Lessons from the Laughing Cow

J and I have been doing The South Beach Diet. It's going well. It's a healthy diet with three meals and two snacks a day. We're eating things like smoked salmon frittata, cracked pepper steak, turkey roll-ups with cilantro mayo -- and we're losing weight. However this diet has me cooking constantly. It's a ton of work to keep up with all these tasty meals and snacks. Washing vegetables, chopping vegetables, cleaning up from chopping vegetables. Making sauces and spreads and marinades. Ugh.

In the course of doing all this cooking, I've come to know the Laughing Cow. She makes my life easier and I will be a loyal fan from this day forward. Plus she's taught me a valuable design lesson.

After making one of our first fancy breakfasts, I was preparing lunches and snacks for the day, one of which was celery sticks stuffed with a wedge of Laughing Cow cheese. The Laughting Cow packaging is novel; a light cardboard circular shell that holds eight wedges of foil-wrapped cream cheese. Cute. Different. But I'm not looking for cute when I've got serious food prep taking over my life. I want fast and easy. I approached the cow with dread, certain I would be fighting my way through this packaging. Wet hands, thin paper sealing the package = more mess.

Not so! There's a fine, red string encircling the package. Pull the string, it cuts through the paper seal, and the package opens right up. The top then fits back on and houses the remaining wedges.

Nice. Right back in the fridge without an additional plastic bag or container. Trust me, when you are doing as much food prep as I've been doing, this matters.

The next challenge was the wedge itself. I'm thinking okay, this is going to be a gooey mess. I could already see half the product sticking to the foil and me trying to eke out my full day's portion. When you're dieting you want every last morsel of your allotted rations!

But the smart people at Laughing Cow anticipated this and put this little tab on the wedge. Lift the tab straight up and foil peels back cleanly. No mess. No waste. The cheese stands alone!

Small things but as they say, the devil is in the details.

What design lessons did I take away from the Laughing Cow?

Customer experience is king. As I approach my design projects I want to remember to think about the customer interacting with this thing I'm making. Imagine them in the environment where they will have it in their hands--holding it, opening it,  navigating, reading, using it.

One of the projects currently on my screen is a promotional wrap for a seminar handout. I've been focused on what elements to include to showcase the speaker’s other offerings and reinforce his credibility. The Laughing Cow has made me pause and think beyond my marketing message. As I envision the seminar attendees holding the handout I wonder, what will make their interaction with this piece a better experience? Will the message get lost in a room with less than ideal lighting? Will they be seated at tables, or will this piece need to be sturdy enough to provide a writing surface? Don't know. But I'm glad the Laughing Cow folks thought beyond the grocery store shelf. And I will too.

I'm adding "Envision customer interacting with product after purchase. Describe." to my design brief template. Thank you Laughing Cow.

The Hunger Games Names

 

I just finished reading The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins. Ooooooo...I was hooked from the start and could not stop until I finished all three books.

Besides being totally engaged and at times horrified by the story, I was intrigued by the names of the characters. Over the course of three books, a lot of characters are introduced and the names just fit and flow so well. Almost Ikea-like.

Let's see, there's Katniss, the main character. She's smart and self-sufficient, courageous and so very clear on her priorities. I predict there will be lots of little girls named Katniss starting kindergarten in about 5 years.

Other character names that linger for me: Prim, Rue, Finnick, Gale, Cashmere, Haymitch, Peeta, Coin, Snow, Tigris, Cressida, Beetee, Delly, Cato, Clove, Boggs, Lyme, Cinna, Greasy Sae, Plutarch....

I find myself wanting to sort out the names, to discover a pattern in the author's lexicon. Many are organic: animal, vegetable, mineral. Some hard, cold, steely. Some light and clear. Some mysterious. Are there clues to who the good guys are? I imagine the names as fonts: some are round and clean. Some are sharp, pointy; definitely serifs.

I wonder if one day we'll use fonts named Cinna, Rue, and Finnick. I can already see them. What about one named Greasy Sae?

If your name were a font, what font would it be?

Commercial Break: Ads I stop and watch

This ad makes me smile. It's not very nice and it's not going to make me switch from my 6" turkey-on wheat-no cheese-all the veggies-no condiments...but it still cracks me up.

Power of the Pen

Maureen and I stopped at the W Hotel bar to have a drink before the February Chicago Women in Publishing program. Neither of us had been to the W before and we were a little curious. I liked the simplicity of the name and that was enough for me to give it a try. We agreed we'd leave if we didn't like it.

Well, we liked it. We sat in a quiet corner of the Living Room on cream colored leather couches that curve around, creating a nice ebb and flow to the space. A backdrop of light and motion create a bit of an other worldly ambiance. We had to touch the cocktail table to see if the surface was real or projected. We ordered wine and cheese and spent a lovely hour in our own little world.

All in all, an enjoyable experience, that did not end when the bill came.

As we signed our tabs, we both commented, "I really like this pen."  and "This is a really cool pen."

So what is it about the pen?

• It's square. It feels secure. It doesn't roll off the tray when the bill is delivered. It's a small thing, but makes the experience smoother, less distracting. Isn't that what design should do?

• It's a solid piece of some kind of matte rubber material. Smooth with an edge. Not shiny or slippery or cold. No clicking or twisting required.

• It has clean, uncomplicated lines. Simple brushed metal clip. Spare text, in silver, matches the clip.

With this pen, the smart people at the W continued the sensual experience of the W brand. Rather than being brought back to the reality of the bill in our hands, the pen served to charm us and cement the love. Never underestimate the power of the pen.