Zip-loc Advert

This is an advert I recently saw on a blog put together design team ‘James and Joe Creative’ (see their blog http://jamesandjoecreative.blogspot.com/) advertising reseal able plastic bags. When I first watched the advert I couldn’t quite work out what the ad was for or what it is trying to say – until the line ‘stop time’ appeared on the screen and I realised just what the ad is about and just how brilliant it is. It shows that you don’t need a big budget to produce fantastic advertising as the most important thing is the ‘idea’ – and just because the product is something as unexciting as a plastic bag it shouldn’t stop you producing some brilliant advertising.

Cadburys Gorilla Advertising

After hearing about this advert several times I finally saw a short clip from it last night on TV – and immediately had to go and watch a full version of it youtube. The advert is the Cadburys ‘Phil Collins Gorilla’ by the design agency ‘Fallon London’ where a Gorilla plays the drums to Phil Collins ‘Coming in the air tonight’. The advert is supposed to give voice to the idea that Cadbury Milk Chocolate is made with glass and a half of milk so is giving you something extra. I don’t think that this is the greatest advert in terms of strengthening brands message, however it is a brilliant advert in terms of getting the Cadbury name talked about – it had been talked about in national press, on radio 1 (which has millions of listeners all over the world) and at the time of writing this article the clip that I have attached to had been viewed over ¼ million times on youtube (and there where at least 20 over versions of the video on the site). To produce a more conventional campaign that would reach this many people would cost millions in advertising so this is good example of how best to use your budget.

The Kilns Launch Weekend Flyer

The above images show how I got my inspiration for a launch flyer for a new housing development that the marketing company where I am doing my work placement came from. I was given the brief to produce a flyer aimed at people in their mid 20’s – early 30’s to promote the launch of the show apartment in a new apartment block. My inspiration came from the album artwork of a Franz Ferdinand CD ‘You could have had it so much better’ (image 1). I mocked up the idea (image 2) and presented it to my Account Manager who liked the really concept as both the band and apartment block have a similar target audience and our target audience are likely to catch onto the joke. Image 3 is the front of the final flyer (the cappuccino colour is the colour of the development) as we decided not to completely rip off the CD cover so that we didn’t get sued.

Diary of a Graphic Designer by Michael C Place

This is a recent article for the design magazine ‘Creative Review’ that I really enjoyed as being a design student and having relatively little experience apart from a few months work experience it gives me a brief incite into the day to day workings of a real design studio. The article followed a month in the life of Michael C Place and his small London design studio ‘Build’ and I found not only interesting to see how he works but also reliving to see that even though he is a successful designer he still has some of the same problems that I do – such as ‘not being able to get things to look just right’ or coming up with ideas. I also liked the way that he cited some of his inspirations, who he worked with and I got to see a project (the Helvetica type poster) from concept to completion.

Arctic Papers Advert

This is recent press advert for a new brand of recycled paper called ‘Munken’ by Arctic Paper. The main focus of the advert is the large line/dot diagram with the heading ‘Interesting or frightening’. This combination made me initially think that it was some sort of personality test – the kind where depending on what you see can tell a physiatrist what your personality is – however when you read the copy it explains that the illustration is actually an airline route map, that airlines currently contribute to 2% of world CO2 emissions and that this is expected to double by 2012 and that this interesting diagram does have frightening implications. The advert then goes on to say that designers can help cut carbon emissions by using this new brand of high quality recycled paper. The reason that I like this advert is that unlike some other adverts selling green products at first glance it doesn’t obviously look like a ‘green product advert’ – the colour green isn’t used and there are no large statistics showing how this product will help cut carbon emissions – instead the designers have created a type of advert that will appeal directly to their target audience (other designers) – a advert that has a clever idea behind it.

Guardian Brand Campaign

These are two examples of posters produced by the design agency Wieden+Kennnedy London as part of a brand campaign for ‘The Guardian’ newspaper. The key aim for the campaign has been to promote and remind people of the papers key values such as its independence and that it is a respectable newspaper – not a tabloid. I think that these ads have been very successful in getting this message across to potential customers, as they are eye catching, clever and intellectual. The first ad shows how the paper aims to separate fact from opinions and the second that unlike other papers it doesn’t need to have shocking headlines everyday to sell.

Kate Moss Logo

Kate Moss has recently launched her own fashion brand to be sold on the high street through ‘TopShop’ and I think the logo that will be on all her products is a particularly beautiful piece of typography. The logo was created by Peter Saville and typographer Paul Barnes and is based on a typeface called ‘Brodovitch Albro’. I think the logo will be very successful as it carries connotations of class and elegance and looks and almost looks as if it would have been home in an Audrey Hepburn movie.

Coca-Cola – New Packaging Design

Coca-Cola has recently unveiled a new packaging design for its world famous Coca-Cola Classic can and made a dramatic step back from the trend of highly detailed designs, ice crystals and drop shadows by returning to simple white lettering on a red can. The new can was designed by the Turner Duckworth Consultancy here in the UK and the USA and came about as Coca-Cola believed that the increasingly complicated packaging designs where damaging the brand and turning it into a generic drinks brand. This new brand will be a polar opposite to Coca-Cola’s main rival Pepsi with its highly complicated Pepsi Max designs and it will be interesting to see which is more successful. I think the new packaging will be more successful as the old designs looked too much like a new fad and as a result looked old and dated very quickly whereas the simpler classic look will still look fresh in several years time thus preserving the life of the brand.

Juice Monkeys

This is a very simple but brilliant advert by CitigateSMARTS, Edinburgh for a new juice bar called ‘Juice Monkeys’. The advert is so successful because it works on several levels:

• The tone of voice is perfect; it is modern, young and fun just like the product.
• It is very simple, just like the product.
• It is clever and amusing which will appeal to the target audience.
• It is very different from other juice bar advertisement (it says nothing about how good the product is for you of how many of your ‘5-a-day’ it contains).
• It has a simple idea with a simple message and there is nothing complicating the design and getting in the way of that.

MTV Re-brand

MTV have just launched their new re-brand for the five UK channels (MTV1, MTV2, Base, Dance and Hits) and have based them on a series of 2D characters drawn by the Norwegian illustrator Kim Hiortoy. Each channel will have its one character, which is designed to epitomise the channel and values/personality. Instead of coming up with separate identities for each channel the creators have used “the metaphor of a house to represent the MTV network, with the individual channels signified by the people sharing the house” (CR August 2007). This is not only a great way of creating continuity throughout the MTV network whist allowing each channel to develop its own identity but it also offers huge potential for the future. Maybe these characters could interact with each other, they could develop their own narratives/stories, a new character could join the house, one character could take over another characters channel (I think this would be particularly interesting).

This is an example of a well thought out re-brand that has been designed to have a long life span – similar to the new London logo. The difference is MTV have created an identity that looks as good as the thinking behind it.

The Future of Fashion – The New Diesel ‘Human After All’ Campaign

The fashion brand Diesel has recently launched another brilliant new advertising campaign, this time with the tag line ‘human after all’. The campaign features a series of printed adverts featuring scenes from the future but when you look closer you realise that although the future may hold things such as intergalactic space travel, people will still suffer the same day to day problems that we face today such as cancelled flights (and of cause the models in the ads are wearing the latest Diesel lines). The shots where photographed by John Renck and the aim of the campaign is to show that the future wont always be as we imagine as people don’t really change – although one thing is certain, Diesel will always make cutting edge fashion. This is a simple, clever idea well executed with excellent art direction.

James Callahan Rag Posters

These are a series of posters for the Leeds University Union Rag week produced by my course mate James Callahan. These posters strike me as a very good example of how you can produce an exciting poster for a young market just using one colour and type. The combination of Helvetica Bold Condensed and the pure cyan colouring means the poster has a huge visual impact, especially in amongst a sea of other much more crowded ads, the copy projects the right tone of voice for the event.

A defence of the new London 2012 identity (well, a bit of a defence)

Firstly I must point out that I am by no stretch of the imagination a fan of the look of the new Olympic logo, it should have been throw out at the early stages of the design process and had I produced something this downright ugly on my degree course I’d count my self lucky if I actually passed. I do however admire the thinking behind the logo.
Firstly unlike many other logos Wolff Olins have produced one that doesn’t have any stereotypical items such as Big Ben or Tower Bridge.
Secondly the games won’t be for another 5 years and Wolff Olins have produced a design that won’t remain rigid – the identity has been designed to be changed over the years. It is similar to the highly successful Google logo in this way which is never the same from one day to the next. It has been designed in a way that designer will be able to ‘play’ with it for years to come.
Thirdly in my lifetime I have never come across a logo that has generated so much free publicity – never a bad thing. It is bright and easily recognisable and definitely different.
Fourthly it is simple and easy to reproduce for web, print, clothing TV etc – some people claim that this is bad a looks as if their child could have created it but as Bryan Bedell of the studio Coudal Partners points out ‘some of the worlds best logos as very simple (Christian cross is just two lines) and your child didn’t create it. So give it a rest. Or send us her CV’.

Obviously the list of negatives that people have put together is much longer than this, I just felt I needed to point out a few of the good points of the logo that’s its designers had in their defence – and who knows, in 5 years time we might all be queuing and prepared to part with large amounts of out hard earned cash for a 2012 branded t-shirt…

Diesel – Save Yourself

This is a copy of a post card I picked up whilst travelling through Paris a few years ago advertising the opening a new Diesel (a fashion brand) shop in Paris. It was created as part of the ‘Save yourself’ campaign by the Dutch designers Kessels and Kramer and the idea behind the campaign was simply that you shouldn’t wear clothes that made you look like a plastic manikin – you should wear one s that made you look like you. I like the ad because the models plastic/human face has a real ‘double take’ effect and goes against the clothing advertisements convention of using beautiful people that we should all aspire to be like. It is a campaign that was making the brand stand out from other fashion brands.

Hard Rock Cafe Ad

I saw this advert in a recent local newspaper and thought it was a good example of a strong but simple idea well executed (and at low cost as black and white adverts in newspapers generally costly less than colour ones). The ‘rock fist’ fork and head line ‘Schools out for summer’ (which is a reference to an Alice Cooper song) remind the reader of the restaurants Rock’n’Roll/American roots and the two lines of copy below tell the reader what the advert is advertising. This is a very simple but well thought out ad – and it is this that makes it stand out from a newspaper page full of loud adverts shouting ‘sale this weekend only!!!!’.

Doc Martins – Really will last two lifetimes

This is a series of Doc Martins print ads that I saw in June’s edition of Creative Review. Saatchi & Saatchi have used Photshoped photos of dead famous rock stars who where famous for wearing the boots still wearing them whilst in haven – enforcing the idea that the boots are so strong and durable that they really will last forever. This is also a clever way of reminding new generations of Doc Martins wearers how their icons used to wear them.

Clockwise the rock stars are – Kurt Cobain, Sid Vicious, Joey Ramone, and Joe Strummer.