What is the one brand you can’t live without (aside from Apple)?

Photos by Emily Gilbert

At last week’s CreativeMornings/NewYork with Debbie Millman we asked the following Icebreakertag question: What is the one brand you can’t live without (aside from Apple)?

See all of the answers in this Flickr Set.

What’s your answer?

47 Comments leave a comment below

  1. mine would be amazon too :)

  2. Good point leaving Apple out :)

  3. Dansko. But only because I’m trying not to say Amazon.com.

  4. mine would be Adobe

  5. Google. Then, Adobe.

  6. hmm, wonder why my gravatar isn’t working : [

  7. adobe…google…macromedia….

  8. Leica. Possibly Canon.

  9. Google. Possibly Facebook.

  10. If your life depends on a brand (i.e. not on a product) you have serious mental problems and should seek professional advice.

  11. Jura (I’m a schümli junkie)

  12. yes well, there only one to be really frank, even my Nikon could be a Canon if really necessary.

    But I can NOT do without Apple.

    So, no asides here….

  13. It would be “Delhaize”, my favorite (organic) food retailer (in Belgium)

  14. Adobe for sure.

  15. Amazon

  16. Le Creuset, hah! Great one. They’re just the best pots on earth.

  17. Without a doubt it is Adobe.

  18. Truthfully: none. There is nothing brand-wise that I couldn’t live without, including Apple.

  19. Did Toyota or Volkswagen not cross anyone’s mind? If they didn’t exist, how would half the world get around to get their iPods fixed? I respect Gunnar’s SAAB comment, although with Jason Castriota taking over design duties (http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2011/03/how-is-this-a-saab/), I’m not sure how many loyalty-inspiring vehicles they’ll make. Toyota and VW make cars that proactively participate in communicating an objectively unoffensive design language and if it weren’t for them, Alfa Romeo, BMW, Hyundai, Jaguar, Mazda, Renault and Subaru wouldn’t have been trying to revolutionize design in the automotive sphere. And, no matter how green you tell people your panties look when you ride your bike on biodegradable tires to work (while conveniently sharing a road with motorists that they paid for with their road+vehicle taxes), make no mistake that cars are more important than the toothbrush in your bathroom, the microwave in your kitchen, the HDTV in your living room and the Starbucks a block from your office skyscraper for if it weren’t for cars, the world would never get anything done. We have built our cities around them, we depend on our everyday lives running as planned because of them (directly or indirectly) and it bothers me sometimes why automobiles aren’t the first curiosity in a designer’s often sadly mechanically unsympathetic mind (I’m not saying every time). Horses were revered for their qualities while cars exist as ubiquitous and mere appliance-like objects, to drive one being treated as a chore rather than the ultimate form of interactive integration with any machine designed since. Automotive design is an institution I couldn’t live without, and if it weren’t for Toyota and VW, we wouldn’t have the beautiful sports and family cars their competitors (and on not too rare occasions, they themselves) offer instead. My tag would read Toyota, period. Oh, and since my droid can’t write, his will say Star Wars.

  20. Katz Delicatessen. ;)

  21. I wanted to play this game, but when I try to process the phrase “can’t live without”, it makes me very self-conscious about my own materialism.

    There are some products that I might consider critical to survival, but brands? Those intangible things that barely existed just a hundred years ago, that tickle our inner artist and make us imagine a personality for the source of the products and services we buy? My heart would continue to beat without every last one of them.

    So for me, you’ve made a good point. I guess I don’t need these things…

  22. Starbucks!!!

  23. Heineken

  24. Carib … OK – perhaps not – but close. I love my HDTV from Samsung but that could be replaced by a SONY or LG. So I’m not sure but Swedish Fish are up there with Ritter Sport ..

  25. charles shaw.

  26. What is apple?

  27. I’m surprised you didn’t post the one that said “Swiss Miss”!

  28. There is no brand, including Apple, that I could not live without. Which is my tragedy: no-one likes a ronin.