The Iconist: The Art and Science of Standing Out

In this thin guide, media consultant Mustard delivers a magazine article gussied up into book form. Mustard proposes to use “lessons from history, psychology, the arts, and pop culture” to illustrate “unchanging primal laws” called Blocks—the “simple mechanism underlying what makes anything iconic.” These blocks constitute little more than simple and loudly stated content, but are framed as a critical “primordial rule” of why people pay attention. Mustard runs through the problem of getting people to pay attention to any one thing in a world crowded with competing claims on attention, the solution (Blocks), and how to use Blocks to attain success. He pushes simplicity; most people overcomplicate their message, he writes, but simply “marqueeing” everything like a billboard will get one far on the “information superhighway.” The work is heavily illustrated with infographics and demonstrated through a wide array of stories, which encompass both the MMA fighter Chael Sonnen and Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. While the need to break through the data deluge is real, Mustard’s tactic—identify an audience’s primary emotional need, address it loudly and simply, and repeat, repeat, repeat—is not new enough to warrant the space applied to it. (Oct.)