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Every year, the heads of the CBA agencies throughout the network gather for three days of work, discussion and idea sharing. The 2019 edition was hosted and organised by our Italian office.
The title we have given the event well encapsulates what makes our network unique, but also the spirit in which we approached these three days of work: ONE, Open Network Experience
Indeed, the various CBA agencies all have different backgrounds, work in different markets, with different clients, and over time have developed different skills and merits. Being able to open up to the rest of the network in order to share innovative ideas, experiments and strategies is an effective way of making the whole of CBA more open, curious and flexible. Setting aside just a few, intensive days for this moment of exchange has given rise to a wonderful, stimulating experience for colleagues who came from all over the world to Milan.
The Brazilian team told us about their observation of the correlation between companies adopting “experimental” practices and their greater economic growth. This means that branding, which has always been a force for change and exploration, must also seek out tools to support the companies in carrying out such experiments, to challenge the status quo and find a new way to do business and innovate.
CBA Brazil does this by combining strategy and execution in one integrated, fast and repeated process: trial, test, modify, test again and launch. By analysing how the companies work, CBA has identified 5 drivers that can guide the client in developing a more experimental, and therefore more successful, approach: being more open and willing to exchange information; empowering people to take risks and accept failures; the practice of creating solution prototypes to enhance the learning process; guiding resources towards a more practical execution (of their tasks) and a more personal experience of their mission.
The French team has suggested a new focalisation from the specific point of view of CBA. It will allow us to better understand, from the inside, how to improve our ability to make an impact for our clients through design and branding.
This is how Critical Imprint began, a CBA framework that makes us even more relevant for our clients, as it presents a new outlook which always manages to align the brand with an honest, positive and inclusive mission.
China is a huge nation that is developing at an incredible speed. However, according to Isabelle Pascal (CBA Shanghai) and Margaux Lhermitte (CBA Paris), who have been working and living in the country for years, China first of all represents an extraordinary network of human relationships (关系guanxì) that connect Chinese people, cities and communities scattered around the world. This is why CBA in China represents a platform, a place and a way of working together to create business innovation and a positive impact. It is a network that connects those abroad who want to do business in China and, on the other end of the spectrum, those from China who want to open up to the world. This has proved to be a winning formula, as we know that the concepts of collaboration and co-creation are embedded in the minds (or rather the hearts, 心xin, the organ responsible for thought according to traditional Chinese culture) of the Chinese people, who are now increasingly more aware of and sensitive to topics related to environmental sustainability.
The CBA team from the United States showed us how you can really begin to adopt new work methods which have less impact on the environment and which are also cheaper, without giving up the benefits of co-design, something that is crucial in our industry.
This has transported us from Design Sprints to Sprint Mode, whereby the process has been adapted to make our clients’ lives simpler. Remote co-design makes decisive insights that are necessary for decision-making come to light more quickly, with no one feeling they can’t express themselves. What’s more, with the right group of experts in the team you can reach solutions faster. This is also made possible by replacing the classic brief with an initial meeting with our client where we obtain all the key information for formulating the Sprint Mode stage. We also make our lives easier with internally developed tools such as ArchetipeGame, an actual board game that, using a series of leading questions, allows the client to go through their current positioning in detail.
At the end of the meeting we celebrated the event by organizing a party in our Milan office.
In 1967 Marshall McLuhan declared: “the medium is the message”. Nowadays, this concept has been proven yet again through the use of typography, which has become vital to conveying a brand’s message and identity.
We have been delighted to host at our Milan offices Riccardo De Franceschi, creative director of the prestigious English type foundry Dalton Maag, who shares some fundamental principles with our agency, such as attention to detail, passion for good design and the desire to find the best creative solutions for the client.
Dalton Maag is a benchmark for the main communication agencies across the whole world, who they partner with to create fonts for companies such as Facebook, Airbnb, Amazon, Nike, Intel and Nokia, to name just a few.
Located in the bustling neighbourhood of Brixton, south London, it has been working in the field of typography for thirty years, with a team of about fifty people from all corners of the world. It offers font library services, which you can use to get hold of typefaces;custom fonts, and multiscript type, the production of fonts in various alphabets.
The meeting has brought about a shared design plan that leads to the creation of a font: the starting point is a workshop with the client, lead together with the creative agency, in order to set out common ground for conversation and identify what has provoked this need for a typography service.
When the creative brief is being put together, it’s important to hold fast to four principles: expression, establishing a unique connection with the end-user through the typography that describes the brand; accessibility,allowing different demographics to access the written text, through legibility, readability and likeability (factors that determine the text’s comfort and appeal); functionality, exploiting the fonts’ potential to the maximum through proper use of technology, and global presence, being able to reach new markets by developing wide-ranging sets of fonts in different alphabets, not only Latin.
The economic benefit is definitely one to take into consideration: the development of a proprietary font means you can use it on any platform for an unlimited time, without having to buy individual licences for each user. But as well as the immediate financial advantage, the real upside relates to communication: like the colours, shapes and photographic and illustrative style, the typography is to all intents and purposes an exceedingly important visual asset for a brand. It is the medium through which the brand “speaks” and makes known its tone of voice, forging a connection with its clients.
All in all, having a unique font firmly and undeniably highlights the brand’s uniqueness.
Mattia Ferrari, Visual Designer at CBA
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