“Can brands be art?”
It feels silly to even write that down, as a question. A thought. A consideration. Because for me it’s never been anything to consider, or question, or wonder about. It’s simply been a TRUTH embedded into my bones, designed into my DNA since the moment I stepped into the ocean that is advertising, narrative, and all the ripples borne from those origins—that brands not only can become art, or feel like art, but that they’re meant at their very core to resemble art in all forms.
The best brands in the world, the most timeless fixtures in history, culture, and the communities we create and break and disassemble and worship and tear apart and love and hate and adore and destroy and eviscerate and rebuild and laud and criticize and talk about and rant about and gossip about are CREATED with ARTFUL intention. There is no in-between. There is no escape from this. There is no argument around this very specific and very misunderstood area of BRAND CREATION that no one seems interested in talking about outside of their social circles, or coffee rendeszvous, or the occasional thread started up in a Slack channel gathering cobwebs like Nosferatu on his most social evenings.
Despite what you may think, I don’t mean treating brand as art in a literal sense. Well, in some ways, I do, but not in the concrete, 100% “I want this to be framed and hung up on my wall like a Rothko,” but in other ways I do. This won’t make any sense until you walk through this experience with me, whether you give a fuck about brands, you work in branding for a living, you’re just entering this world, or you’re curious about what this angle on brand could be about.
Let me explain before this essay gets out of hand and becomes a sculpture of another idea that intersects with the canvas of BRAND, ART, LANGUAGE, and the threads beyond that tempt me and pull me into their vortex of temptations on a daily basis.
We’re not going to walk through what a brand is, or dictionary poetry—because that’s what most people who write “how-to” and introductory articles focus on, so they can please the AIO and SEO gods and their nonsensical algorithmic chains—but we are going to walk through the parts of BRAND as an Idea, a Concept, a Living Entity that seeds and feeds into your everyday experiences. Mentally, physically, spiritually, conceptually.
First off, there’s no point in writing this if I’m going to try and speak for the WORLD and its billions upon billions of conflicting voices. Vox Populi, ad nauseam. The voice of the earth’s people translated and butchered through a perspective that could never align with the opinions of strangers because I have never lived those lives, have never walked in those shoes, and have never dreamed about walking their shores and eating their breakfasts and singing their songs and loving their lovers.
What I will tell you is that, from my point of view as a BRAND WRITER AT LARGE—freelancing, consulting, gallivanting about in the throes of language and design and all the physical and digital mediums that inspire those avenues—I go out of my way to treat every brand project like an art piece. However, I don’t treat it simply as expression; this is where the terminology gets a little muddled. If I were being too literal, I would be objectively incorrect about how brands should be labeled, because art is expression, and to treat a brand that’s designed to make money, garner attention, and develop interest as a living entity cannot be an expression of the self. At least, not on its own. It must be created in conjunction with purpose, mission, values, and a Reason to Be that extends way beyond a desire to make something aesthetically pleasing and basically functional. There needs to be a real problem to solve, and a solution created with intention and strategy, as well as, yes, artistry… and taste.
This is not an article about taste. Not entirely. But it’s one of those topics that have gained massive attention through trendy stories, even though it is one of the more important things we should be discussing as a collective, and as individuals. I’m not tired of this conversation at all, but I also don’t consume as much as other people. I mind my own business 90% of the time. However, that means when I finally carve my way back into the growing maelstrom that is the ecosystem around TASTE as a medium, a movement of thought, and whatever else both leading tastemakers and desperate chomping-at-the-bit boring-as-hell tastecosplayers are interested in gabbing about that day, I find myself confronting the inevitable fact that people are tired of a conversation they should be interested in having, but they’re so burnt-out by buzzwords and shallow takes that they would rather burn everyone at the stake than give the topic a decent fucking try.
As a brand writer, love working with contradictions. Ideas that don’t make sense at first glance, when combined, can make for some astonishingly beautiful outcomes. Portraits that move. Ideas that leap off the website, the page, the billboard. Stories designed with risk and elevated with perspective. To put it simply, if I’m crafting a narrative system for a brand, or a voice, or an identity, I’m always going to look at opposite industries, or inspirations beyond their immediate neighborhood. For example, if I’m going to write for a B2B software brand, I’m going to look at anywhere but other B2B software companies: fashion, apparel, jewelry, sportswear, fitness tech, restaurants… anything and everything with incredible worldbuilding and jaw-dropping palates. Going the exact opposite direction of where I’m working ignites a slew of ideas that no one else will think of.
The legendary Kelly Wearstler describes this perfectly, and it’s not surprising to me at all that someone with such an original palate has a similar point of view.
Now, the growing relationship between consumers and brands is fascinating to watch. It’s full of contradictions in its own way. Can’t help but empathize with the consumers for their growing frustration with performative brands. Can’t help but feel attached to the brands that are actually trying, and are damned anyway because they have the audacity to want to sell some things and make money and pay people and contribute to the economy.
Capitalism and art are not inherent enemies, but that’s an adjacent discussion for another time.
I can’t help but wonder, though—if brands tried a little harder, were not only honest but attempted to get to a rooted, more artful story at the heart, and positioned themselves as living POINTS OF VIEW, would consumers be more curious? Would they be interested in stepping into their worlds, and not just buying their products? Would it be possible to admire the work of modern and future brands like we’re gazing upon Warhol’s many faces of Marilyn Monroe? Would it be inspiring to tell stories that push the envelope beyond an overly strategized campaign designed to sell the product, rather than tell a story that invites the customer into their orbit? Would it be worth the cash? Worth the capital? Worth the bootstrapping?
Would it be worth the trade-off to try something a little different, a little wild, a little fucking incredible that might cost you a week’s worth of sleep but might pay off in years down the line, when everyone’s quoting that one tagline you came up with, when everyone’s referencing that color palette you chose that everyone thought was absolutely insane but you did it anyway, when everyone talks about the daring story you told with alarm bells going off, but you ignored them because you knew down to the bitten-down cuticle that the narrative you were crafting for the world to see would be fucking legendary?
I think it would.
There’s a reason we’re drawn to heritage brands. Heritage in general, actually. Storytelling that transcends generations and hypnotizes the individual, without overpromising or pushing their nose up your ass. There’s a sense of relatable wonder that stems from a brand actually giving a damn about their narrative. You feel it in the early works of Tiffany & Co. You recognize the footprints established in magazines like VOGUE that grab your attention on the shelves and walk you through their glossy pages. You slip on Nike sneakers and feel ready to take off into a marathon even though you’ve never lapped a couch in your entire life. You follow intentionally and unintentionally branded figures through visual and verbal systems that align with emotions and dreams and concepts that light you up from the inside, even when you’re trying to understand: “why? Why this? Why now? Why them?”
Sometimes that beautiful attempt to understand why BRANDS and ART speak to you is exactly why you should pay attention. Not trying to boss you around—as I’m realizing right now this is how it’s coming across—but share some advice that I could use myself. I always try to NOTICE what’s around me. I try to take stock of the beautiful things that come into my orbit. There is always something remarkable to observe and think about, to try to dissect and understand. There is always a brand, an art piece, a story, a figment of HUMAN IMAGINATION to mull over and wonder about.
So what the fuck does any of this have to do with BRANDS AS ART?
Everything.
Companies are becoming less interesting, by choice. They’re just not even trying. They’re either scared, or they’re convinced that they don’t have anything interesting to say, or do, or make. And that’s annoying, of course. Or… no, it’s much worse than an annoyance. It’s also signaling something much deeper that terrifies me, because there’s only so much control that I have as a person who writes for brands. I can push and push and push, but there’s only so much PUSHING I can do. If you’re in the brand world, you understand this. If I don’t start with a blank canvas and initiate collaborative creative control as soon as possible, and develop trust with the client and their partners, then the efforts feel extremely touchy, and the outcome rests solely on whether or not the person you’re working with trusts you to deliver ART, and not just a BRAND. If they want just a BRAND, they’re going to play the same game as everyone else, and suffer as a result. Their opportunity to challenge their industry and create a VOICE WORTH LISTENING TO dissolves the instant they acquiesce to the causes and machinations and expectations of the outside world and all its whittling, derivative, demonstrably idiotic rules and systems and laziness.
In my partially (and always) growing educated opinion—the only way to fight against this wave of UNINSPIRED BRAND NUMBNESS is to view BRANDS as a new, adjacent FUTURE AGE ART FORM that deserves the same treatment, consideration, intention, emotional investment, intelligent expression, and logical placement in culture as living, breathing, moving icons. This is the only way we’ll save the brands from the bland, the near-dead from the dead-and-forgotten, and the stories we want to tell from the stories we feel forced to tell.
There is a human connection to brands (and vice-versa) that reaches beyond consumerism and capitalism and products and purchasing and relationships and sales and copywriting and marketing and advertising. There is a responsibility brands have—especially when they move and speak like art—to respond to the subconscious messages consumers are sending to them.
There is also a responsibility of the CREATORS behind the BRAND(S) AS ART to trust their vision… and never, ever compromise their reasons to be.
— Taylor Barnes.
True creative work in security requires moving past the superficial layer of individual talent to see the structural intent behind the output. When we treat a brand or a campaign as a deliberate expression of identity, we mirror how state actors operate. They do not rely on random sparks of genius. They build rigid, predictable hierarchies that turn specific, narrow goals into a permanent state of existence. Applying this same rigor to how we build our own professional presence turns a simple sequence of actions into a cohesive, enduring entity that dictates its own terms. Everything becomes a deliberate function of the design rather than a reaction to the noise.
https://cyrilsimonnet.substack.com/p/north-korea-does-not-have-a-hacking?utm_source=substor&utm_medium=substack&utm_campaign=comment