Somewhere Yes: The Search for Belonging in a World Shaped by Branding

by Beat Kaspar Baudenbacher

Overview

In a unique text most relevant to our times, Brooklyn-based designer and creative director Beat Kaspar Baudenbacher dives into the pros and cons of a social structure driven by branding.

​A complex and visually provocative foray into the way we become our environment—from our products to our politics—Somewhere Yes takes us on a journey designed to make us question the intentionality of our choices, the depth of our kindness, and our very belonging as a species on this planet.

Branding has the capacity to promote human connection but instead often fosters division and detachment. Yet, it doesn't have to be this way—it has simply evolved into this struggle because we've allowed our individual wants to overcome our collective needs, much like a symbol of beauty might evolve into one of fascism. Baudenbacher provides insightful ways to take apart the identity crisis we have so haphazardly put together, so that we may belong . . . better.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781639080113
Publisher:	Fast Company Press
Publication date:	07/12/2022
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Beat ("Bay-Ott") Kaspar Baudenbacher was born and raised in Switzerland. He graduated from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA, with a BFA in graphic design. As Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of loyalkaspar, he has led its creative journey from a boutique animation studio to one of the leading branding agencies in the American entertainment space.

He spends his days obsessing over what it takes for brands to tell cohesive and compelling stories across an ever-expanding universe of content and spends his nights contemplating the effects of brands on their audiences and how the two interact with each other.

Beat lives in Brooklyn, NY, with his wife and sons.

Editorial Reviews

07/04/2022

As a handbook to how brands mediate the world, this sleekly designed illustrated guide by branding agency Loyalkasper cofounder Baudenbacher never lacks for clever turns of phrase or flashes of insight. The idealistic aim to recapture the business of branding from its association with the grubby mercantilism of marketing appears genuine if self-serving (“It is not marketing that shapes humanity.... It is brands”). But Baudenbacher’s thesis, which hinges on more authentic branding possibly bringing humanity together in a fractured age, is hardly persuasive. The observations on everything from Coca-Cola versus Pepsi to QAnon are yoked into a three-part narrative: “This Is Our Water” (how the modern world swarms with brands), “Navigating the Human Zoo” (how symbols connect to the desire for meaning), and “Go Humans” (using branding to create belonging). Calling to mind a TED talk or overlong PowerPoint presentation, the book’s aesthetic aims for Marshall McLuhan boldness but registers as corporate cutesiness that a would-be truth-teller like Baudenbacher would seemingly critique. In between warnings about the dangers of distrust and social disintegration in the post-truth internet age, he lobs out declarations—like “Branding captures the spiritual essence of a thing and gives it shape”—that may be true enough but inevitably start acquiring a so-what? dimension. Both high-minded and intensely simplistic, this could end up succeeding as a gift book passed among corporate mentors, but media literacy readers will come to it with skepticism. Agent: Daniel Schloss, Loyalkaspar (July)

Publishers Weekly