No. 34: War! What is it good for?

★ Ostensibly to promote world peace day (yes, you read that correctly), Burger King launched what, on the surface, seems like a clever, effective idea—call a truce to the “Burger Wars” by collaborating with (ahem) arch rival McDonald’s to offer the “McWhopper”.

It looks as though the McWhopper will never be—but what kind of a burger blog would this be if I didn’t create (and taste) one for you? 

Following Burger King’s proposed recipe, I dutifully recreated the Shelleyian monstrosity. As you can see from the 726 calorie behemoth above, it is a mouthful. That, unfortunately, is about as much as I can say for it. We’ve previously established that the Big Mac is a saucy mess; adding Burger King’s flame-broiled patty and a couple of sliced tomatoes below it did little to improve the taste. One bite was all I could manage. I’m giving the burger one star because it makes the blog look better, but in actuality it rates a zero. I found it to be tasteless and self-absorbed—much like the campaign itself, which is why I will review it instead.

The stunt is, of course, completely disingenuous—the latest salvo in a decades long ‘war’ that no one really follows and fewer care about. The proposal was announced via social media, full page ads in The New York Times and Chicago Tribune, and a Burger King-created parallax Tumblr site. On the morning of the campaign’s launch, the hosts of NBC’s Today Show were fully prepared to recite lines from the press release, and had a sample of the hypothetical hybrid on hand.

Here’s the basic idea: Burger King and McDonald’s call a one-day truce to their ‘war’ by coming together to create a half-Big-Mac-half-Whopper sandwich. The mashup would be offered at a purpose-built pop-up shop in Atlanta (half way between their respective headquarters), which would be staffed with employees from both companies. Burger King designed the shop, named the burger, created the web site and packaging—even designed the uniforms. All McDonald’s would have to do is say yes. Proceeds would benefit Peace One Day.

The ad—which takes the form of an ‘open letter’ to make it seem less like an ad—as well as the site and the ensuing media coverage—are littered with words like truce, olive branch, ceasefire, treaty, and peace. After years of coopting the language of war to describe their business competition, it seems Burger King is now ready to usurp the language of peace for its own ends as well. That claim is endorsed by the appearance of Peace One Day’s actor-founder, Jeremy Giley, in one of Burger King’s promotional videos in which he implores McDonald’s to “get on board” because, as he puts it, “corporate activation creates awareness, awareness creates action, and action saves lives.” That’s a pretty short trip between buying a burger and saving the world.

Besides Burger King’s callous hyperbole and the intellectual leniency of Giley’s equation of awareness and action, there is the issue of intent. If we are to accept Burger King’s framing of its commercial rivalry with the Golden Arches as an analog to actual armed conflict (which I do not), then it’s fair to view its ‘peace negotiation’ tactics through that same frame. Though the campaign is labeled a “sincere proposal” and letter calls for “collaboration” the fast food chain’s motives are neither sincere nor collaborative. Rather, they are entirely unilateral; Burger King has defined every aspect of the supposedly altruistic promotion and asked its rival to simply get on board. Yes, it says that everything is up for discussion (“the only thing we can’t change is the date”) but with three weeks and three days between its announcement and date in question, how realistic is that offer?

Why not have that discussion with McDonald’s in advance? Why not collaborate privately and go public together? Surely it would still bring as much attention to the ‘cause’ so what would be the loss to Burger King? The answer, of course, betrays Burger King’s true intentions. But no one is asking the question.

Anyone who stops to think about the mechanics of this stunt will realize immediately how shallow and mean-spirited it really is. Burger King, its ad agency, creative team(s), lawyers, and executives must have been preparing this for months. The concept, the promotional partnership with Giley’s organization, the copywriting, filming, video production, web and social media design, illustration, reviews, sign-offs, PR coordination, etc., etc. certainly didn’t resolve themselves in three weeks and three days. 

Anyone who stops to think about how the promotion was launched will also realize that it is not an offer of peace at all, but a carefully orchestrated sneak attack against the reigning superpower. The goal isn’t peaceful coexistence, it’s fast food supremacy. This was not designed to bring McDonald’s to the table, it was designed to embarrass them—to make Burger King look like the inventive, nimble, out-of-the-box-thinking, socially-engaged brand and McDonald’s look like the stodgy, uncreative, business-as-usual, wet blanket. 

Astonishingly, people don’t seem to be stopping to think at all—least of all the media. Just as they have in recent real wars, the media is eating up a pre-pakaged narrative. The day after Burger King ran its full-page ad in the The New York Times, that paper published an article regurgitating much of it and adding quotes from the Burger King-produced promotional video to which the original ad directed its readers. News headlines relating to Burger King’s promotional launch were universally positive, featuring phrases like “Burger King Invites McDonald’s...” “Burger King Wants McDonald’s Help...” “Burger King Boldly Proposes End to Burger Wars...” and “Burger King Wants Peace...”.

A day later, when McDonald’s rebuffed the corporate stunt with a brief note on Facebook (adding, sensibly, “P.S. A simple phone call will do next time.”) they took a beating in the press: “McDonald’s shoots down Burger King’s Pitch For A Collaborative Burger to Promote World Peace” “McDonald’s rejects Burger King’s McWhopper Bid For Peace” and “McDonald’s Immediately Shoots Down Burger King Collab Idea in Least Fun Way Possible.”.

Meanwhile the one thing no one is talking about is world peace.

Surprising though it may seem, the response from McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook offers the only sober, critical, and reasonable insight into this whole distasteful stunt: “...every day, let’s acknowledge that between us there is simply a friendly business competition and certainly not the unequaled circumstances of the real pain and suffering of war.”

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The Creative Lesson

Don’t Bite. People, it seems, will eat anything if it looks good—nevermind if it is nutritious or not, and Burger King’s promotional campaign has everyone—including the media—eating out of its hand. Burger King is described in positive, creative, even humanitarian terms while its rival is being saddled with starkly opposite descriptors. But just because you’re served something, doesn’t mean you have to eat it. Yes, by all metrics this seems like a highly successful promotional stunt. Burger King is getting great press without actually doing anything, and receiving virtually no critical inquiry into their tactics or motives. If they’re lucky, they won’t even have to raise a dime for world peace either (but will still be thought of as the company that wanted to).

To anyone creative, I beg you: don’t be seduced by the tempting cleverness of shallow, snarky, antics like this one. Dig deeper. Bite off more. Actually do something. Truly collaborate. Be substantive. If you really want to bring about world peace, be peaceful. Be respectful. Be honest. Be real.

No. 33: Our Work Is Never Over

★ ★ ★ ★ Last week I sat down with Mary Banas for an interview about what motivates and sustains creative side projects—part of a series for The Designer Fund ’s Bridge program. Bridge pairs promising startups with astute designers, shares best practices, and offers remarkably candid insights from design and industry leaders. It’s a unique and powerful program—something any designer should consider (applications open on September 15th!)

We met at Mission Bowling Club , home of the durable and delicious Mission Burger (if you’re just here for the review, jump to it now). The conversation covered many things, including the importance of experimenting with both content and format. In that spirit, this entry takes the form of an interview. Republished with permission.

Mary’s questions are in bold ; my responses in roman.

How do you decide what to order?
Generally, I get whatever the house burger is, or whatever they’re known for. Often that’s a basic hamburger but it can also range to the more exotic. Yesterday, for example, I had a wild boar burger.

How did you come up with this idea? Were you always a burger guy?
I don't know if I am a “burger guy.” I started taking the office to lunch once a week. As designers, we tend to be critical of the world around us, even when we’re just at lunch. We ended up getting burgers a few times in a row; inevitably started to unofficially “judge” them. I’m always interested in the essence of things—about their true nature. If a burger is on an English muffin instead of a regular bun, is it still a burger? What if it’s pork belly instead of ground beef? The more I thought about it, the more I found parallels to design and creativity in general. I started writing these thoughts down, thinking I might organize them into an article. Then I thought about making a book. I committed to writing a little each week. That meant eating a burger a week. After two or three weeks it was clear that I was essentially writing a blog, I just wasn’t publishing it. 

So I came into the office one morning and said I wanted to launch it as its own site. We named, designed and built it on Squarespace that day, and launched it the next.

It was dormant for a while. Why did you stop?
Why do you stop working out? Why do you stop reading? Or painting? Things that require time often require dedicated time. When you allow yourself to do something else instead it can be difficult to reestablish your routine. So you make these promises to yourself, “I missed a week of writing, but next week I’ll write twice as much.” Then the next week it’s twice as hard, and so it goes. Or...so it stops.

In my case I was fortunate that the project received a lot of positive attention early. The month it launched we had 30,000 unique visitors. The next month it was 40,000. But then you miss a week and you lose some of your audience. Then some more. Suddenly you’re squandering a good thing.

Is that why you picked it up again?
I picked it up again because I needed to. For me I mean. The whole point of doing a side project is because it fulfills something in you. If you’re doing it because it’s an assignment for school or you're trying to get attention, you’re being extrinsically motivated. As soon as that happens, it’s no longer your project. So, I’m really only writing it for me. Maybe a little bit for my mom. I know she reads them all, and she’s a writer. Even so, it can be challenging to sustain. I think that’s why you see a lot of 100-day projects; it’s a manageable timeframe that still sounds ambitious.

I know people who haven't finished their 100-day projects.
Of course. Its not that its too hard to do, it's that it is too easy to do something else. There’s always someone who calls and says, “Let’s go out.” There’s always a project that’s actually paying you that needs some attention, or a client you need to have lunch with...everyone has pressures and demands on their time.

What doubts do you have about The Message is Medium Rare?
I wonder if I can I really find fifty or a hundred different things to say about a hamburger! It’s actually getting hard. One way to address that is to experiment more with different forms of writing. I want to do a review that's just a poem. I want to do one that’s an interview with a chef. Who knows, maybe we could make this conversation part of it?

How does motivation differ from the client projects to side projects?
Risk. With clients, the creative risks you think you’re taking are actually their risks; it’s their money and their reputation you’re putting on the line. Perhaps it’s a shared risk, but there’s kind of a safety net—even if it’s as subtle as them giving you permission to try something, versus having to give yourself that permission. There’s a whole different dynamic there.

I appreciate the accessibility of the burger as a frame. In theory, a non-design person has access to the design insights, because the vehicle is a burger, America’s favorite food.

We can assume that everybody has eaten a hamburger and the words to describe it arepart of everyone’s vocabulary. My initial intention was not accessibility, however, I chose burgers rather by chance.

So, may I ask you a question...what do you think of your burger?

I think it’s really good. I think the pickles are great. I wonder if they are homemade. The pickles, the sauce, and the salt are the three things that stand out to me.
Yeah. You notice the salt right away. The bun is great, too. A good bun is like good typography, it’s invisible. This one is from Acme. It does its job really effectively, holding the burger so it doesn’t slide out the back. It’s keeping all the juices in. It’s perfect. I like the onions, they’re caramelized which adds a subtle sweetness to each bite.

The Mission Burger is kind of famous in San Francisco. It was born as popup in Duc Loi Supermarket. Then it became the signature offering of Mission Street Food, which later became Mission Chinese Food. That place has a cult following. The chef, Anthony Myint, is also behind the upscale Commonwealth. It’s nothing like what you imagine when you think of eating a burger at a bowling alley—just like the bowling alley isn’t much like any other. The patty is combination of ground brisket, short rib and chuck. He sears it in beef fat so it’s rich and salty and juicy and really, really delicious. With the house-brined pickles, the aioli, the cheese...it’s a bit of a salt-extravaganza. 

What do you see as the relationship between the burger initiative and your client work?
Very little. I don’t do it with the intent of it helping my work; side projects should be side projects. I know the answer people want to hear is something more like, “I gain all these insights and I get creatively stimulated or inspired by doing side projects, and here are the ways it influences my client work.” I think the truth is that the client work is much more influential. If we’re struggling on a project, inevitably I’ll find an analog to that struggle in the form of a hamburger. Sometimes that helps resolve the issue, but again, that’s not the goal. Occasionally there’s some passive-aggressive subtext to the insights. That’s me venting frustration.

What advice would you give someone about how to start a side project?
Start.

If you were to approach a side project like the Message is Medium Rare with the intention of it influencing your other work, would that make it less effective?
I suspect it might be less fun and it might suffer from the burden of expectations. For example, if I had to bring some sort of outcome from it into a meeting the next day. Once it starts being structured like client work, it may as well be.

What is the relationship between the stuff that we’re naturally interested in and being a designer?
Hopefully being a designer means being naturally interested in anything or everything in life. I’m always looking at a situation and asking, “What does this really mean? What’s really going on here? What is the metaphor here?” Design often speaks in metaphors—so the relationship is a natural one.

What have you found surprising about the project?
One thing I really like about the blog is that many readers don’t know immediately that it’s about design. I saw a Yelp review the other day, someone commented that they went to Shake Shack because they learned about it from the Message is Medium Rare! I guess there are people who read it for the burger reviews as well as those looking for some creative insight. That definitely surprised me.

Another somewhat surprising aspect of the project is how useful the construct has become. In some ways it’s completely arbitrary. In many ways it’s absurd. But forcing yourself to look at creativity through the lens of ground beef and buns presents an interesting constraint. I had a drawing instructor in college who asked us to bring an object that was meaningful to us to class and draw it. I brought in this silver duck piggy bank and drew it for an entire three hour session. Then he said, “You're going to draw this for the next three weeks.” It was devastating. I drew it from different angles, I drew it with different materials. At some point, I exhausted everything I knew. Of course, that was the point. He was trying to get us to flush out the familiar to make room for something new. So then I drew it with a six-foot willow branch. I drew it by erasing it. I stopped drawing what I saw and started drawing what I felt. I stopped drawing all together and wrote about it...and so on. Some of the traditional drawings were attractive looking, but all the interesting work came after my breaking point.

I think I’m nearing the point with the blog where I’m running out of familiar ways of writing and will have to start experimenting more. I’m looking forward to that.

Will you consider a project a success if you get to that point of exploring new territory?
I think so. Everyone defines success differently. It’s validating to see lots of likes and shares. I feel a vain rush of self importance when a restaurant or chef emails me asking if I’ll review their burger. When the blog was featured in a TV ad during the World Series it felt almost as good as seeing the Giants win. Squarespace and Creative Mornings and Media Temple and Roman Mars have cited it as a source of inspiration. I admire all of them and to be admired back means a lot. Cool Hunting said some really nice things. I was interviewed in New York Magazine which was really pretty cool. I’m honored to be talking with you. I’m not going to pretend that I don’t enjoy the attention. But those are all byproducts of success. It’s important to confuse extrinsic rewards with intrinsic ones. Side projects are labors of love. So loving it is the the only success metric that matters.

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The Creative Lesson

The only rule is work It’s difficult to sum this one up, as we covered a lot of territory. Yesterday I finally made it down to Los Angeles for the Someday is Now exhibition—the astonishing and inspiring retrospective of Sister Corita Kent’s pop art. There, I was reminded of her 10 rules for making, of which number seven is the most reasonant:

The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.

No. 32: Who’s Your Daddy?

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No reservations? No waitlist? No waiters? No ketchup? No subsitutions? Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

In 2000, chef Sang Yoon bought a tiny bar in Santa Monica named Father’s Office and inadvertently started the American gastropub movement. He also created what has been heralded as the best burger in America. Served halved on a soft french roll (made for them by nearby Helms Bakery), the patty is some of the finest-tasting meat—ground or otherwise—you’re likely to encounter. Yoon dry ages his own sirloin in a small room at the back of his original Montana Street location, reportedly going through 4,000 pounds a week. The coarse grind oozes as much character as it does hot, fatty juices. It has an earthy, almost gamey, flavor and is cooked to a perfect—and I mean perfect—medium rare. 

Famously, chef Yoon eschews both mustard and ketchup, so much so that neither are even available in the restaurant. While this angers some, those who understand burgers know that ketchup doesn’t really belong on one to begin with (and certainly not on Father’s beautifully aged sirloin). In place of America’s third-favorite condiment, Yoon offers a smooth Applewood bacon compote. Paired with caramelized onions, the sweet, creamy combination is an inspired alternative to a dollop of Heinz tomato-solids-in-a-viscous-bath-of-high-fructose-corn-syrup. Likewise, the arugula is a surprisingly appropriate choice of lettuce. Its tangy, peppery flavor is almost mustard-like, adding a refreshing brightness to each bite. The cheeses, a mixture of gruyere and Maytag blue, are gooey and pungent but (again surprisingly) not overpowering. It’s a wonderfully balanced take on the burger—one that defines excellence while expanding the definition of the iconic sandwich.

Though the composition of the burger is unconventional, it is not without precedent. In fact, Yoon says his now famous burger was inspired by an unlikely source. “I created this burger at a time when there were no chef-driven burgers,” he explains, “There was nothing to model it after, so I had to look elsewhere for inspiration.” The key inspiration for the Father’s Office burger? French onion soup. French onion soup? French onion soup. That sounds odd until Yoon explains just how much the dish resembles a burger. “It’s beef. It’s bread. It’s cheese. It’s sweet caramelized onions,” he says, “It’s one of my favorite beef experiences.” Once one understands the inspiration for the burger it’s easier to understand why he forbids ketchup. Would you put ketchup on french onion soup?

Which brings us to the heart of the matter. The idea that one’s status as a “consumer” also entitles one to editorial authority, creative direction, or even co-authorship continues to perplex me. Should I be able to edit my burger by substituting ingredients, holding the onions, or slathering on ketchup? Some would argue yes. After all, I am paying for it right? But am I paying for the product or the service? If the former, and it’s a masterpiece, do I have any business messing with it? Would you abbreviate Joyce? Embellish a Rauschenberg? Erase a De Kooning? 

If it’s a service, is it my job to tell a professional how to do theirs? Designers and architects and other creative professionals are routinely asked by clients to add, subtract, or otherwise alter our work to their individual taste. I understand that. But I also have reverence for artists and for their art. I try to have humility in the presence of mastery. Chef Yoon is a poet; the Office Burger is his opus. No part is superfluous. Nothing is wanting. It is an evocative masterwork of edible syntax, metaphor, and suggestion, crafted into a deliciously succinct idea. Would you edit a poem to better suit your taste? Of course not.

so much depends
upon

an all beef
patty

dressed judiciously

cooked to medium
rare.

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The Creative Lesson

We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. We’ve become conditioned to the mantra, ”The customer is always right.” That’s always seemed like a preposterous proposition to me. For one, it credits the customer with an impressively broad range of knowledge and expertise. For another, it strips the expert of much of theirs. It also begs the question, “If you already know what you want, why aren’t you making it yourself?”

Now, I’m not saying that the expert is always right. But a chef, or an artist, or a designer—or any author for that matter—should have the right to refuse edits to their work. That’s a right earned by being someone who creates things rather than simply consuming them. Giving more power to consumers than creators is a perverse inversion of values and value.

No. 31: To Serve Man

★ My friend Alissa Walker alerted me to McDonald’s’ new people-less pilot program, in which giant iPad-esque touch screens kinda-sorta replace actual humans at America’s 60-year-old burger chain. Would I, she asked, be interested in helping her review the experience? The prospect of flying to Los Angeles for a Big Mac was so absurd I had to do it. 24 hours later I met Alissa under the Golden Arches at 201 West Washington Boulevard in downtown LA. She’s covering the technology angle for Gizmodo, while I’ll be trying to derive some creative insight from this odd and slightly ominous move.

Currently offered at 18 of the chain’s 14,350 nationwide locations, the Create Your Taste program allows McDiners to build their own custom burger, select a preconfigured ‘favorite’, or order from the standard menu. To put the system through its paces, we ordered the signature Bic Mac, plus three built-to-order options (one of which was our attempt to recreate the McDonald’s classic, with disappointing results). 

Described as “futuristic,” the upright, freestanding touch screen interface is largely pictorial, with enticing photographs of crisp lettuce, sliced beetroot, and fresh jalapeños (the jalapeños are actually preserved). The UI is reasonably intuitive, though not especially engaging. Once an item is selected, for example, it is added to a running list on the left hand column of the screen—an odd departure from an otherwise visual interface. Other build-to-order systems—like those for Converse or MINI—render a real-time photographic preview of your creation. A drag-and-drop UI or some other playful (but still efficient) feature could also have made the experience more enjoyable. 

The customization options were a little more limited than I was expecting. The machine offers a choice between a one-third pound ground sirloin or a standard quarter-pound “100% beef” patty. Despite stories of people building gargantuan $890 burgers, on our visit we found the options limited to a maximum of two patties and 3x any given topping or condiment. As for bread, you can choose from a traditional sesame seed bun, a ciabatta roll, lettuce wrap, or an ‘artisan roll’. Despite my aversion to the arbitrary designation of things as ‘artisan’ I opted for the latter. A little lettuce, bacon, tomato, red onion, some pickles, and two slices of pepper jack cheese later and my $10.57 burger was 8-10 minutes away from being served ‘hot off the grill’ according to the system.

We grabbed a couple of imitation Eames chairs near the window, next to a large black-and-white photo of DTLA, and waited for our meal (that’s right, they serve you). Although I’d put the wait at closer to 20 minutes than ten, our food arrived as specified and was presented by two smiling servers. People, it seems, still play some role at McDonald’s. In the kitchen, the paint-by-numbers burger assembly is still performed by humans, though I imagine a day when that task is touted as a grand mechanical performance, perhaps behind a glassed-in kitchen at the center of the restaurant. Think: robotic Benihana (which I just found out is a real thing). Our servers had some trouble locating our table, which was identified by numbered RFID table locator (ours being three short of the meaning of life, the universe, and everything). The technology seemed like overkill (and didn’t seem to really work). Maybe McDonald’s is anticipating the day when its table location system guides tray-wielding robots to your table.

The burgers were served open faced in kraft-lined wire baskets. The fries, too, were presented in what looked like miniature chrome fry baskets. A nice touch.

Left: McDonald’s Big Mac (marketing photo); Right: McDonald’s Bic Mac (as served).

I’m going to take some credit here and say that my burger was really the only decent one. It’s not an exaggeration to say that you could have removed the meat from our Big Mac and not noticed the difference. A beige muddle of bread and sauce, it bore little resemblance to the heroic image we’ve been promised in a thousand commercials. Our built-to-order attempt to recreate the classic sandwich was actually sightly worse. Alissa created a saucy western-style burger (BBQ sauce, bacon, guacamole, and jalapeños) with mixed results. My burger, on the other hand, arrived more or less as advertised. The bun was soft and fluffy and tasted like real bread. All of the toppings were fresh and appropriately apportioned. But the meats weren’t much different than the chain’s standard fare. The bacon was the weirdly thin, super-salty kind that people apparently go crazy for, and the machine-formed patties were dense, dry, and disappointing.

This is a problem for McDonald’s. Food is a fundamental part of the human experience. For a while now McDonald’s has been struggling to re-enter that experience, and redefine its relationship to its customers and their lives. But despite its marketing, the actual McDonald’s experience has never been particularly human. Clerks operate with mechanical efficiency. Kitchen staff assemble pre-packaged, prepared components into carefully engineered combinations that have a pleasing resemblance to food. The floor crew empties trash and wipes down tables with invisible efficiency. From the disembodied voice at the drive through to the conflation of your order and identity into a single integer, people pass anonymously though the great machine by the billions.

McDonald’s meals aren’t nourshing. Its decor, lighting, and overall dining experience aren’t welcoming or relaxing. The tables are plastic because they’re easier to wipe down. The lighting is designed to save energy, not enhance mood. Everything about the McXperience is optimized to operate at a corporate—not a human—scale. And yet the humans still come, one after another, to be slowly slaughtered by the billions. By the billions and billions. Perhaps the final concession, once the robots take over, is to acknowledge that is us who are feeding them, not the other way around.

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The Creative Lesson

Artisan illusion [with apologies to Schrödinger]. There are so many lessons to be drawn from the McDonald’s experience, I don’t know where to begin. I want to talk more about the irony of trying to connect to people by replacing them with machines. I want to talk about how this move towards customization is motivated by a misreading of extrinsic trends rather than intrinsic values. I want to talk about the dystopian, soul-crushing inevitability of scale, and the false equation of customization with individuality. Eclipsing all of these lessons, however, is the monumental affront of the intentional misuse of the word ‘artisan.’

Words like “premium,” “deluxe,” and “gourmet” have been hijacked by the fast food industry (and the food industry in general) before in an effort to seduce customers with the promise of quality, or to obfuscate the distinction between healthful and unhealthful choices. But those words are subjective. ‘Artisan’ has a factual definition: Made in a traditional or non-mechanized way using high-quality ingredients.

To be fair, I haven’t been able to verify where McDonald’s makes its millions of ‘artisan’ rolls but I think it’s a fair guess that they don’t come from a worldwide network of local, independent bakeries. That notwithstanding, here is the list of “high quality ingredients” that go into an ‘artisan’ roll:

Wheat Flour or Enriched Flour (Wheat Flour or Bleached Wheat Flour, Niacin, Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Malted Barley Flour, Water, Sugar, Yeast, Palm Oil, Wheat Gluten, Dextrose, Salt, Natural Flavors (Plant Source), Corn Flour, Soybean Oil, Calcium Sulfate, Mono- and Diglycerides, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Monocalcium Phosphate, Ascorbic Acid, Enzymes, Calcium Propionate (Preservative), Vegetable Proteins (Pea, Potato, Rice), Sunflower Oil, Turmeric, Paprika, Corn Starch, Wheat Starch, Acetic Acid.

Yum.

There are only two criteria required for thing to be considered artisan. McDonald’s’ ‘artisan’ roll meets neither of them. They know this of course, but they also know that artisan is the buzzword du jour in the food industry. So it’s a marketing angle, a calculated lie based on the belief that people are too stupid recognize the difference between what they’re promised and what they’re given. Rather than adapting to customer demand with substantive change, McDonald’s is instead co-opting language for its own ends—and rendering meaningless a word whose very definition is associated with a guarantee of quality, craft and humanity.

The lesson? To paraphrase Yoda, “Do or do not, there is no lie.”

No. 30: That for Which We Hunger

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Located in San Francisco’s Mission District, ABV's kitchen keeps the same hours as its bar—2pm to 2am daily—which means that for 50% of your life you also have access to one of the City’s finest burgers.

To understand ABV’s approach to food, you first have to understand their approach to cocktails. To understand that, it helps to understand the people. ABV (Alcohol By Volume) is a relatively new bar run by four partners with enviable San Francisco bar and restaurant pedigrees: Ryan Fitzgerald is well known to San Francisco drinkers; his smooth cocktails and easy charm elevated Beretta to one of the City’s most desirable watering holes. Eric Reichborn-Kjennerud is the man who took the overlooked back room at his nearby dive bar Dalva and transformed it into the specialty cocktail bar, Hideout. Todd Smith tended bar at Hideout, having perfected his craft at the famed tenderloin speakeasy, Bourbon and Branch. 

ABV features a well-edited collection of whiskeys (Ardbeg, Springbank's Campbeltown Collection), thoughtful gins (Leopold Bros., Averell), and a fine anthology of tequilas and mezcal. Most seem to have been selected for their distinct and assertive flavors, around which ABV has crafted a modest offering of impeccably balanced cocktails. My current favorite is the Whiskey in Church, a combination of fortified sherry, maple, and smoked pear bitters stirred around a healthy pour of smoky scotch (in this instance Ardbeg, though it's also been made for me with Laphroaig and a Bowmore distilled 18 year A.D. Rattray). It is a sublimely subtle sip. 

Their exquisitely refreshing Kentucky Mule is made with their own ginger syrup and served in a highball glass beaten with sprigs of fresh mint. The bracing Tarragon Collins proves they’re unafraid to improve on the classics. When we walked in on this particular Tuesday afternoon, Boris, the bartender, was rejecting a large bowl of freshly cut limes. They were the wrong size and the wrong shape, he explained, both would effect the taste. Here the large, optically-clear ice cubes and unique (chilled) glasses for each concoction don't ooze the same pretense as they do elsewhere; they're simply tools of the trade. No wonder that bartenders from four different bars stopped by during our visit. 

And then there's the food. 

Former St. Vincent sous chef Kevin Cimino has come into his own in ABV's kitchen. Following stints at A16, Commonwealth, and Tartine (where he worked with burger guru Chris Kronner) the 28-year-old Zagat-rated '30 under 30' chef has brilliantly reinvented bar food. Served exclusively on small plates and sans utensils, his dishes are playfully organized around accessible themes and relatable formats. Tartine toast with sweet house made butter, fresh peas, and mint. Kimchi fritters with shaved bonito. Two-bite peanut butter and jelly ice cream sandwiches. A pimento cheese burger.

Oh, the pimento cheese burger.

Like everything else at ABV, the burger is built around a few, bold flavors. The deceptively small looking quarter pound patty is made from grass fed Marin Sun Farms beef. The meat is about 80% lean muscle which they grind fresh daily. The other 20% is 28-day dry aged fat. Unlike Umami Burger which adds ground fish heads to its patty to achieve its namesake flavor, Cimino lets the natural decomposition of the meat release its glutamate-rich amino acids. The combination of the fresh grind and mellowed fat yields a patty of unparalleled depth and flavor. The garnishes are succinct: crisp, house-brined pickles and a grill sweetened red onion balance the burger and each other perfectly. A modest portion of melted pimento cheese completes the ensemble. Inspired by his North Carolina upbringing, Cimino’s spread is made from sharp cheddar cheese, mayonnaise, roasted red peppers, Worcestershire sauce, and molasses. In an inspired, Southern twist, the soft but durable buns bare baked fresh from a puree of caramelized sweet potatoes and brushed with butter before serving.

It is an immensely satisfying, engaging, and somewhat playful burger, and easily one of the top two or three in the City.

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The Creative Lesson

Everything is a philosophy. The pimento cheese burger at ABV truly is astonishing. My teeth hadn't even come together on my first bite when I knew it was something special. Everything about it is so finely tuned that its flavor is only subtly unfamiliar; it tastes new and nostalgic at the same time. In many ways it has precedents, but everything about it is also delightfully new.

Coming off a creative week in which any departure from aethetic ‘norms’ was met with resistence and fear, ABV’s burger was the ideal antidote. At the risk of sounding like a lunatic, I felt intellectually engaged by the burger. It adheres to—and advocates—a philosophy. Decoding its principles is part of the enjoyment.

That, I think, is a lesson for all of us: Everything is a philosophy. The things we make and how we make them—no matter how seemingly insignificant—are a philosophy about ourselves. They declare our values, our ethics, and our aesthetics. The more conscious we are of that, the more responsibility we take for it, the better and more meaningful our work will be.

No. 29: Back to Basics

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ I live 2,912 miles from the nearest Shake Shack — about seven hours door-to-counter by plane or 43 hours by car. It’s worth the trip.

Shake Shack is Danny Meyer’s modern answer to the traditional roadside diner. With 25 James Beard Foundation awards to his name, Meyer is most often celebrated for his New York hotspots Union Square Cafe and Gramercy Tavern. With Shake Shack, he’s made his commitment to quality, contemporary American fare accessible to a broader audience. 

There’s nothing fancy about the Shackburger. There’s no spin or gimmick—just a straightforward, honest-to-goodness burger. Here’s how it breaks down:

The Bun
Shake Shack serves its burgers on potato rolls from Martin’s Famous Pastry Shoppe. I’m not the one saying they’re famous, that’s actually their name. Buttered and lightly toasted, the bread has a delicate burger-side crunch; topside they practically melt away. It’s a contrast you notice immediately, and one you appreciate throughout the experience.

The Patty
The exact makeup of a Shackburger patty is, of course, a guarded secret. Reportedly, it’s about 50% sirloin, 25% chuck and 25% brisket. Other sources claim it’s mostly brisket. Whatever the ratios, it is appropriately fatty, hot, and delicious. The patties are smashed on the grill, giving them a crisp, salty crust that properly seals the flavors and juices inside. 

The Cheese
Nothing but good ol’ American ‘cheese’ here of course. It’s smooth and creamy and salty and melts beautifully into the nooks and crannies of the Shackburger’s perfectly imperfect patty.

Toppings
Again, Shake Shack sticks to the classics: slightly bitter green leaf lettuce, a couple of slices of sweet Roma tomato, and “Shacksauce”. The sauce is a combination of house-made mayonnaise, ketchup, and mustard, along with some other unnamed (but welcome) flavors.

The Typography
True to its fare, the Shake Shack identity achieves an unambiguous point of view using a few basic ingredients. The primary logotype and exterior signage are set in Neutraface. Based on the typography of Richard Neutra, it’s a perfect pairing for the chain’s architecturally-assertive branding. It works terrifically at scale and is surprisingly adaptable across cultures and locales (as of this writing, Shake Shack has 56 outposts in locations as varied as New York, London, Istanbul, Moscow, and Dubai). On its menus, packaging and interior signage, Neutraface is improbably paired with a quirky script called Galaxie Cassiopeia and supported by the plainspoken, stalwart workhorse, Futura. These three typefaces artfully express the ethos of both the burger and the brand. Neutraface is the bun: sturdy, reliable and architectural. Futura is the patty: basic but bold. Galaxie is the lettuce: wavy, quirky and fresh. To the layperson this comparison may seem like a stretch, but designers know these choices to be purposefully expressive. 

The Details
Simple, almost coarsely-drawn icons round out the identity with the same commitment to funky minimalism that pervades the brand. A bright green (Pantone 369 to my eye) serves as the only accent color, adding a vibrant, pop sensibility to the cool, post-modern-deco architecture. The product names are unapologetically labored (Shackburger, Shackstack, Dogmeister, etc.), but have an inviting quirkiness that keeps the brand lighthearted and fun. With a following approaching cult status, Shake Shack’s approach to merchandising is purposefully malleable and collaborative (yo, Shake Shack, let’s collaborate!). 

In sum, they do everything right—no surprise with Pentagram’s Paula Scher at the helm and designers Lenny Naar and Andrew Freeman on the team.

The result is well-balanced and unpretentious. In some ways it’s nostalgic, in others entirely new. It tastes and looks and feels like your idealized memory of that amazing burger you think you remember from a childhood road trip, but which has eluded you ever since. Judging by the lines that wind out the door, there are plenty of others as hungry as I am to taste the difference good design makes.

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The Creative Lesson

Taste makes the difference. Shake Shack is a case study in excellence. So often in our culture we conflate our distinction between high and low brow with a distinction between high and low quality. Here’s a restaurateur who made his name serving $34 entrees, but who brings the same commitment to quality to a $5 burger. Danny Meyer was smart enough to realize what so many others don’t—that a cheap price point doesn‘t have to mean a cheap experience. Rather than going downmarket on the design, he partnered with one of—if not the—most renowned design firms in the world to help define and articulate his brand. He invested in design and architecture to distinguish Shake Shack from its then and future competitors. The branding is smart and different and effective—and a big reason why the business is evolving from a single location to worldwide empire.

No. 28: Think Different

★ ★ Barney’s Gourmet Hamburger was an early entrant into the Bay Area’s ‘better burger’ scene, but it hasn’t kept up with the times.

Although Barney’s is a perennial favorite in reader’s choice polls and ‘Best of’ lists in local publications like The Guardian, East Bay Express, The Chronicle, and others, we found the experience and the burger underwhelming. Their website boasts of a thirty-five year heritage and a “unique, award-winning concept for creating quality hamburgers.” That concept, it turns out, is to offer fresh ingredients and impeccable facilities.

With a few notable exceptions, most things that were awesome in 1979 don’t inspire the same feelings of awe today. Times change. People change. Tastes change. Barney’s has a bigger-is-better attitude when it comes to its burgers: the patty is thick. The tomato is thick. The onion is thick. Add an ample bun, and there’s a lot to work through to arrive at the heart of the matter. It draws sharp contrast with most of the ‘better burgers’ we’ve tried lately, which work hard to master the proportions of the ingredients. They balance flavor and texture and volume to create a carefully orchestrated experience. Barney’s, on the other hand, still takes a features-based approach: Lettuce? Check. Onion? Check. Tomato? Check. Yes, all that produce is fresh, but it’s 2014 in San Francisco. Everyone’s produce is fresh. Every burger has Intel Inside. It’s no longer a differentiator.

Like a mid-90’s Apple catalog, the menu is vast and varied, with six classic burgers and twenty-four specialty burgers (each with five different patty options). Somewhere between the wild Alaskan salmon patty with teriyaki glaze, grilled pineapple and Canadian bacon, and the whole wheat pita wrapped Garden Burger® with avocado, feta cheese, lettuce, tomato and cucumbers, Barney’s has surrendered its own point of view of what a burger should be. Who cares if you offer a Quadra 950, a Performa 6260CD, 6290, and 6290CD? In the end, they’re all beige boxes. 

Barney’s may have set the standard for fast causal burgers 30 years ago, but yesterday’s benchmark is today’s baseline. Now that everyone makes a burger Barney’s needs to streamline their offerings and focus on how their burgers are different and how their experience is special.

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The Creative Lesson

Narrow your focus. The problem with great ideas is that people love them. The problem with that is that people copy them. Barney’s had a unique proposition back in 1979. It had a vision that a burger chain wasn’t obligated to serve over-salted food on plastic trays under fluorescent lights. Fast, fresh food in a clean environment was not a ubiquitous idea back then.

As others caught up in quality, Barney’s reenergized its appeal by diversifying its menu—giving diners a dizzying array of choices. But customers already have a choice between you and your competitors; competing simply by offering choice yourself is a marginal proposition. Barney’s is looking narrowly when it ought to look broadly, and broadly when it ought to be focused. To keep current you need to regularly survey the landscape. To stay relevant, you need set your sights on a specific destination within the landscape—or better yet, look to the horizon.

No. 27: Fool’s Gold

Light spins through the darkness like a thousand tiny stars, refracted by mirrored moons that orbit a sunless room. The hostess, squeezed into a constricting black bustier, directs us to a table near the middle of the floor. Her costume amplifies already exaggerated proportions. From the corner of the stage the emcee fades from Juicy J to Lonely Island without a trace of irony. “Let’s hear it for the beautiful Amber!” he intones, drawing out the final ‘r’. Amber, a bikini-clad dancer in her mid twenties, slides head-first down a two-story metal pole, stopping herself inches from the stage. On an enormous video wall behind her an expressionless woman gyrates in a psychedelic nebula of color and light. We’re at the Gold Club, but really I have no idea where we are.

At the edge of the stage a large man wearing a Boy Scout shirt and a backwards camouflage baseball cap stacks a hundred dollars in ones on the bar. He draws his hand across the top of the stack in a series of rapid chops, showering the dancer in singles before leaving to join his friend at the back of the room.

“They’re brothers,” says a woman’s voice next to my ear, battling the thumping music. She takes a seat on my knee.

“What?” 

“I said you’re cute,” she says a little louder. “I’m Amanda.” I tell her it’s nice to meet her. I don’t know why, but I make up a name. She tells me she loves that name and asks me what I do. I say we’re food writers and that we’re here working on a story. “Cool,” she says and gestures to another high-heeled dancer prowling the floor. “These guys write about food,” she shouts to her bikinied coworker. The new girl perches herself on Nathan’s knee.

“Food writers. Awesome,” she affirms, “Anthony Bourdain was here. He said the fried chicken was the best he ever had.”

Amanda says she likes how serious I look, which achieves its intended purpose of making me smile. She says she likes my smile too. The friend tries on Nathan’s glasses and asks us if it’s a sexy look for her. She tells Nathan he looks cute without them, but that she also finds glasses “really sexy.” She also likes that he’s a Virgo (because Virgos are the best lovers). She loves his boat, his boots, and his beard. They both love that we write about burgers. I take a bite of mine, apologizing to Amanda for eating in front her. “You can feed me a french fry if you want,” she offers, placing a diminutive pink box on the table. There’s a small handle on top and a slot to accept money. This is how it works.

We continue to talk and eat. Everything we say is received with enthusiasm. When we joke, they laugh and touch our arms. They apparently share our interest in burgers, peppering us with questions about what and who makes a great one. Amanda bookmarks the site on her iPhone—she can’t wait to read it. Their ‘interest’ is unwavering and unsettling. When Nathan presses his attendant for a point of view she responds, “This is a wonderland, sweetie. Objectify me.” Her response sounds shockingly sincere. Though presumably designed put men at ease with the attitude they brought into the place, it has the opposite effect on us. We couldn’t be more uncomfortable. We excuse ourselves and thank them both for their company. I hand Amanda $50 in singles and ask her to to share it with her friend. She tries to cajole me into tucking the money into her clothes. I tell her that’s okay, and we walk back into the daylight.

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The Creative Lesson

All that glitters. Wouldn’t it be great if design was like a strip club? Clients would hang on every word. Every idea you had would be hailed as genious. Every proposal you offered would be met with unqualified enthusiasm, no changes required. Actually, it would be a nightmare. As flattering as it is to be admired and indulged, such pantomimes of power and deference are unfruitful and uninteresting.

Design relies challenge. It requires informed clients pushing back against progressive ideas. It relies on opposing points of view, varied tastes, and honest dialogue. The next time you find yourself wishing your client would just say yes to everything—or make fewer suggestions—remember just how unsatisfying (and unproductive) unconditional affirmation can be.

By the Numbers

We’re halfway through our search for wisdom between two buns. That makes this as good a time as any to reflect on the trends and tendencies we’ve observed so far. And since everyone knows that creativity is all about responding to data, here are the first in a series of charts breaking down the San Francisco burger scene.

The Bell Curve. One, two, three, four or five stars? So far our burger experience has been fair to middling. It seems that decent burgers abound, while the truly exceptional are only as common as the truly abysmal.

Do you get what you pay for? Coming up we’ll share with you some interesting facts about how price correlates to quality (at least as it relates to burgers). First, though, here’s the breakdown of what a burger will cost you in San Francisco. Most are in the relatively reasonable $6–$10 range. We’ve only had two in the $15+ range (and famously skipped Umami’s infamous $65 offering).

Location. Location. Location. You can check out our map to see the official distribution (NB the burgers from Tokyo and Dallas have been removed from the map by user request to make it more convenient to navigate). For the most part we’ve stayed with the 7x7 confines of our fair city, but every one in a while a recommendation takes us further afield. 

That’s it for now. More glorious data to follow.

No. 26: Design for the 70%

★ ★ ★ ★ Marlowe makes food critic Michael Bauer’s favorite burger. We think it’s pretty good too.

At first glance the Marlowe Burger may not seem all that remarkable. Niman Ranch beef and an Acme bun are pretty much the cost of entry if you want to put a burger on a menu in San Francisco. Add bacon and cheese? Been there. Caramelized onions? Done that. A perfunctory dash of shredded lettuce adds some contrasting color, though does little to enhance the flavor or texture. But the broad strokes aren't what define the Marlowe Burger, the details are.

Starting with the patty, the beef is about 20% fat to 80% lean ground beef. Marlowe adds a little lamb to the mix, giving the meat a richer, gamier flavor. The difference, while subtle, is distinctive. A horseradish aioli stands in for mustard to great effect. The choice of cheddar for the cheese delivers an extra tanginess that pairs masterfully with the smokey Del Monte bacon. The burger is beautifully balanced, with a perfect bun to burger ratio. The thin, crisp bacon adds just the right amount of crunch before your teeth sink into the juicy, pink-in-the-middle patty, and the sharp cheese, salt and horseradish give the whole thing just the right amount of kick.

Marlowe made a splash with their burger early, unseating Zuni Café as Michael Bauer’s pick for ‘Best burger in the Bay Area.’ When I googled “Marlowe” my browser autofilled “Marlowe Burger.” When they opened in 2010 the burger was offered at $12, a few dollars more than the high end of average. By January of this year that price had crept up another $2 to $14. Today it will set you back $16—a 34% increase over the original price. I overheard someone at our communal table grumbling about the idea that any burger could cost sixteen bucks (he ordered the steak for $21). I have similar misgivings. Marlowe’s is one of the pricier burgers we’ve tried. Had it not been for my professional obligation (and the generosity of my friend Dave, who picked up the check), I might have had second thoughts about paying $16 for a hamburger, no matter how good it is. But I did. And that, my friends, is this week’s lesson.

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The Creative Lesson

Lose to win. As we commiserated over the trials of business ownership, creative leadership, professional integrity, and other issues, Dave said a very interesting thing, “If you’re not losing 30% of your pitches because you’re too expensive, then you’re charging too little.” There’s an elegant truth to that insight. Everything is too expensive for someone—either because they don’t have the money or because they do but don’t see the value of spending it. Marlowe wins most customers on the basis of quality and loses a few on the basis of price. In the process they attract a clientele that values quality and doesn’t mind paying for it, weeding out the bargain hunters along the way. If this philosophy is good enough for pricing a hamburger, surely it’s good enough for pricing professional services as well.