The Digital Radish Book Club: August’s top picks
The world is full of unique ideas. One might solve a problem that has annoyed customers for ages. Another could disrupt a whole market. One could even change the world.
In this month’s book club, we’re focusing on three books that could show you how to transform customer perspectives on your brand – and, hopefully, blow their minds!
Our first book, “Eating The Big Fish” by Adam Morgan, explores how challenger brands can sock it to the big players.
Our second book, Stefan Sagmeister’s “Made You Look”, offers a design perspective on a similar theme with work from the legendary Austrian artist.
Finally, “Find The Red Thread” is all about finding and harnessing the big-picture emotional angle on your idea, and it’s by Tamsen Webster.
Let us know what you make of them! We’d love to hear from you.
- Check out last month’s top picks from the Digital Radish Book Club here.
What’s it about?
Imagine that you’re a new brand, entering a congested, cut-throat market. But you know that what you have to offer is world-beating. What do you do? That’s the central question that Adam Morgan takes on in “Eating The Big Fish” as he guides challenger brands on their quest to disrupt the status quo.
How does the author sum it up?
“You need to have a strongly differentiated offer, you need to have an idea that is very exciting and creates a lot of energy. With 99% of brands, old or new, those two things are completely lacking. The reason we are indifferent to most brands is because they are neither differentiated enough nor do they have a brand idea that appeals to us.” – Adam Morgan
Why we love it
“One of the big takeaways from the book is about being flexible enough to adapt to the market. Big brands are getting wise to those challenger principles and repositioning themselves as the underdog. So being laser-focused on your core message, as Adam points out, can still make all the difference – especially if you’re offering something unique.” – Lorna Charlish
What we learned
As the last decade has shown, lots of our favourite brands have really paid attention to key lessons in “Eating The Big Fish” – you only have to think of Oatly to see how challenger brands can capture the imagination. And it’s great to see these ideas start to catch on in B2B, too – but there’s more work to do, and we’re eager to lead the charge.
What’s it about?
“Made You Look” is a collection of all the work ever designed by the Austrian artist Stefan Sagmeister and his studio up to about 2001 – including what he calls “the bad stuff”. He’s famous for designing album covers for Lou Reed, Aerosmith and Jay-Z, and he even won a Grammy Award for a Talking Heads box set.
How does the author sum up his approach?
“I don’t think that you can open a studio and do mediocre work to make money and somehow switch over to good stuff. I haven’t seen it happen. Because everything that they [your clients] do, reflects on everything that you do. If you do a lot of mediocre work, it’s going to attract a lot of mediocre clients.” – Stefan Sagmeister
Why we love it
“For me, that book was really cool, because it tells you about more than just design. It’s not, ‘Here’s how to make a nice logo’ – it’s about how to design for the world and for people. It’s also just a really cool book; when you take the red sleeve off it changes the dog’s expression. Even the book itself is an experience of design.” – Lewis Jones
What we learned
One of the best lessons that Stefan teaches in “Made You Look” is that failure is no less valuable than success – and his own commentary on the design choices and what he’d do differently offers a critical insight into one of the world’s most creative minds. It’s an essential book for anyone interested in the design process.
What’s it about?
“Find Your Red Thread” is all about connecting great brands and ideas to a larger story that will resonate with an audience. As the title implies, the goal is to be clear about the central “thread” or theme of your idea, and how it flows from concept to execution. Best of all, the book takes a practical approach, breaking down how to find your story step by step.
How does the author sum it up?
“Every story has what is generally known as a ‘moment of truth’. In storytelling, a main character recognises the true nature of their circumstances, so there’s some piece of information that suddenly flips the whole world upside down. When that realisation happens, it puts what they want in jeopardy, and forces [the consumer] to make a choice.” – Tamsen Webster
Why we love it
It’s about giving a great idea emotional power – making it resonate with your audience as much as it resonates with you. And that’s particularly important when self-doubt gets in the way, or you’re overthinking it. It’s a great reminder that, whatever story you’re telling, it’s about how the idea makes you feel – and it’s just about getting that across.” – Ray Philp
What we learned
How do you get behind a brilliant new product or service and with passion and purpose? That’s what drives “Find Your Red Thread”, and it’s no less important to what we do at the agency. Being able to tell a deeper, human story – and one that makes you go, “Why didn’t I think of that earlier?” – is the secret sauce to making it irresistible.
SHARE YOUR FAVOURITE BOOKS WITH US
Do you love these books as much as we do? Or do you have other recommendations for us? Either way, we’d love to hear from you – email us at hello@digitalradish.co.uk
- Check out last month’s top picks from the Digital Radish Book Club here.