In the past when you’ve interviewed agencies for different projects, what was the vibe you got from the other side of the table?

Did you sense a genuine concern for your company and the issues you were facing? A desire to connect with your culture and begin building a lasting partnership to the benefit of both parties? An understanding of your uniqueness in the marketplace? Perhaps coupled with some insight on how best to utilize it to interact with potential customers? Or was it simply a “how do we convince these people to give us the business and how much will we make on the deal” kind of vibe?

If you’re new to Group23, you should know that we’re shooting for the former rather than the latter-for so many reasons that really strike at the core of why we exist in the first place. If we don’t think the business relationship is a good fit, we’ll tell you up front. If grabbing a beer together after work doesn’t sound appealing, maybe we should both keep looking. The phrase “It’s only business” is usually code for “we took advantage of you, but it’s your own fault for not paying attention” and it has no place in what we do or why we do it.

So what am I really trying to say here? How about that at Group23 we truly feel that the client-vendor dynamic is a partnership in every sense of the word. We’ve all seen those relationships derailed by a focus on short-terms gains, and one of our stated goals is to do all we can to avoid those outcomes. We’re just naive enough to feel that your success should be our primary goal, and if we can help you achieve that objective then business will take care of itself.

I spoke of the importance of a focused brand-consistent logo, colors, fonts, etc, etc to more firmly fix the company and product in the public’s eye. (The Coca-Cola logo is a great example as it’s instantly recognizable to a sizable percentage of the world’s population, even if it’s written in ancient Sanskrit) I went on to talk about the importance of providing proper web metrics, how many unique visitors, entrance/exit points, search terms, referrals, SEO, SEM, banner ads, and on and on in reference to the web properties.

“Of course you’d say this” he interjected. “It’s your business. You’re assuming that those things are connected to how much business we do.” His tone made it crystal clear that at that moment, in his eyes I was just a salesman blindly pushing his product with a practiced script. My brain quickly turned this over-of course a focused brand is important, fixing his websites would improve web traffic and streamlining the UI would improve his bottom line, just because it happens to be a part of our business doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

In my enthusiasm I’d forgotten two very important things, the first being that the man on the other side of the table owned 2 (3?) more Ferraris than I did, had been doing this for a long time, and was quite possibly one of the 5 most intelligent people I knew. He had considered all of this before, and I was not the first person to raise these topics with him. The second thing I’d forgotten was my Hume.

David Hume was the 18th century philosopher who was one of the first to point out that what we call “causes” are really strange bits of knowledge. If we do x and y happens, then x is responsible for the change in vector. Hume pointed out that causes are not facts, but a “lively conception produced by habit”. Put another way, we use them as mental shortcuts to make sense of what we experience. Nothing wrong with this as it helps us with all manner of activities and enables us to create some technological marvels. Things start to fall apart when dealing with really complex systems however. “Identical” twins may be genetic duplicates, but they are certainly not duplicate people. Despite billions of dollars in technology and decades of research, a forecasted sunny weekend turns into a blizzard. A sedative that was supposed to help cure morning sickness caused birth defects instead. Couple the reality that “causes” are not facts with a person or entity who’s financial situation is vested in proving their own value and it’s no wonder that this client (who knows his Hume backwards and forwards) was skeptical of my not-so polished claims. (Continued next week in Part 2)

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Dunhill London; Lantern Diamond Studded Cufflinks $12k. Want the ultimate bling? Then these are the ones for you! These are the biggest statement to date, they will open doors for you that even you cannot foresee. Laced in Ice and Rose Gold let the conversations begin…

Custom made by www.Etsy.com; Mini REAL Working Vintage Lighter Cufflinks $40. Come on baby light my fire. These vintage cufflinks which originated in gumball machines in the early 50s will definitely make a mark on your older business rivals. and if you need to light a candle or impress the miss, take them off give it a flick and burn baby burn [LOL].

www.cufflinks.com ; F|ME? NO FACEBOOK ME $50. For all those affluent facebookers and tweeters. Show your social media suave with these Facebook cufflinks, perfect for a networking event. Simple, but will definitely break the ice with potential clients and a potential future ex-wife. ☺ I would suggest unless you are trying to get a job at Facebook I would steer clear from wearing these to an interview, well unless you are Mark Zuckerberg himself [LOL],

www.cufflinks.com ; Google me? $50. Get your qr code or bbm Pin on these cufflinks. More efficient than a business card, just pull up your jacket and let the scanning begin. Talk about being high tech, great for business meetings! Guaranteed people will ask what they are and you can just simply but smoothly say here look me up”!

www.cufflinks.com ; Razi $225. Geek is Chic and oh so flashy: Form and Function at its finest. Buckling the loose ends on your cuffs and storing your whole presentation all at the same time. You will never be underdressed or underprepared!

Louis Vuitton; Lock and Key $555. The very essence of everything you need to know. Have your business and life under lock and the key to protecting your loved ones. Watching your back these LV links will always be a classic go to piece.

So what are you waiting for? Chop…chop time is a wasting, go get those cufflinks as it’s your turn to rule the world; step up your game, get that girl and land that job!

In some ways a better (although less pointed) answer might be “art is what you do for yourself and design is what you do for others”. We run across this all the time when evaluating potential Creatives (our term for those folks who can work magic with pixels) and sometimes have to explain the difference to them. How much harder is it to explain the same concept to potential (or existing) clients? True story: We had an existing client that was starting a new non-profit foundation and needed a logo to represent and symbolize its mission. The person in charge had mocked up a busy, unfocused attempt and was looking for input. Our creative director took a few hours to make some rough sketches and put together a rather nice response, pointing out (among many other things) that logos with lots of text typically don’t work well. Blown up to fill a computer screen things might be legible (although no more desirable). Shrunk down to fit on a business card? At best, it might disappear completely. (This one didn’t-there was just a mass of vague haze surrounding the graphical elements) She also put together a small primer on the science (so to speak) of logo creation. A couple of days went by before we received a response from the stakeholder thanking us for our time, but he preferred his logo to any that we had come up with. No skin off our nose, although the last sentence in his email really set us back. “After all, I attended a Photoshop class last year and I don’t think it’s that hard“.  Well shoot, if 15 years of experience can be replaced by a single class-we’re going about this all wrong. Heck, I watched an episode of Grey’s Anatomy (not really) last week and feel qualified to pick up a couple of scalpels on the way home from work. I’m not talking major surgery, but I’m pretty confident I perform a relatively minor procedure like remove my cat’s appendix or something. How hard could it be? If I get stuck, there’s always Wikipedia to help me finish things up.

What’s the difference? (And no, my cat doesn’t get a vote) Here’s one partial theory-(please feel free to add your own)

We’ve all been doing “art” since we were 2 years old. Our parents praised our results, put things on the refrigerator with magnets and generally did all they could to build up our fragile self-esteem. We took pottery classes in college and although it wasn’t nearly as easy as it looked on TLC, every once in awhile we’d come up with something that looked pretty good. Would anyone pay us for anything we did? Not the point-we were pleased with what we’d done and that was enough-kind of like our would-be logo designer in the illustration above. With experiences/affirmations like these floating around in our subconscious, is it any wonder we think we can turn out good design work?  Isn’t that the part of the problem – not seeing the difference between “art” and “design”?

Look, I think artists are great and am glad we’ve got a world full of ‘em. I just know that I don’t want Georges Seurat designing the website for my legal firm or the business collateral for my mortgage company. Those things are not for my edification, but for existing and future clients. They don’t give a whit about my personal taste, and just want to be able to identify/connect with my specific products and services. Good design does that, as it supports and amplifies what we’re trying to market rather than compete with it-and that’s not something you can learn in a 1 hour Photoshop class…

We’re moving our main office to new digs in old town Orange (Ca).

Yup-it’s really happening, and we couldn’t be more pleased and excited. Nothing against our old location in Anaheim, but it was a little too “corporate” for the ‘creatives’ taste. Our new location will provide a more stimulating work environment, while also allowing for walks to downtown Orange with its eclectic collection of unique restaurants for special lunch meetings. I grew up in Orange (many!) years ago, but it wasn’t until fairly recently that I saw this area for the college town (Chapman University) that it really was. The energy, the vibe, the feeling in the air that not only was change expected and anything was possible, but that it was welcomed and eagerly sought after. The knowledge that something was going to happen, even if it couldn’t be predicted with any more certainty than selecting the winning SuperLotto Plus numbers.

So there you have it-a little tipping of our hand, but rest assured that we’ll be providing more details after the move is officially made.