Events

Monday, November 23, 7:30pm (free/by donation)
The Change You Want To See Gallery
84 Havemeyer St, at Metropolitan Ave, Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Branding is a complex communications system of signifiers that leverages psychoanalytical principals of irrationality and desire. While products are made in a factory, brands are created in our minds. A typical response to the persuasion industries on the part of the Left has been to reject them as manipulative, or servicing an unsustainable system of consumption.

Baudrillard defines consumption as “an active mode of relations…a systematic mode of activity and a global response on which our whole cultural system is founded.” This consumption refers not only to material goods in the classical sense, but also to concepts, images and messages. We are surrounded by systems of language and exchange.

In this series we’ve explored the history and mechanics of branding and advertising, multi-billion dollar industries that seek to expand influence over culture. We have also raised the question: are the tools the problem, or is it the ends to which they are employed? What might it look like to sell something beyond propaganda or products?

In this final installment, consultant Loid Der, former creative director of the world’s largest branding agency, will present the tricks of the trade. From research and design, branding briefs to implementation and analysis, Loid will walk us through the methodologies and processes he’s used in developing brands.

This is an A to Z curriculum, customized for our crowd (like a pro market researcher Loid has attended every event in the series). We’ll unpack case studies from corporations, non-profits, and the political world. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to peek under the hood and arm yourself with the tools of persuasion.

ABOUT LOID DER
Loid Der is creative consultant specializing in developing and managing strategic brand solutions for corporations and non-profit organizations. Until he began his own practice, he was a creative director at the world's largest branding agency, Interbrand for the last four years, leading creative teams from strategy, concept, design through implementation, and was responsible for creating the brand identities for AT&T, Microsoft and Xerox. His non-profit clients and projects include Feeding America (formerly America's Second Harvest), the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the Yes Men, Alternet and Not An Alternative. and He has collaborated with artists and writers on book and installation projects to explore issues of surveillance, security and seduction, female interrogation and torture techniques , kitsch and death. He has won numerous awards from Communication Arts, Graphis, Art Directors Club New York, Critique, Type Directors Club, and Idea Magazine. His work has been included in the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Design.