Confession: I have sat through more brand archetype workshops than I can count, and most of them made me a little sad. You know the drill. The twelve-archetype wheel, a quiz, "we're a Hero," a slide, and then nothing actually changes. We took one of the most powerful tools in branding and turned it into a personality test with nice fonts. Here's the thing that bugs me most. Archetypes are genuinely powerful. Used right, one can do more than a whole campaign. But we keep treating them like something spiritual we can't quite explain, when they actually work for reasons you can measure. So I finally wrote it all down. What archetypes really are, why they get used so poorly, and how to use one on purpose. Leaning on Claude Shannon and information theory, of all things... his understanding of communication is the key idea behind how i approach branding and how I came up with Constellations. Link below. Would genuinely love to know if it lands for you or if you think I'm wrong. https://www.thedarkpapers.com/p/a-mathematical-theory-of-archetypes

@Alexander Paschka has partnered with me to make a test to better understand how people think about orange juice on an emotional level. If you have a moment please share your view here: https://gen.constellations.app/constellations/survey/933564eb-orange-juice/sk and please share on your channels if you can. Thanks for your help with this study.

When i was a homeless artist in LA the Apple Store was my sanctuary. Upon reflection of those times i realized it very structurally function as a church in a powerful way. I'll also be posting Constellations studies alongside these before long, which is the other half of the same idea. These essays are me reading a pattern. The studies are data on what people actually perceive when they look at something, so you can see whether the pattern is landing or whether it's just a good story I told myself. Both are useful. They're better together. What's a space you've walked into where the structure was doing something the brand never said out loud? Article here: https://www.thedarkpapers.com/p/confession-and-cathedral

New series. I am unpacking the brand moments I used to teach, starting with the one that is personal to me. In 2009 I walked into a store, could not find the one small comfort i could afford right out of grad school. I almost walked past the redesign, and knew right away they were about to lose a fortune. This is why. It turns out to be a story about gardens, hospitals, and where we think wellness actually lives in collective unconscious and shared perception. First piece is up https://www.thedarkpapers.com/p/expelled-from-the-garden Follow up Audience Perception Map coming soon. Thoughts and perspectives appreciated.

We're planning the next few months of studies... up till this point i've been choosing things interesting to me or using Constellations for client rebrands... but there is so much potential for what we could learn with the platform and want to extend the invite to the group to make recommendations. Let me know what you want to learn about and any ideas for how you might set up the study or i can make recommendations.