Wildly Curious

My wife and I have a 2 year old daughter named Remi. She’s wild. Wildly curious, wildly independent and wildly excited about everything. And sometimes grumpy. And sometimes clumsy. But usually smiling and happy. She’s currently going through a stage of discovery – one I hope never ends.

Last week we went to the Waco zoo and we were looking at alligators (or maybe they were crocodiles). Through the glass tank, we could see into the water where a huge allig/croc floated. Remi, mouth wide open, eyebrows raised, arm outstretched as far as it could go, finger pointing, says, “AH!” I look and see she’s not pointing at the gigantic creature in front of us, but instead looking at the dirt floating in the water.

The water had tons of stuff floating about, some reflective, others transparent, suspended in the light of the sun pouring through the shallow water. It really wasn’t the most interesting thing to see. I’ve seen plenty of dirt in water before. I mean, come on – there’s a huge, dinosaur-like, giant toothed, gnarly Alligroc 10 ft away that you’ve never seen before! Regardless, I loved how excited she got at something (in the moment) I perceived as not exciting or even worth noticing.

But she was right. It was glowing, and sparkling, and beautiful in it’s own strange way. And I’m glad she made me notice.

It may seem like a odd parallel, but with branding this is exactly what we try to do. We step back, shift perspectives, ignore the obvious, uncover the strange and exciting, and cling to the goal of discovering the “stuff floating about” that goes unnoticed. The beautiful bits we can shine a light on and help customers, team members, users, etc. discover. We help guide them to find something new, beautiful, delightful, or weird. (Weird is awesome, we love weird.)

Our branding and web projects all have a Discovery Phase. Discovery truly is about exploring, finding the unexpected, searching for the memorable, and always being wildly curious. The more we’re able to gather and learn the better the creative and the better the value. We’re always evolving our processes to make discovery more and more intuitive, natural, and seamless. 

“We prefer the discipline of knowledge to the anarchy of ignorance.” Confessions of an Advertising Man, by David Ogilvy

I’m so glad Remi is such a great reminder – oh wow – you can’t spell reminder without Remi! How great is that? Remi reminds me every day to look longer and to see more.

Want to learn more about our branding programs? Shoot us an email: hello@driftingcreatives.com

Author
Gavin Braman

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