The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

About taking pride in doing the right thing, not the easiest.

Sweating the details, not just the obvious stuff.

Caring about how you do something as much as what you do.

And yet, despite so many companies talking big about how they’re a ‘premium brand’, it is amazing how a closer inspection, their actions and values reveal something else.

At least where craft is concerned.

Instead, everything they do is evaluated purely by their ability to design, manufacture and scale down to a price point rather than up to a definitive and differentiated standard.

It’s like their attitude is craft is vanity, cost is sanity.

And while the cost element is important, the irony is craft attracts profit, rather costs it.

Even more ironic is that it can do this without needing to make a big deal out of it … because to the people behind it, it’s not a big deal. For them, it’s simply about living up to the standards their brand deserves/expects through the professionalism and passion they live by.

Now I appreciate that may sound – at best – counter-intuitive and – at worst – pretentious as fuck. But the reality is that to the people who buy what they make, they can sense it.

And I say ‘sense’ because sometimes it’s literally a feeling.

A feeling everything has been deliberate, considered and fussed over.

It might be the materials.
Or it might be the packaging.
It may even be a tiny detail they don’t even see until someone else notices it.

A great example of that last point is this from PlayStation.

I love this.

I love it with all my heart.

Many would never know it. Many may not even feel it.

But when they eventually discover it … it will change how they feel about it.

Reinforcing what makes this brand special. How much it cares about standards. And who it is.

But even if that doesn’t happen, it is OK.

Because often this is not done to benefit the end customer, but to satisfy the values and standards of the creator.

And far too often, that attitude is viewed as an indulgent expense when the reality is, it’s the greatest investment you can make in helping create who you can become.

Which is why Steve Jobs talked about the importance of ‘painting behind the fence’.

Or in the case of Playstation, texturing behind the controller.