Everything Counts

I took this photo to document a brand that doesn't get it. I was annoyed that the label kept falling off of this bottle of water, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Aquafina still treats its packaging as a disposable throw-away. Aside from the crappy glue that turned their brand into an irritant, the bottle could be for Diet Coke, A&W root beer or practically anything else. Compare to Perrier.

Then Eric Ryan, founder of method, hopped on stage and showed us how he turned the household cleaning product category on its side. He talked a lot about the effort they put into packaging and it really struck me. Part of method's birth came from the insight that people are crammed on space and are trying to get a little cleaning done in between everything else in their lives. So they're not going to be patient with digging through the closet for some detergent. He realized that, if you design it right, people will leave their cleaning supplies out by the sink, on the counter, or in the bathroom. For method, the package is part of the product, not just the container around it.

Beyond Eric and method, the idea that "everything counts" rose to the top as a key theme of this year's conference. What's inside, how it's presented outside, and where it fits into our individual and collective lives. We heard it in the stringent efficiency of XS Energy Drink, and in Bruce Mau's compelling narration of the purpose behind Massive Change. This is inspiring as a subtext to the conference's theme of Creating Possibilities; we as planners are peering toward a future of opportunities that is only limited by our own ingenuity and inventiveness.