ART 418 13: Standing Apart

Wednesday, October 7, 2026 · Workshop

Boards go up first, and the PDF goes on Blackboard for the moodboards checkpoint by 1:30. Then one lesson: differentiation. What happens to a product that looks like all the others, how brands moved from what a product is to what it means, and three brands that went the other way on purpose: Volkswagen, Avis, and Pepsi. Then how to find your own: map what every brand in your category does, and break one thing while keeping the rest. Then we look at a case from now, packages that dress like a different product, and where that goes too far. Then we cover how to say it to a client, using today's reading. The rest of class is work time on your moodboards for the Oct 14 presentations, with desk visits.

Read before this class

- Davis, Creative Strategy and the Business of Design. chapter 12, Sell Without Selling, 14 pp.

Due

- The moodboards, in progress.

Materials

- [The slides](/lecture/art418-s13.html). Standing apart: the sugar aisle, how brands got here, Volkswagen, Avis and Pepsi, the category map, borrowed packages, and how to say it to a client. - [The slides as a PDF](/lecture/art418-s13.pdf). The same deck, one slide per page. - [Think Small](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_Small). The 1959 Volkswagen campaign by Doyle Dane Bernbach, and why it was named the best of the century. - [Being No. 2 and trying harder](https://beastoftraal.com/?p=16515). The Avis ads from 1962 on, and the Hertz reply, collected in one place. - [The Big Squeeze](https://tastecooking.com/the-big-squeeze/). Cathy Erway, TASTE, 2025. How Graza's squeeze bottle spread across the olive oil aisle. - [Fishwife's illustrated tins](https://www.creativereview.co.uk/fishwife-illustrated-branding-tinned-fish-danny-miller/). Creative Review, 2026. Danny Miller's drawings and how they turned canned fish into a gift.

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Class 13 of 28, ART 418, The Business of Design, Charleston Southern University, Fall 2026.