What do our faces say about who we are?

To combat falling domestic merchandise sales and increase Mickey Mouse’s relevance amongst children, Disney has undertaken a quiet, albeit full-blown revitalization of the character.

Over the past year we’ve noticed experimentation in Starbucks’ marketing, a reflection of an identity crisis in the industry as “mass-market powerhouses” McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts use the recession to rise from below. On the opposite front gourmet coffee startups are beginning to present the premium quality Starbucks once used as its primary selling point.

We previously covered one clothing company and its undertaking of an anti-branding campaign, removing logos from its gear to focus on designing a superior product. In July we spotted a covert Starbucks store in Seattle. Now big banks are also taking measures to avoid being identified using “stealth spending” at sponsored events.
During the U.S. Open golf tournament at Bethpage Black,  Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley all brought clients to the Heritage Club, an exclusive corporate hospitality center. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on tables but those responsible could not be identified, logos on [...]

Created by Tetsuro Nagata, “Computing an Identity” is an interactive installation where users interact with reflected visuals of themselves, exploring perception by using projected images, time, lights, and shadows. On one screen, you can see yourself in a “delayed mirror,” and as you step closer to it, the time delay increases, allowing you to see what you were like a few seconds ago.
In a similar way, a second projection allows the viewer to be conscious of their shadow by delaying the projection, and mixing it with those from previous visitors. The video below shows visitors and their “out of body” [...]

In an article for the Financial Times, author Charles Fernyhough describes some of the thoughts he had as he captured his daughter’s history for his book The Baby in the Mirror. He says that today’s child is videoed, photographed, posted on Facebook and tweeted about endlessly and asks how this generation has been shaped, enhanced or harmed by their exposure to digital image-making.
In the early days the movie camera was saved “for best” (special events and family celebrations), [now] it is increasingly used to record everyday activities, particularly when the subjects are babies or when children themselves are doing the [...]

At the PSFK Conference Asia 2008, Floydd Wood and Jerry Clode (Flamingo International) look at the specific ways Chinese youth are creatively re-working their identity – an emerging trend vital to those wanting to address this demographic on their own terms.
Focusing on ‘retro’ and ‘youth identity,’ the two researchers explain how Chinese youth are re-interpreting their past to construct new identities.  Drawing upon historical events and traditional lifestyles for inspiration, today’s youth are carefully extracting aspects of the their past to form their own identity.  But as Jerry states, “looking back [in China] is not always a comfortable process.  Tumultuous [...]

Good Ideas In 2009 : Make Histories
Best watched in Full Size

Making histories doesn’t have to be about huge gestures or wide-spanning narratives. By capturing, cataloguing and visualizing stories over time, we lay the groundwork for interesting patterns, connections and ideas to emerge that help us better understand groups, people, events, places and ourselves. By bringing to life our daily movements, both real and virtual, we leave a trail for us and others to add to and learn from.
This is an excerpt from PSFK’s newest book Good Ideas in 2009. For more information and to purchase the complete report, we [...]