Home / 2006 / June

Jun

23

How Are You?

Posted by : E.v.R. | On : June 23, 2006

Category: Buddies

Courtesy of Design Observer comes wind of We Feel Fine, a massive cloud of sentiments drawn from all over the web. It takes a minute to load, but be patient.

The first thing that struck me upon viewing this was how truly huge the blogging scene is, as a lot of the sentiments seem to come from bloggers. We are but small fish in a very large pond.

As a community our posts are often so strictly topical that we forget to stop and say hello, and ask each other how we’re doing.

In the spirit of We Feel Fine, I thought I’d ask; How are you? What’s going on in your life? What’s on your mind? How are you feeling?

P.S. I added another book to Books On Writing. It’s going to take a while to get my library online, so bear with me.

Jun

22

Context & Branding of Intellectual Properties

Posted by : E.v.R. | On : June 22, 2006

Category: Marketing, Media Franchise

The latin roots of the word context mean “with text.”

In our creative endeavors we often strive to be clever. I came to storytelling after a thorough mentorship in marketing from my bosses at 3D Realms. Positioning is everything, which is why the soon-to-be-released game Prey features a Native American character named Tommy Hawk. Get it? Har har.

However, there can be a shortsightedness in trying to be so clever.

For every Tommy Hawk there is a James Bond. Ian Fleming explained that he chose the name because it was the most generic name he could come up with. It had no pre-built associations–a blank slate.

It worked out pretty well, don’t you think?

This Design Observer article agrees.

So which do you prefer? Ideas with pre-built associations? Or the blank slate?

If you prefer the blank slate, how do you propose to build a healthy, marketable context for your brand?

Jun

22

Fiction and the Thirst for Knowledge

Posted by : E.v.R. | On : June 22, 2006

Category: Media Franchise, Memes

This explains why I love reading non-fiction.

It also explains fiction. A story is a collection of ideas: mythical characters, settings, and events. It takes a little bit of ramp-up for an audience to ‘get it’ – but once they do, they start to experience the rewards. And each new twist in the story is a new reward.

As far as the brain is concerned, entertainment is the same as education. The brain is sparked to life by interesting concepts.

“There’s this incredible selectivity that we show in real time. Without thinking about it, we pick out experiences that are richly interpretable but novel.”

Indeed. So what we crave from entertainment is also what we crave from ‘art,’ which is also what we crave from education. The brain is drawn to novelty.

Does your novel have novelty?