Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits

By: Debbie Millman

Narrated by: Nicole Vilencia

Insights and provocations from world-renowned brand consultants, thought leaders, designers, and strategists.

We are now living in a world with over 100 brands of bottled water. The United States alone is home to over 45,000 shopping malls. And there are more than 19 million customized beverage choices a barista can whip up at your local Starbucks. Whether it’s good or bad, the real question is why we behave this way in the first place. Why do we telegraph our affiliations or our beliefs with symbols, signs, and codes?

Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits contains 20 interviews with the world’s leading designers and thinkers in branding. The interviews contain spirited views on how and why humans have branded the world around us, and the ideas, inventions, and insight inherent in the search.

©2011 Debbie Millman (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

Clever perspectives.

I wish they would have had multiple voices since it's Q and A - but I get the complications that would have come with that. At times, in the book it's difficult to remember who is talking (I'm commuting on 95 so think on and off ya know). BUT the opinions in here are great.

2 actors needed.

Needed 2 voice actors. Some good info. Fun format for audio. Surprising the original audio interviews don't exist.

Good job, hard work to do by herself.

Have used as cocktail knowledge.

So many redundant moments

Contains so much bla bla moments. Could definitely be shorten to 3 hours instead of 8

Great overview of ideas about branding

This book is chock full of pearls about design thinking, branding and marketing. It's like an introductory mini course that really gets you thinking about how these ideas are part of everyday life. I wish the performance had included the voices of the actual people - the audio narrator tried to use different prosody but it was clearly a challenge. I laid her effort. Anyway this book was very worthwhile.

Interesting content, poor narration

The interviews are very interesting and there is a lot of insightful discussion about branding, but the narration is robotic and the lack of an additional narrator during the interviews makes it difficult to distinguish who is saying what. I couldn't finish because it was hard to listen to, but would consider reading the book.