Take your favorite product. Hold it in your hand.
This product is an instance of something larger. It represents a core idea, a heartbeat, and pushes its echo a little farther into the world.
What is this heartbeat and why is it so important?
How can we find it in our own ideas?
Questions like these are the subject of this chapter. Its focus is taking unformed ideas and distilling them into a designing principle (we’ll define this in a minute).
It shows this process in action and answers a key question: how have major brands, stories and products scaled up while maintaining a vital sense of self? ie. cohesion.
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A few words mentioned above: heartbeat, instance, designing principle.
Let’s click into the third one. What’s a designing principle?
It’s actually a term from screenwriting, where it’s defined as the one-line strategy that holds a larger story together. In business terms, you can think of it as a brand vision statement.
A designing principle is a kernel. It’s a small thing that, when tended to properly, grows into something larger.
Here’s the most important part. All of the new things that grow from this kernel are reflections of the original idea they came from.
They’re extensions of that core heartbeat and help push it a little farther out into the world.
We’ve been speaking in metaphor. It’s time to get a little more concrete.
Let’s analyze a modern (growing) e-commerce company that’s found a designing principle and knows how to put it into action.
Designing Principle Example: Speedland Shoes
Speedland is a company that sells high-end trail shoes — the sort you’d find in a Spartan Race or on the feet of an intense, backwoods runners. They’re not a household name (yet) but they’re well on their way.
Why so optimistic about their growth? Because Speedland has nailed their designing principle and uses it to build a cohesive business.
Speedland states their designing principle — or brand vision — outright. They are “The World’s First Hyper-Performance Trail Shoe”.
What does this mean? What does it say about Speedland’s values and the rest of their business?
Speedland is not:
- A generic shoe company
- Meant for casual wear
Speedland is:
- Lightning fast
- Hyper-performance
- Meant for the trail
Those values look great on paper, but how do they manifest in the broader company?
Let’s start with names. Speedland combines “speed” and “land”, making it clear that they bring agility out into the wild. It’s a great, simple name for a high-performance trail shoe that immediately conveys their values.
Speedland extends this concept into their design. To the eye, their shoes are extremely rugged variants of high-end running shoes. They’re made with premium materials and tightened with a system of wires instead of laces.
Speedland also uses vibrant colors, and in their flagship model, a splash of “blood” along the side panel of their shoe. This visual effect reinforces the values laden in their brand name: high performance running meets the wild.
But name and appearance are table stakes when a product or brand effectively embodies a designing principle.
Speedland takes it further.
They extend the idea of their designing principle — The World’s First Hyper-Performance Trail Shoe — into the distribution strategy of their product.
Speedland doesn’t spend tons of money on digital ads or buy massive billboard placements. Instead, they leverage a small team of brand athletes and sponsored events in order to grow their brand.
In short, Speedland’s distribution strategy is to engage directly with the community (hyper-performance trail athletes) that aligns with their designing principle.
This team of athletes is led by Cameron Hanes. If you don’t know who he is, you can probably guess. He’s one of the premier practitioners (and vocal supporters) of high-performance trail running and hunting. ie. he’s the perfect person for Speedland to align their products with.
Where does this leave us?
Speedland is an example of a brand crafting an effective designing principle — a one-line statement of strategy — and using it to inform every piece of their business. From their name, to their product design, to their distribution strategy and beyond, everything that Speedland does embodies and reflects the idea of The World’s First Hyper-Performance Trail Shoe.
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The Designing Principle is the first chapter of this book for an important reason. Designing principles — or brand vision statements — are the essential building blocks that large things grow from.
They are the bedrock, the one-line strategies that will inform all of our other efforts.
Finding the designing principle in your ideas is the critical first step in allowing your story, brand or product to expand while maintaining a sense of cohesion.
If you don’t yet know the designing principle behind your ideas, this is the time to stop and deeply consider it.
If you’ve identified the designing principle, then it’s time to start building.
