been there to push us, work with us and drive through all the resistance to turn ideas into products”
Yes, designs and designers like to have somebody to stand with them for their ideas. Great designs can be executed only with the support of visionary leaders who value the design to make a well crafted useful product. Jobs and Jony shared a certain aesthetic and sensibility which made them perfect collaborators.
I knew only three names, Jobs, Jony and Cook before I read this book. There were many amazing people who worked with apple and contributed to their growth. Brunner, Satzger, Rubinstein, Daniele De Iuliis, Christopher Stringer, Shin Nishibori etc. It was Brunner who built a small design team and recruited Johny in 1992.
My favourite quotes from the book
“Marketing is what people want; engineering is what we can do; user experience is ‘Her’s how people like to do things’ Mark Rolston, SVP of Creative at Frog
“A BMW might get you to where you are going in the same way as a Chevy that costs half the price, but there will always be those who will pay for the better ride in the sexier car.”
Wasko should have known better. “If you give Steve one thing, he’s going to hate it, even if it’s great,” remembered Wasko. “So you have to make some other crap to put on the table.”
“The iPod was the First product where we thought about the packaging as almost as important as the overall product design,” Satzger explained. “ Packaging, it’s just as important as everything else.”
“Segall came back with five names. Four were ringers, placeholders for the name he loved- iMac. “It referenced the Mac, and the ‘i’ meant internet,” Segall says, “But it also meant individual, imaginative, and all the other things it came to stand for.”
Though Jobs rejected all five names, Segall refused to give up on iMac. He went back again with three or four new names but again pitched iMac. This time, Job replied: “I don’t hate it this week, but I still don’t like it.”
Segall heard nothing more about the name from Jobs personally, but friends told him that Jobs had the name silk screened on to prototypes of the new computer, testing it out to see if he liked the look.
“He rejected it twice but then it just appeared on the machine,” Segall recalled. He came to believe that Jobs changed his mind just because the lowercase “i” looked good on the product itself”.”
“It was the most beautiful of our designs,” he explained. The front face bore neither the company logo or the name of the product. “We also knew from our experience with iPod,” Stringer explained, “If you make a startlingly beautiful and original design, you don’t need to. It stands for itself. It becomes a cultural icon.”
The lack of a floppy put Jony on the defensive. “I can’t give you the best apple answer on the lack of floppy,” he said. “I can give you my answer: ‘When you move on, you leave some things behind. The floppy drive, which I will argue until I’m blue in the face, is really antiquated technology. I’ve heard the complaints, but if there’s not some sort of friction in a move forward, your step is not as consequential as you’d like to believe it is.”
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