Friday Favourites

Mary Ellen Johnson’s hyper-realistic paintings of indulgent desserts (and other foods) are just oozing with flavour. They remind me a bit of the 80′s posters I had in my bedroom as a child, but I just love the fact that these slightly sickly, too-perfect images are actual paintings, which have a gloriously glossy, almost fetishistic appeal. Found via Its Nice That - more gorgeous food paintings on her website.

I was quite excited to discover Thomas Allen’s work with pulp fiction books (on the wonderful Beautiful Decay site). I loved the idea of using the book cover as a pop up to almost recreate a scene from the book, and the use of focus in the photography to add drama. More on his Pinterest site.

Thanks to Katie for finding these pointillist portraits created by Philip Karlberg, using peg board and pencils. See if you can work out who they are before you read the description. More of Philip Karlberg’s Pin Art on his website. Found on The Cool Hunter.

I love these installations by Alice Andersen, which are created from huge lengths of doll’s hair. The choice of material was based on her relationship with her own red hair, and anxieties in childhood. More of her installation and sculpture work can be found on her website, including interviews with the artist. Some of it reminded me of the work of Louise Bourgeois, I just love it. Found (again) via Beautiful Decay.

8 tips to avoid the pitfalls in Naming

Previously, we gave you some tips to get you started on a Naming project and then later, another post on knowing the role of your brand name.  This post helps you to be aware of some of the problems you can come across in brand naming, and points out some of the pitfalls to avoid.

1.  Naming is a creative process. Be prepared to look further than the obvious. You cannot own the obvious.

2.  Don’t expect to find the name in a brainstorm session. You might, but I doubt it. Seriously, your time is valuable, don’t waste it.  And you need plenty of time to do this right. Just because somebody tells you that it will be fun to get together and be creative, doesn’t mean that you will actually be creative. What you will discover are that most of the words could have been found, by you, without leaving your desk.

3.  Have faith. Trust your namer, namist, name generator, namologist; word rider (or whatever they call themselves today) to do their job. Let them go away and rootle around and dig and have all of the disappointment for you. They do that so that you don’t have to. You don’t need to know what they’re doing. If it was easy, you would have done it yourself.

4.  Forget your hysteria about owning a “.com”. Your brand name and your domain name do not have to be identical. No, they don’t. Please don’t give up on a fantastic trade-markable name just because someone else owns the domain. Think laterally. Be flexible.

5.  Be prepared to think differently. The answer to your problem may be quite challenging. Be prepared to be challenged.

6.  Listen carefully. Listen again. That’s the only way you’re going to hear the magic. Please pay attention, I said, “Magic”.

7.  The biggest barrier to a great name? You. You and your personal taste. Objectivity in naming is the hardest thing to achieve and this makes naming not just problematic but downright frustrating. Don’t ignore the criteria that you set out with, they may help you to see more clearly.

8.    Finally, give yourself time to succeed. You cannot hope to produce a golden piece of intellectual property in a few days, or over night, so don’t believe anyone who tells you that they can.

Naming is tough, very much like a game of ‘Snakes and Ladders’ but, as long as you understand that at the start you won’t be disappointed.

That’s all. Use these helpful hints and you will be on your way to creating a great brand name.

Handmade: a trend from the heart

Claire Parker, Creative Director at our office in Amsterdam, was asked by Dutch magazine Fonk to give her view on trends in design. Here’s the full piece – written by Claire, about paint, sew, glitter and much more!

As a kid, I used to make everything. Paint, sew, glitter and glue, paper maché, if it was in a book and involved a bit of mess and being creative, I’d have a go. Not all were successes mind, often due to the fact that I can be impatient and waiting for things to dry was never a strong point of mine. But, craft I did, although I never really thought about it in that way, I wholeheartedly believe it most definitely set me off in the direction of my career in design. All through college we cut and stuck meticulously crafted mock ups of books and packs, creating with our hands the visions and designs in our heads, we created objects from scratch.

As I’ve got older, and my career has progressed and modern life gets in the way, a phenomenon I’m not alone in experiencing, making stuff still feels great. The pride of seeing your creation come forth… or the dry bemusement as it all crumbles and falls, connects me to something more, something older.

A return to older values – or just the desire to connect ourselves to something real, tangible – not technology – is something that is creeping back into the general conscious. Handmade, is the new trend that I’m most excited about, and one that I hope is here to stay. In its rawest form, it reminds us that we are all inherently makers, we all have hands which can craft wonderful things.

Handmade clothes have always been a desired premium, but coming through is a democratised notion of handmade, small labels. Businesses are valued in whole new ways for their limited batches, smaller ranges, one-offs and the personal touch. But it’s not just clothes, it’s in the resurgence of limited-run underground publications or ‘zines’, artisan bakeries and a new found enthusiasm for home-cooking and baking as an almost art form. Even supermarket ready meals are developing to encompass a handcrafted element, as pre-prepared meals come in handily labeled step by step components, enabling us to reconnect with our food and feel like we are cooking – crafting.

The culture of commercialism, where everything has to be new, the latest – the same culture that caused the financial crisis – has perhaps given way to a world where people are tired of living in identikit prefab homes. In this world, the old bedside table that wobbles and has a dent in, has a new cache, hand crafted it was cared about, it has a story, it’s part of you and you part of its story.

Stories, and this human connection, are things both increasingly lacking from modern life, where technology slowly erodes at human interaction but also enabled through the advent of social media. The internet, has connected a whole range of have-a-go-at-home crafting heroes, who’ve founded ties internationally with like-minded people to form online tribes and communities based around this common love. It’s people acting on this part nostalgia influenced feeling that is helping handmade become a fast growing trend.

The banding together of fellow crafters is seeing handmade come into a renaissance, brought about by the people, for the people. Etsy.com, a popular and groundbreaking website brings people together and offers them a platform to not only display their crafting abilities, but sell them and turn them into a profitable hobby. While not everyone may focus on crafting as a profitable sideline, people are brought together in many different ways, from the countless craft, baking and do-it-yourself blogs and websites popping up all over the internet, real life groups are forming too. The irreverently named Stitch & Bitch group in London, started as an online forum for young urbanites who were interested in taking up knitting, previously the lone hobby of retired grandmothers, and grew into a raucous get together that’s spawned other groups, where people not only share their skills and knowledge but use it as a common ground to forge new relationships.

These new relationships and incarnations of old hobbies are part of a growing trend for tangible experiences that people crave for. In an overly homogenised world, something that’s fleeting, transient has new depth, adding to the enjoyment of it for that moment. It’s in this vein that pop-up shops have reached a zenith, celebrating the limited, small nature, the specialness of that moment. Large brands too have been able to embrace this aspect of the handmade trend, with pop-up shops being perfect to showcase their limited edition ranges or to provide a tangible experience that benefits the consumers hands on experience and relationship with the brand. Hands on experiences are ever important for brands, first and foremost the packaging as the embodiment of your brand that is invited into your consumers home; design can help you fit in there and keep your space.

Just like the aforementioned wobbly bedside table being valued for its imperfections, handmade celebrates the imperfect for its realness, it was created with love and thought by people, not machines. But machinery’s involvement isn’t an immediate disqualification for this trend, a computer is operated by a person, one of the new-breed of independent ebook authors self-publishing online, or in my job, the talented creatives harnessing technology to brand hand-made design to packaging design, with just as much love and care. After all, machinery gave the cupcake craze, a lovechild of the handmade revolution, it’s newest innovation. Cult L.A bakery, Sprinkles, has developed the world’s first vending machines that 24 hours a day, serves cupcakes from its ‘cakehole’s in the wall’ in London and Beverly Hills. While this may sound the very opposite of the handmade trend, the cupcakes themselves are made fresh every few hours by people, each one is even iced by hand. Just as computers have enabled advances in design technology, now it brings a new, hands on experience, mixing nostalgia for childhood baked goods with modern technology.

This handmade approach to design, must be crafted honestly, true to the brand and its consumers, poorly executed designs would lack the emotional depth that makes this hand-made trend so great for businesses and brands. It provides a golden opportunity to develop genuine affection and brand loyalty by involving your consumer in the story of your brand, fulfilling them emotionally as they see themselves reflected in the ideologies, personality and design of your brand. At the pinnacle of packaging design and brand strategy, they can work together to emotionally intertwine brands and their consumers to near inseparable points, Brits and their Twinings Tea, Dutch and Venz hagelslag or Calvé Pindakaas. Hand-crafted is a trend that I really hope is here to stay, it gives so much opportunity, not just for beautiful design, but an opportunity to really mean something to consumers and be part of something that I, personally, think is timeless.

Friday Favourites

Michael Mapes‘ human specimen pieces are made from dissected photographs, which are pinned and collected in specimen jars, test tubes and display units. I love the fragmented, slightly obsessive nature of the final images, and the combination of art and science themes. This was found on a few blogs/feeds, including Colossal and Jocundist.

Thanks to Christian for finding this amazing large-scale-3D-scanned journey through the Clerkenwell House of Detention, created by ScanLAB. The technology featured in an article on the Wired website, but on further investigation of their work, we were excited to find this – particularly because the House of Detention is just up the road from our London office…

Thanks to Paul M for finding the rather beautiful Leica M9-P Hermès Edition camera, which was found via Hypebeast. This limited edition, entitled ‘Serie Limitee Jean-Louis Dumas’ has been launched to celebrate the collaboration and friendship between Leica Camera AG and former president of Hermès, Jean-Louis Dumas who passed away in May 2010. The ‘making of’ video is is amazing for showing craftsmanship and detailing.

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Brand naming with flavour

I make no apologies for this blog looking more like a menu than usual. We’ve seen the fruit bowl raided for names: Blackberry; Plum (baby food); Apple Corps and now technology products are going all out to take names from the kitchen cupboard. Google’s Android operating systems have been given a dessert-related titles: Cupcake, Ice Cream Sandwich, Jellybean and Key Lime Pie. There’s also the Linux-based computer, the Raspberry Pi.

Maybe you thought that Apple started it all, or Orange? Banana Republic? Or (Av)Ocado?

Perhaps we could call it ‘Ingredient Branding’ or ‘Recipe Naming’ but this is a great way to add some flavour to products and brands, to make their names memorable and add some personality into a portfolio, without just being a ‘me-too’ fruit name.

This shows an enlightened shift in thinking around naming – products and services no longer need to describe what they do, they need to hint at the personality and enjoyment that the user will get out of them.

What’s more approachable than your favourite dessert? Even if you don’t make food? Not convinced? These products sound bright, fresh, confident. Because that’s the perception the name can give without having to spell out what the product does.

This is something that creative agencies learned a long time ago – following the path of psychedelic bands: ‘aricot Vert, Blue Banana. Older corporations also had a go; like Pye Electronics. OK, maybe not.

A tough call for brand owners – be memorable or tell consumers what it does. Spell it out, or make it stick in the consumer’s head. Get them to buy into the product, or get them to buy into the brand.

I’m looking for other examples. Please send me them, so that I can make a trifle – or a stew.

Farewell from the larder of brand names. I have to go, I’m hungry now.

Friday Favourites

These pixel portraits have been created by artist/designer Hjortefar, for Danish fabric brand Kvadrat as part of their Hallingdal 65 project. They asked 32 talented designers to come up with new ways of using the Hallingdal 65 textile, which was originally created by Nanna Ditzel. Hjortefar’s portraits are entitled ‘BUM and NANNA’ – after two people behind the brand (more about the story behind the portraits here), using 29 different colours and around 7200 pixels per portrait. Check out more images, and a video of the making of the pictures on If It’s Hip, It’s Here. English people can stop sniggering about the name BUM now.

These cars bring a whole new meaning to the term ‘cut and shut’. These were found on set of a new Michel Gondry film currently being shot in Paris, and posted up on the Blenheim Gang blog. I love the way there’s just something a bit wrong about them, but they manage to still look kind of right. The film The Foam of Days (or will it be called Mood Indigo?) is due to be released in 2013, and has been adapted from the book by Boris Vian.

Comic artist Chris Ware has drawn this week’s cover of The New Yorker, which is entitled Mother’s Day. I love his style – his work has appeared in the magazine several times since 1999, and in this article he discusses the New Yorker covers that inspired him. Thanks to James for finding this one.

Thanks to Iona for sharing this: “I watched this over the weekend and thought it was fantastic: John Cleese on creativity (way back in 1991). The section I particularly liked was on making the time to play, and achieving a balance between playing (creativity as creative thinking) and doing (creativity as creation). Funnily enough (boom boom) he also talks a lot about the importance of humour even on extremely serious topics. After all – humour is about making connections and making connections is the first point of creativity.” Found via Brainpickings.

Fischli & Weiss - 'At the carpet shop' from Sausage Photographs 1979

Here’s a shorter version of Der Lauf Der Dinge but you can find the full 30 minute version in three parts on YouTube.

D&AD Student Award winners announced

On 18 April, I spent the day judging the Packaging Design competition entries for this year’s D&AD Student Awards. Winners have now been announced, and their competition entries for this category can be seen here.

I wanted to set a brief that would be inspiring, challenging and multi-layered. Not just a straight packaging project, but the creation of a new brand – a reflection of the professional real world of branding and packaging and the blurring of boundaries in our industry.

In a nutshell, the brief was:

It’s time for a new generation of Scotch whisky. Leave behind the heather and weather, we want a 21st Century Scotch that challenges category convention and appeals to an international female consumer.

I was thrilled to see a record amount of entries come in from across the world. The students had all really dug deep to understand the category, gather insights and address issues.

The attention to detail, quality of thinking and, ultimately, the storytelling and naming skills shown across all winning projects were outstanding, and incredibly mature. The storytelling shown in the two entries shortlisted for a Baby Pencil award - Melissa Preston and Batya Raff  - was particularly impressive.

They all certainly created thought provoking category challengers! I look forward to meeting the winners at the awards ceremony on 26 June.

Asa Cook, Design Director joined me at this year’s panel, saying:

“It felt like a big responsibility for me because I can remember so vividly what it was like as a student and how much effort you put in to it. I was aware that there are so many entries and that proper attention would need to be paid to the thinking and depth of a design, looking at the detail. I wanted to make sure each entry was thoughtfully considered and that the panel was engaged by the student’s rationale.

We were quite taken aback by the sheer number of entries. In previous years it has been more challenging to judge this category because of a low response, but our brief was downloaded around 2000 times, and we had around 280 entries to judge.

We asked people specifically to break the rules and you don’t get much opportunity to do that. The real advantage of this being an agency rather than a client created brief is that we weren’t scared of what people would do to our brand, we wanted them to think differently. I was looking for designs that were innovative about the conventions of whisky, to see something that represented a big breakthrough in the category, and was forward-thinking.

I think the brief generated real excitement because it was open enough to inspire the imagination, while still having a clear deliverable and encouraging people to break category rules. We were surprised by the quality of research into the category and the standard of naming. One thing to remember: Just because your stuff didn’t get in the book, doesn’t mean it wasn’t good. It’s so difficult to win, everyone who entered this year should be proud of their work.”

Working together on the awards this year is part of the spirit of Design Bridge, as Graham concludes,

We believe firmly in growing our own talent at Design Bridge, and encouraging the next generation of creators. The D&AD Student awards and New Blood events are a fantastic way for us to give a little time, inspiration and encouragement back into education.

Well done you lot, great work!

Graham

Wonderbag keeps the sustainability flame burning

Given that a significant contributor to poverty is not being able to afford utility bills, here’s a great piece of sustainable product design that makes use of latent energy to slow cook foods.

Wonderbag is a an insulated bag that allows a pot of food that has been brought to boiling point to then be placed in the bag to finish cooking without the use of additional energy – costing less and reducing carbon emissions.

Rolling out in South Africa, it’s already being supported by Unilever through relevant regional brands for its positive impact on communities and environment; and is likely to pull one of their ‘Five Levers of Changes’ very nicely.

David Bailey at the D&AD

On Wednesday, April 25, I was lucky enough to hear photographer David Bailey –  one of the legends of storytelling – in conversation with art critic Andrew Graham-Dixon at the D&AD.
Story telling isn’t just about words; a picture can tell a thousand of them and David Bailey’s photos speak volumes. He is an icon, and although he doesn’t believe in ‘the best’ he is arguably one of the best British photographers.

Born in the East End of London he didn’t have it easy growing up, only discovering at the age of 30 that the reason he couldn’t read was because he suffered with dyslexia and dyspraxia, but this didn’t hold him back. He calls himself lucky; I call him gifted.

Outspoken and honest, David Bailey is as direct as they come. He’s a bit random and he swears A LOT, but he is captivating and he speaks a lot of sense. His view that colour photography is distracting would be something many might argue against, but something I tend to agree with.

He says: “A photograph is looking. Looking and looking and looking until you can finally see.”

With black and white photography you can do just that, by cutting straight to the emotion of the subject without distraction. This, Bailey has become famous for – black and white portraits that get in close to the subject, eliminating what we don’t need to know. He cuts out the noise, he is single minded and with that, his photographs tell their own stories.

David Bailey tells it how it is and is unafraid of the consequences. ‘I just do what I do and hope someone will like it’. We are all storytellers in one sense or another, Bailey’s sense of confidence and bravery is inspiring and something we could all learn a lot from.

Check out more of David Bailey’s work here.

Friday Favourites

These intricate laser-cut nori sheets were created for the Umino Seaweed Shop by ad agency I&S BBDO. The project was commissioned to reinvigorate the sales of nori seaweed following the 2011 Japanese tsunami. Each design relates to a different element of Japanese history or symbology, from ‘sakura’ (cherry blossoms) to ‘kumikkou’ (tortoise shell). More info on the Design Boom site. Thanks to Dan B for finding this one.

These concrete business cards created by French agency Murmure have been doing the rounds on various blogs this week, and kindly shared around our studio by Gav. I love the idea of using a heavy and uncharacteristic material such as concrete for something small and handheld like a business card. The typography and finish makes it have quite a precious and permanent quality to it, and they’re certainly memorable. I guess you wouldn’t easily lose it or throw it away.

Found on Hypebeast, TheFoxisBlack, and Design Boom.

Dan P spotted the forthcoming Haruki Murakami 1Q84 boxed set design by John Gall on Flavorwire’s list of beautiful literary box sets the other day: “I loved the vivid use of crisp translucent colour overlaying the grainy image; it manages to look very ‘of-the-80s’ while remaining beautifully contemporary. Get on my shelf.”

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