7 days ago
Lisa Smith killed the ‘blanding' trend. Now she has another plan to upend branding
Seven years ago, your grocer's dairy section became visually fantastical. You might not remember how sterile it used to be: the shelves were once dominated by similarly drab, white Greek yogurt cups that delivered on practical, nutritional performance. But truckload by truckload, the shelves transformed into a ripely colorful, whimsical, and idyllic play land of Chobani's making. The company had just undergone a monumental rebrand under the direction of designers Lisa Smith and Leland Maschmeyer, and they doled out a new design world in thousands of 5.3 ounce portions.
Who knew a product like high-protein Greek yogurt could turn design off minimalism? But soon, a cohort of expressive, personality-driven, maximalist copycats emerged. Cooper Black was the new black. Smith had never been averse to stylistic shake-ups, if a brand mission calls for it. She'd rebranded the Met while at Wolff Olins; later at the design agency JKR, she satiatingly rebranded Burger King. Following six years as global executive creative director JKR, where she also rebranded Mozilla, Fanta, Impossible, and Walmart, Smith is moving to the smaller, multifunctional creative studio Uncommon as its first-ever global chief design officer, with another simple but groundbreaking idea: to expand what ' branding ' encompasses.
Here, Smith explains why holistic teams that include advertising and marketing creatives are the real way to push design forward, why handoff should happen after launch day, and how she plans to build a renegade team that goes 'beyond just delivering guidelines.' 'I've always been a little bit messy,' she says.
This conversation has been condensed and edited.
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