The Colours of Crisis: Optimistic or Not?

What visual face will the crisis have? Will we all turn to downgrade colours and turn away from bling - or instead be overtly optimistic and turn to the bright side of life in order to cheer up?

This piece from naked NY does a really nice review - so take a peek. It reminded me of a line that I heard many years ago, I think it was a joke in a statistics class: in crisis the skirt lines go up. Ha, let's watch out if it is possible that we can really classify in specific crisis style and tone of voice in our ecclectic times where style and fashion patterns are so complex.

I also wonder how advertising or brands in general will answer to the crisis in their visual approach. Will it affect tone of voice or product concepts and package design? What do you think?

Tyranny of the short term

In this NY Times piece, Michael Lewis, also a contributing author at Vanity Fair, writes a clear summary on the financial crisis and the systemic problems on Wall Street that caused this. As it all comes down to long term interest vs. short term gain, the need for consistency in carrying out one strategy, not hopping from one executional idea to the next, and the difference of blind-folded risk taking vs. true courage it i not only gives a clear explanation on the crisis background but also offers a nice analogy that brands and people can learn from. To me it was a very clear reveleation on what was and still is wrong with the U.S. financial system.