James Victore doesn’t care about colour and typography. Given his reputation as a highly respected and commercially successful graphic designer, this expression of fact caused an audible intake of breath amongst the designers and creatives in the Do tent. Victore continues to make his point with finesse by stating that his work is not about what it looks like.

What makes your design great?

We’ve all seen a piece of work, a picture or a website that stops you in your tracks. It draws you in, absorbs you and demands 100% of your attention. Sometimes it’s due to plain old admiration, the form of what you’re observing is so exquisite, beautiful or arresting – something executed with such skill that it leaves you in awe because maybe you wouldn’t have the first clue how to create something like it.

As consumers we are becoming increasingly conscious of how creative techniques are used to augment the truth. How often have you seen something that looks just right? The colours are tastefully selected, the perfect type has been used, the imagery is stunning – and yet somehow – you find it lacking… hollow even. You aren’t sure quite what the point is. The form has eclipsed the function. For design to work it needs a message, a great idea, a spirit that shines through. Great typography cannot save a bad idea.

Familiarity breeds content?

Have you ever noticed how everything starts to look kinda the same? Fashion starts to dictate unless you keep coming back to what is unique to you and your ideas. If your medium is one dimensional, like a web page, then it is hard enough to bring spirit and personality without also using a prescribed set of aesthetic conventions. It feels safer to use these short cuts – the latest font or trendy palette – following convention makes us feel like we are guaranteed a good reception of our work. It also has the ability to stifle your creativity. Yes, you are more likely to be judged if you produce something unique, people might not like it, but they are much more likely to actually have an opinion. Cast your mind back as far as you are able, fashion changes and generally work that is deemed as classic and timeless are those that were original at the time.

To Victore, design is an intellectual field.

The right design can help your idea appear authentic, the wrong design can take a great idea and make it seem shallow and disposable. He asks us to be brave enough to hold our own opinion and shout about it. It’s not about thinking our ideas and work are the best, it’s about knowing that our work and opinions are of value – they matter. They are your gift. It is surprising how powerful a shift it can cause to view your work this way. Your work will evolve and change, it doesn’t have to represent your exquisite taste. What are you trying to say? If you have a great idea – make it your job to keep the noise to the minimum. Let your idea do the talking and ensure the design helps it speak.

3 ways to be better at what you do. By Victore.

1. Teach your tongue to say “I don’t know” and ye shall progress.
2. Just Ask. Ask for what you need, whether it be time, money or just for more.
3. Remember that your work is a
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   gift and the world is waiting for it.

It’s a much discussed theory that there are only 7 basic plots from which all stories originate;

1. [wo]man vs. nature

2. [wo]man vs. [wo]man

3. [wo]man vs. the environment

4. [wo]man vs. machines/technology

5. [wo]man vs. the supernatural

6. [wo]man vs. self

7. [wo]man vs. god/religion

Storytelling is an intrinsic part of all of our lives. We tell stories everyday without even thinking about it. We watch and read them to escape the unravelling stories that are our own lives. We all understand the conflicts from the 7 basic story plots either from our own experience or the experiences of others – from other peoples stories. Naturally, some people find it easier than others to tell a good story, this depends on personality, confidence, intentions and a million other things. But, whether you would like to tell a story to entertain, endear or spread the word about your business – it pays to know how to tell a good story.

Stories that we watch and read as adults are an expansion and exploration of the fairytales we hear as kids. Fairytales teach and prepare us for the fact that someday a wolf may well come to your door. You will at some stage be lost in the proverbial forest. But – if you keep walking forward you will find the courage to move on. You will find mentors and allies along the way and not

only will you survive – you will thrive and triumph. Stories passed down from one generation to the next serve to make us feel safe, nurtured and protected by helping us to learn from each others experiences. They help us avoid the mistakes and pitfalls that have befallen others before us, to help predict our fate and our future. They reassure us that what we’re living through – many others have already lived through before us. They remind us that this life is a shared human experience.

Bobette Buster knows her way around a good story. From her roots in a remote steamboat town in Kentucky, “A place swimming in story tellers” she says, to her adult life working in movie development in Hollywood. Buster has always been surrounded by and immersed in the art of story telling. As a child she remembers being completely fascinated by the stories adults would tell one another over coffee and a piece of pie in her kitchen at home.

What’s your story and how do you tell it?

Buster has learned over the years what the basic ingredients of a good story are. She describes the adversarial element of the seven basic story plots as being one of the most crucial. This is the moment when a character chooses to either win or lose their life. Whether the opponent is the supernatural, another person, illness or even themselves. Cinematic storytelling is very good at magnifying and drawing out this moment when a character experiences their ‘dark night of the soul’. The moment where they feel like they cannot fight the odds stacked up against them, they feel all hope is lost. Herein lies the choice to win or lose. To carry on fighting or to give in to your demons, the choice to fully embrace a new life and become fully alive or to live as a broken man/woman and become the living dead. Sharing your ‘dark night of the soul’, the moment when you ultimately chose your path and to win your life, will make your story more compelling. This is because it helps explain why – why you have chosen this path and how you arrived at this moment.

Another essential element of a good story is ensuring that you include the ‘gleaming’ details. These are the personal, honest and genuine details that speak of the authentic experience in your story. They are the tiny everyday, descriptive things that the people hearing your story can relate to, imagine and picture in their minds. Buster also teaches her students to create a “complex cord of emotion” within their stories. This is when a story shares with us the conflicting emotions of the characters. A good story is a real story, and real life is messy. Emotions aren’t straightforward. You can feel happy, sad, excited and fearful all at the same time. Sharing the negative as well as the positive aspects of your story help the reader to identify and empathise with you or your characters. Buster suggests that all story tellers start by asking these questions – Why is your story the way it is? And – What is it that you want your story to be?

Use storytelling to improve your business

Does your business have a personality? 

Consumers increasingly want to know who they are giving their money to. If you can communicate who you and your team are, then it gives your customers/clients a good sense of who they’re buying from. What we buy and pay for reflects us as people and we want to be able to identify with the businesses we support, as they become part of our identity.

Do you share the passion you feel for your product/work?

Sharing stories about how you have made choices (and maybe sacrifices) to produce work and products of the highest quality will help customers to understand their value.

Your product can be a part of the story. 

In buying your product, customers can feel like they are part of your story. Your website can be used to create a community based on the fact they have purchased from the

same company, this can be the spark to ignite the formation of a group of similarly minded people.

Why would anyone care about your business? 

Why do you care about your business? If you can share what your business means to you and your company then there’s added value to any transaction. If your story is memorable and genuine then people will want to support you and be identified with your brand.

We root for the good guys.

If you are producing things in an ethical, sustainable and open way then people will want to support you.

Watch Bobette Buster’s Do Lecture 

There’s the language of business – a world of accountants, reason, utility and rationality – then there’s the language of Tim Smit. The language of originality and truth, the language of Beauty. According to Smit, we are arriving at a period where we are collectively rediscovering beauty. He is insistent that what he is talking about is not, in fact, ‘hippy shit’, but rather a reminder that “There’s more to life than existence and consumption and utility.” We are increasingly aware of our responsibilities as a society, with a wealth of knowledge on hand from the web and the means to question it. We see the undeniable greed and irresponsibility of those who have been managing the country and it’s finances playing out each day in the news. It seems we no longer want to plough our money, efforts and hard work into faceless corporations. There’s a move towards wanting to buy better, work better and live better.

What’s the story?

For a long time there’s been the feeling that more and bigger is better, but things are changing. The advent of social media channels like Twitter and Facebook have helped businesses communicate with their customers and share ideas and stories much more easily. This sharing of information gives us more power when we decide who, as a consumer, we want to invest in. We are all constantly searching for meaning in our lives and as consumers we are beginning to look for this in what we buy and what we do. This search for meaning can be utilised in business, even within the financial and practical world of securing funding – venture capitalists and investors want to be part of a story too. In Smit’s words; “Utility is dull if it doesn’t come with the hidden romance of something beautiful behind it” It provides them with the reason why they

should support your business. If you feel part of something then you can invest yourself fully, you want to do your best for each other. Your contribution then means something to everybody else and yourself. A shared risk inspires a shared passion. As Smit puts it “The moment you decide to go down in flames together, you’re not going to go down in flames.”

The right track?

If you aren’t honest with yourself about what you find beautiful, about what really inspires you, then Smit would say that you are doomed to fail. This is because even if you win, it will feel like ‘ashes’. It will be a hollow victory. Maybe you are motivated by proving to your family and friends that you can make a success of yourself, but, having everyone else think you are fantastically successful may not feel quite as good as you might expect. Smit was very successful in the music industry and when he reached the pinnacle of that career (he’d written the biggest record in French history that spent 15 weeks at number one) he broke down – he realised it meant absolutely nothing to him. And if something means nothing to you, does it matter if you fail or succeed? Because Smit says “Things that matter make the blood course through your veins in different ways.”

Smit thinks that there’s a general misunderstanding when it comes to optimism. In his experience it isn’t about a business plan where all the imaginary figures add up, it’s about following your gut and completing a project using sheer will and passion. It is about sharing the life affirming beauty of your vision with other people and trusting them to help you get there. To really care about what you are doing and to really care about and trust the people you are doing it with, this is the lifeblood of success to Smit. People bring the beauty and meaning to a business. When people are reminded how beautiful life and work can be, and if they are trusted and feel a love of the shared enterprise, they will flourish. They will be inspired and work hard. It’s normal

for things to be difficult, life is difficult, but loving what you do will make success a damn sight easier to achieve, and you are much more likely to have a grin on your face along the way.

We have a community of 4,500 incredible minds.

The thinkers, the mavericks, the doers of this world.

We will put your question to them.

The chances are they will come up with something that could really help your business.

But if they come up with nothing, you will pay nothing.

Here’s our price list below.

Again, remember you will decide how much or how little you pay.

So you have nothing to lose, but potentially a lot to gain.

Let the

experiment begin.

(The reason we are doing this is to help pay for The Free Kindling. We thought this may be more interesting way of doing it than just getting a sponsor.)

1. About as useful as a square wheel – £0

2. Of some use – £75.00

3. Made me think in a new way – £150.00

4. Ok, that is a real insight – £250.00

5. Great idea that will make a real difference – £1000.00

6. Industry changing idea – £1, 000, 000

Each week we send out The Kindling to 4,500 very smart people from all over the world.

It takes us all week to compile. And then we give it away for Free. And somehow we have to pay for Free.

Conventional thinking would be to find a sponsor for it. But we believe in the power of ideas, and we think sponsorship is a passive, and an inert thing. And that doesn’t sit well with us.

So rather than find a sponsor, we want your company to ask a question.

Let 4,500 people think about your business problem and think differently about it. They are good at doing that. And the answers they give you may change your business. They will challenge you. They will surprise you. And may even change how you do business from that day on.

Here are some questions you should be asking:

1, Do I have say the name of my company. Nope.

2, Do the answers have to be made public? That’s your call.

3, What if I am not happy with the answers? Then, you pay nothing.

4, What happens if I am delighted with the answers. Then you pay. You help fund Free.

5, How do I start? Email: anna.thomas@thedolectures.co.uk and she will send you more info.

This year 10 companies made it possible for 10

students to attend the Do Lectures.

The deal was that the companies sponsored their tickets and in return the students would prepare a short film of their time at the Do Lectures and make a short presentation to the company about their time at the Do’s.

The students left the talks tired, buzzing with ideas, trying to make sense of it all and also with some rare and real inspirational short films (shot solely on an iPod touch).

The students have now made good of their promise and this is what they all made of it.

Big thanks to the companies and to the students.

THE DO LECTURES ‘12 / Organizing Principles Do USA

WE DON’T BEG
Folks either get the essence of DO or they don’t. We don’t beg.

INSPIRATION v. DESPERATION
It’s important that we stay disciplined to possibility and optimism and all that is good.

SPACE & PACE
Avoid the itch

to over program. Silence, solitude and time for reflection are imperative.

THE MAGIC IS THE SPACE BETWEEN WORDS
The talks are merely the spark. The bonfire happens outside the Hop Barn.

ULTIMATE DINNER CONVERSATION
Who would you want to have for dinner?

SIMPLIFY & GO
Less is indeed more.

CREATE THE CONDITIONS TO FLOURISH
Focus on creating the conditions to flourish versus creating magic.

SEEK DIVERSITY
Seek diversity in thought, people and ideology.

GENIUS OF PLACE
Abundance comes from Campovida and connection to nature.

IT’S NOT WHAT WE DO, BUT RATHER WHY WE DO
Celebrate not what DO is, but rather WHY we do the DO.

NURTURE THE UK CONNECTION
Remember our roots.

IT TAKES A VILLAGE
Enough said.

LIVE EMPATHY
Understanding the essence for all things (speakers, attendees, volunteers) is key.

ENCOURAGE GLORIOUS MISTAKES
If we are not uncomfortable then we’re not doing it right.

FOOD IS NOT A THING….IT IS A RELATIONSHIP
Food is everything at the DO.

THE DO US APPLICATION IS A MIRROR INTO YOUR SOUL
Seek the ones that suggest the applicant is willing to be cracked wide
open.

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Think,

think, think. Winnie the Pooh