So I'm writing a book. It's really no big deal, really really. I wrote one a couple of years ago. This is my second one. Unlike my dream novel (the one I keep starting and never get past the first or second page of... you know the one?), I will actually publish this. That's because I'm doing it on contract and am legally bound to finish it. Gulp.
The one I wrote a few years ago was on magazine design. This one is on packaging redesigns. Even though the magazine one was a little more up my alley, I'm enjoying this one a little more. Reasons:
1. Designers at agencies (who I'm mostly working with) are way more accommodating when it comes to opportunities to promote themselves than magazine designers (who are, I assume from my own experience in magazine publishing, overworked and pathetically undercompensated) are.
2. I started on the project right out of the gate and am not now sobbing frantically wondering how I'm going to meet my next deadline.
3. I'm married now. My weekends are no longer glamorous. Sitting indoors drinking hot chocolate in a zippy-up sweatshirt while it rains and blows outside is preferable.
Still, there are definitely moments when I wish I hadn't taken this on. That sentiment seems to melt away, however, as soon as I get some good solid time to sit down and work, and realize how far I've come with it, and then I get excited. And ambitious. And start feverishly planning how I might be able to make a living out of this kind of thing.
Anyway, I was reading over some notes this afternoon that I took in an interview I did with the folks at Fitch Worldwide. Something I never thought about before that they brought to my attention: changes in retail channels have forced different approaches to packaging. It's harder these days, for example, for big electronics box stores like Best Buy to recruit competent staff. So packaging has to sell the product itself, necessitating not only a distinctive look for a brand, but well organized product information that answers consumers' questions. Also in those kinds of stores, boxes tend to be stacked in the middle of a floor rather than on a shelf, so designers have to create a kind of billboard effect to attract shoppers' attention. And now that checking out and transporting home is much more DIY, even handles on boxes need to be designed for weakling women shoppers who are going to be hauling the printer or stereo out to their Volvo station wagons.
It makes me think about what an unpleasant experience shopping for consumer electronics has become. I avoid Comp USA and Best Buy at all costs. The adolescents who work there (if you can find them to talk to them) almost without fail give me the exact wrong information — it's almost become a game to see how wrong they can actually be. Comp USA is so poorly lighted, with junk and unopened boxes blocking aisles while shelves sit empty, that it gives me the creeps to even go inside. The Apple stores, of course, are so cool in comparison, and the staff educated (though at times condescending). But I've taken to shopping strictly online for other stuff; the only time I'll walk in to one of the chain stores is to try out the demo products (most of which don't work), then I get out as fast as I can.
I've thought about writing to Comp USA. Do big retailers want to know this kind of thing? Because I've specialized in writing about independent retail for so long, I often think that they must. But after a bad experience at Longs Drugs recently (and they're not even a big chain, only a regional one), Andrew wrote a long email to HQ and received no reply. It's baffling to me — customer experience seems like it's so key to survival, and yet it's the first thing to go for so many businesses. It's so unfair when I watch these little independent retailers, many of whom are all about service, struggling to survive.
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