We are all aware that brands change over time. Some very succesful brands have morphed quite a lot since their original creation. Some do this in very small evolutionery steps, like Heinz Baked Beans, while others make a huge change in one go. BP (British Petrolium), for example, did this after 80 years of small incrimental changes in 2000 they changed wholesale over to the current itteration.
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Campaign Monitor have just published their latest quarterly results for worldwide email client usage. Not only do they show market share, but also trends over the last 6 months. What’s really amazing is how the iPhone and iPod Touch are moving mobile email forward. iPhone 3.0 itself has increased its market share by 6423.32%…
Although this isn’t a definitive set of figures it does give us a snapshot of which clients are being used. If, like me, you regularly have to produce HTML email designs for perticular marketing purposes, this sort of information really does help – in the same way that you should always know what browsers your intended market are using when designing and developing websites.
So BMW suddenly announce they’re pulling out of F1. Well, there drivers all ways do, so why not the manufacturer? The full story can be found here BBC Sport
Now the Toyota Prius is exactly my kind of car, but as the new model launches they have produced a lovely new microsite Toyota Prius. I’m not sure who has created this microsite, but they have done a lovely job, great use of Flash, very entertaining and leaves you with a great feel good factor.
However, no matter how much I like the site, it’s never going to convince me to convert from air-cooled VW/Porsche or big V8′s…
After completing the branding for new company Car Glazing, it came time to review their initial website. The brief was quite simple, something fresh and different to the competition – the usual in depth, well thought out type of brief. It was clear from the outset, looking at all the big players, it wasn’t going to take much to make this site stand out, but visual appeal wasn’t going to be enough. As we had been running a simple Google Adwords campaign on the previous website, we needed to take that data into account. Plus, SEO needed to be built-in from the start.
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This is a nice little site that’s just been set free plott.co.uk Working with this particular client was a refreshing change. They were happy for us to take the lead with design and strategy, which lead to a very smooth work flow. From start to current state only took a fortnight. Which, given the nature of jobs that has to be approved by many different people, is very good.
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While reading through a discussion on LinkedIn on the short supply of creative talent, there was one comment that stood out. It is the sort of piece that I wish I had written. You know it’s a great observation when you can place yourself easily into one of the classes.
I see three “classes” of creatives:
1. The old school group who have 25+ years of experience and are concept/copy driven. Most of these have fantastic creative vision but are more likely to be directors, overseeing the visual creation produced by by others.
2. The group that Leandro describes. However, I also see many of those as being pretentious… a problem which is only exacerbated when they find themselves working in for a corporate (vs. creative) firm who strokes them for mediocre (and often poorly considered) solutions and approaches.
3. The last group are the generation-X (35-45). They fall between groups one and two and walk the line between old school and new
approaches. The are integrators, capable of blending copy, design AND sound brand strategies.
Of these three groups, I get excited about working with group 3 types. I totally respect the wisdom and approach of the group 1 types. But I am saddened by the group 2’s and prefer not to deal with them.
Oh, and if you’re interested, I believe I fall into class 3.
Today I gained another follower on my twitter account, nothing amazing there I here you say – no not really. As usual I clicked on the follower to find out more and it turns out Greg is behind www.designforums.co.uk
I thought this might be just another forum, but I was pleasantly surprised. This forum is UK based and seems to be populated with down-to-earth nice people.
Anyway, if you’re in the design field, either working or as a student, give it a look over.
Just taken delivery of some file copies of the latest stationery design and print job. This is for a client called Agency3, they’re an invite-only Affiliate network. We created the Agency3 logo and website a while back and this is the first print print job completed.
