Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits

Should not be playing Bastion all day, so here's some reading that I got done:

Found this book through Brain Picking, click through to read the much better review since what follows will be a collection of quotations.
I should preface this with the declaration that I'm a giant sucker for brands. I buy Apple products...because well they're Apple (which translates into amazing design and wonderful user experience to me). I spend a ton of time on Etsy's "featured shops" and Carryology because they tell stories of the products. And (last example I promise) I reeeeaaally wanted a Goruck backpack just from reading their news stories.

Anyways.
This leads nicely into a quotation from the introduction of the book by Walt Whitman:

Whatever satisfies the soul is truth

The book is a series of interviews with prominent individuals in branding. A lot of the discussion involve the human need to belong, designing, and brands embodying archetypes. Such as, by Brian Collins:

Stories are how we give meanings to what happens to us. When we call upon them, they activate "archetypes" [...] they remind us of eternal truths, and they help us navigate through our lives. 

He also says, which I found quite amusing:

If you were a greek warrior, you went to the temple and make a sacrifice to Nike before you went into battle. You asked her for victory. She was a mean motherfucker! You did not mess with her. She was about winning and achievement.

I don't feel that branding is such a "noble pursuit" as described by many of the interviewees, but definitely can't deny their influence in our lives. Cheryl Swanson says:

The brands are totems. They tell us stories about our place in culture-about where we are and where we've been. They also help us figure out where we're going. Brands have become time capsules, and in many ways, they're now navigation and identity devices. They've transcended their transactional economic function and now reflect our culture and who we are in a way that no other object can.

Dori Tunstall comments on creativity and connection:

What defines being human is our ability to transform things from one energy state to another [...] our ability to adapt to so much change and to also be the force of change-both good and bad-is extraordinary

One hypothesis is that creativity comes from our need to make things special. [...] our ability to make abstractions concrete. In many ways, this is the genesis of creativity. The notion of making things special and the identification of something as special or unique - and the relationship to that thing as special and unique - are the heart of creativity itself. 

Nowdays, we have a tremendous emphasis on dress and makeup and in our rituals of buying. [...] but our rituals of consumption are no longer as satisfactory to us. Because they are empty of human relationships. 

 And lastly Phil Duncan on leadership:

Its the responsibility of the leader to have a sense of vision. But its also important to build that vision with your colleagues. [...] but in order to inspire them to greatness, i must be able to instill a sense of possibility in them and enable them to see hose possibilities.