JKR

Ever heard of the Trogon family of birds? They are often beautiful, and have been knocking around for 49 million years. That should be enough to make an impression, but my guess is they are off most of our radars. Usually nature is a great place to look if one wishes to draw inspiration for design. Indeed when the McLaren F1 team were looking about for something to benchmark their innovation and performance against, they settled on the natural world as their inspiration and competition, rather than say Ferrari (after all, no car has the ability to go from full speed to hovering like a bee).

But the Trogons – not too sure what we can borrow from them as a template. Their lack of fame is probably down to visual incoherence – 39 species in total. We’ve all heard the “but my market’s different” bleat of the brand manager aiming to shirk the global line (at least evolutionary principles rather than maverick office politics is the cause of the Trogon’s diversity), and here is nature’s equivalent. The Trogon is a text book example of how being inconsistent might be interesting, but is a rubbish way to build a brand. While they have been messing about experimenting with different shapes sizes and colours, more focussed species such as the eagle have grabbed all the attention when it comes to endangered species campaigns, flags, songs and the like. The moral – question if your market really does require unique plumage before sacrificing the fame you might enjoy if you simply tow the line a little better.

Thanks to Scienceray for the information and images.