‘Despicable’ and ‘obscene’: an interview with Wolff and Olins

28 October 2009 | By Popsop Team

From 4 to 7 September the special conference Kyoorius Designyatra took palce in Mumbai, India. One of the most interesting participants of the event are the ‘gurus’ of modern branding – the honored experts Michael Wolff and Wally Olins, who shared their opinions on branding industry with the visitors.
Here is an interesting post on Creative Review, describing the interviews with the podcasts: “Some of the quality of work and the quality of thinking that some of the major design consultancies charge people a lot of money for is obscene and absurd,” says Wolff in this extract in which the pair are asked what they think of hostile media attitudes towards branding and how design consultancies should defend themselves.

In this extract, the pair discuss their impact on both branding and anti-branding, during which Olins characterises the larger design consultancies as “machines devised to produce mediocre rubbish” and calls some of their actions “despicable”.