How symbols and brands shape our humanity

"Branding is the profound manifestation of the human spirit," says designer and podcaster Debbie Millman. In a historical odyssey that she illustrated herself, Millman traces the evolution of branding, from cave paintings to flags to beer labels and beyond. She explores the power of symbols to unite people, beginning with prehistoric communities who used them to represent beliefs and identify affiliations to modern companies that adopt logos and trademarks to market their products -- and explains how branding reflects the state of humanity.

Thirteen point eight billion years ago,

the universe as we know it
began with a big bang,

and everything that we know and are
and are made of was created.

Fifty thousand years ago,

our brains underwent
a major genetic mutation,

which resulted in the biological
reorganization of the brain.

Some scientists call this
"The Big Brain Bang."

Others call it "The Great Leap Forward,"

which I prefer.

It's so much more poetic.

This is when Homo sapiens began to evolve
into the modern species that we are today.

The Great Leap Forward activated
most of our modern abilities:

abstract thought, planning,

cooking, competitive labor,

language, art, music

and self-decoration.

After the Great Leap Forward,

there was an explosion
of stone toolmaking,

more sophisticated weaponry

and, 32,000 years ago,

the creation of our first sophisticated
mark-making on the cave walls of Lascaux.

It's not a coincidence that we've gone
from documenting our reality

on the cave walls of Lascaux

to the walls of Facebook.

And, in a very meta experience,

you can now a book a trip
to see the walls of Lascaux

on the walls of Facebook.

Approximately 10,000 years ago,

men and women began to array
themselves with makeup.

They started to self-decorate.

But this wasn't for seductive purposes;
this was for religious convictions.

We wanted to be more
beautiful, purer, cleaner

in the eyes of something or someone

that we believed
had more power than we did.

There is no culture

in recorded human history

that has not practiced
some form of organized worship,

which we now call "religion."

Six thousand years ago,
in an effort to unite people,

our ancestors began to design
telegraphic symbols to represent beliefs

and to identify affiliations.

These symbols connected
like-minded people,

and they are all extraordinary.

These affiliations allowed us
to feel safer and more secure in groups,

and the sharing created consensus
around what the symbols represented.

With these marks,
you knew where you fit in,

both for the people
that were in the in crowd

and those, as importantly,
that were excluded.

These symbols were created in what
I consider to be a very bottom-up manner:

they were made by people for people

and then shared for free among people

to honor the higher power
that they ascribed to.

What's ironic is that the higher power
actually had nothing to do with this.

These early affiliations,

they often shared
identical characteristics,

which is rather baffling

given how scattered we were
all over the planet.

We constructed similar rituals,
practices and behaviors

no matter where we were
anywhere on the globe.

We constructed rituals
to create symbolic logos.

We built environments for worship.

We developed strict rules
on how to engage with each other

with food, with hair,

with birth, with death,

with marriage and procreation.

Some of the symbols
have eerie commonalities.

The hand of God shows up
over and over and over again.

It shows up as the hamsa hand
in Mesopotamia.

It shows us as the hand
of Fatima in Islam.

It shows up as the hand
of Miriam in Judaism.

Now, when we didn't agree
on what our beliefs and behaviors were

in regards to others,

if we felt that somebody
else's were incorrect,

we began to fight,

and many of our first wars were religious.

Our flags were used on the battlefield

to signify which side
of the battlefield we belonged to,

because that was the only way
to be able to tell friend from foe.

We all looked alike.

And now our flags are on
mass-manufactured uniforms

that we are making.

Logos on products
to identify a maker came next,

and brands were given
legal recognition on January 1, 1876,

with the advent of the Trademarks
Registration Act.

The first trademarked brand was Bass Ale,

and I kind of wonder what that says
about our humanity

that first trademarked brand
was an alcoholic beverage.

Now, here is what I consider to be

the first case of branded
product placement.

There are bottles of Bass Ale behind me

with the logo accurately presented here

in this very famous painting
in 1882 by Édouard Manet.

One of the most widely recognized
logos in the world today

is the Nike swoosh,

which was introduced in 1971.

Carolyn Davidson,
a graphic design student,

originally created the logo
for 35 dollars.

Upon seeing it,
Nike CEO Phil Knight stated,

"I don't love it

but maybe it will grow on me."

Maybe it will grow on me.

But why is the swoosh so popular?

Why is the swoosh so popular?

Is it the mark?

Or is the marketing?

And what can we make of the fact

that the Nike swoosh seems to be

the Newport logo upside down

or the Capital One logo on its side?

That is not the only logo
with a shared identity.

This next logo is a logo
that has a shared identity

with wholly different meanings.

As a Jewish person,

I believe that this logo,

this swastika,

is the most heinous logo of all time.

But it actually has
a rather surprising trajectory.

The word "swastika" originally comes from

the ancient Sanskrit word "svastika,"

which actually means "good fortune,"

"luck" and "well-being."

In the early 1900s,
before it was appropriated by Hitler,

it was used by Coca-Cola

on a good luck bottle opener.

The American Biscuit Company
prominently registered the mark

and put it on boxes of cookies.

The US Playing Card Company
registered the mark in 1921

for Fortune Playing Cards.

The Boy Scouts used
the mark on shoes in 1910,

and the symbol was also featured
on cigar labels, boxtops, road signs

and even poker chips.

Even the Jain made use of the logo
along with a hand of God

many millennia ago.

These marks were identical,

but with use as a Nazi symbol,

the impact became very, very different.

The hand of God,

the Nike swoosh

and the swastika:

they all demonstrate how we've been
manufacturing meaning with visual language

over millennia.

It's a behavior that's
almost as old as we are.

Today, in the United States,

there are over 116,000 malls,

and they all look pretty much the same.

There are more than 40,000 supermarkets,

and they each have over 40,000 items.

If you went shopping for bottled water,

you'd have over 80 options to choose from.

Since their launch in 1912,

you could choose from over 100
flavors and variants of Oreo cookies.

Now, is this a good thing

or is it a bad thing?

Is a plethora of choice
necessary in a free market?

I believe it is both a good and bad thing,

as humans are both good and bad,

and we're the ones creating
and using and buying these brands.

However, I think that the question

of whether this behavior is good or bad
is actually secondary

to understanding why --

why we behave this way in the first place.

Here's the thing:

every one of our mass-marketed products

are what I consider to be top-down brands.

They're still created by people,

but they are owned, operated,
manufactured, advertised,

designed, promoted
and distributed by the corporation

and pushed down and sold
to the consumer for financial gain.

These corporations have
a responsibility to a P and L

with an expectation of an ROI

and have names like P and G
and AT and T and J and J.

And that's pretty much the way it's been
for the last couple of hundred years:

a top-down model
controlled by the corporation.

Until 2011.

That's when we began to see evidence

of real, significant, far-reaching change.

The Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street

proved how the internet
could amplify messages

and connect like-minded people

with powerful beliefs to inspire change.

We witnessed a cultural shift
via social media

with hashtags like #MeToo
and #BlackLivesMatter.

In its wake, the discipline of branding

has transformed more in the last 10 years

than it has in the last 10,000,

and for the first time in modern history,

the most popular, influential brands

are not brands being pushed
down by the corporation.

They are brands being pushed up
by the people, for the people,

for the sole purpose of changing the world
and making it a better place.

Our greatest innovations aren't brands
providing a different form

or a different flavor
of our favorite snack.

Our greatest innovations
are the creation of brands

that can make a difference in our lives

and reflect the kind of world
that we want to live in.

In November of 2016,

Krista Suh, Jayna Zweiman and Kat Coyle

created a hat to be worn
at the Women's March in Washington, DC.

(Applause)

This was the day after
the presidential inauguration.

Two months later,
on January 21, 2017,

millions of people all over the world
wore handmade pink pussyhats

in support of the Women's March
all over the world.

The hat was not created
for any financial benefit.

Like our religious symbols
created thousands of years ago,

the hat was created
by the people, for the people

to serve what I believe
is the highest benefit of branding:

to unite people in the communication

of shared ideals.

The pink pussyhat became
a mark for a movement.

In a very short time,
two months,

it became universally recognizable.

It connected an audience
in an unprecedented way.

It is a brand,

but it is more than that.

Today, the pink pussyhat is proof positive

that branding is not just
a tool of capitalism.

Branding is the profound
manifestation of the human spirit.

The condition of branding has always
reflected the condition of our culture.

It is our responsibility

to continue to leverage
the democratic power branding provides,

and it is our responsibility

to design a culture that reflects

and honors

the kind of world we want to live in.

Thank you.

(Applause)