IxDa-meeting gathered interaction design community together to mingle and discuss under the theme: Being Different.

In his keynote, Reaktor’s Design Director Timo Ilola gave three steps how to stand out as a brand:
1. Differentiate on all levels
Brands should identify where a difference can be made and then use that knowledge in all levels. As an example Ilola used Netflix, that uses cards as identifying element. And cards are used in all of their touchpoints and channels (except in the service itself!)

2. Design strategically
Ilola stated that only trendy brands should follow trends. If a brand tries to follow trends, it will end up only copying others. Brands should be internalised and a good tool to do that is to create design principles and drivers. Good way to define these is to collect all the information there is available about the brand in a one big board, and then as a team start putting pieces together as principles.

3. Be memorable
Memorable brand experiences are designed in the heart of user value, business value and brand value. Experiences should be memorable in order to stand out.

Great case example about designing brand experience that stands out, is Reaktor’s work for Finnair. By understanding the customer journey they defined Finnair’s customer experience as “Peace of Mind”. All services, like Finnair app and in-flight entertainment system, is designed the design principle in mind. Here a video about the services and here’s the whole case.

All in all, Design is an opportunity to differentiate from the competitors.

This blog post was written by,
Emmi Kinnunen
SID student