Spend too much of your time stuck in Jakarta’s clogged and grimy streets, and it’s very easy to forget just what a large and fascinating place the rest of Indonesia is. Clearly I do spend too much time in Jakarta, because every time I leave I find I’m shocked by that other, non-Jakarta, Indonesia. Places where the air is breathable, the traffic isn’t a snarl, people aren’t living on top of each other and there are trees and birds. Even in super-populated Java (the most lived-on island in the world, don’t you know), I still find places that are very livable and even in some cases, stunningly beautifull.
Luckily because of my work for Holcim Indonesia, I got a chance to get a good look at two cities on the opposite sides of Java, Cilacap and Tuban, that I’d never been to before. These weren’t stunningly attractive in any picture-post-card-kind-of-way, however, I was equally impressed by each. Both had all the hallmarks of well-managed, well planned municipalities, where residential areas were supported by adequate infrastructure, private and public, waste was kept under control and there were no beggars. These were cities where government and industry were clearly working together, and making a difference.
I can remember putting together a 'persona" for a UK based company during a long-haul flight from London to Jakarta. If there was ever a place to kill time it was on a plane. Actually if I had flown with Lufthansa Airlines I would have probably got more done because they don't have those cool video screens in the back of their seats, however; Singapore Airlines do so I found myself distracted by watching all the action scenes from King Kong and Spiderman.
I have never been able to sleep when flying (nerves) so I tend to doodle. On this particular occasion my doodling would fill several sheets of A4 paper with words, phrases and what might be loosely described as drawings. My goal was to fully work up a corporate identity before I landed. Now some people might think that a corporate identity is just a logo, how long can that take to create, eh? Perhaps it comes down to individual perception but for me developing a corporate identity is more than just designing a logo. Earlier I mentioned the word "persona" and if you could have seen my sheets of paper you would instantly understand the problem I was attempting to solve. I already understood what the business was going to provide in terms of services and products, I had a complete grasp of its target audience. All I had to do was give it a believable and trustworthy personality.
I have to hang my head and cry, I really do. I've been looking at so called professional Web Design and Development sites again. It's always been interesting for me to search out the competitors to see how they differenciate themselves in what's become a jam packed, filled to the gills, shark infested, over saturated business sector.
Everyone is pretty much selling the exact same thing, give or take a paragraph or 10, and job titles continue to mutate with the arrival of new technologies and processess. Commercial Artists became Graphic Designers who then evolved into Digital Media Designers - the main noticable difference being common sense. The divide between true creative talent widening as computer software improves to the point where everyone who has a copy of Photoshop thinks they are a web designer and everyone who has a copy of Dreamweaver fools themselves into believing that they are Web Developers. There is now so much choice out there that I have to wonder how a potential client decides which Web Design and Development company they will work with.
