Month: April 2009

Categories
Journal

The Importance Of Music.

Just about everyone likes music, whatever your taste there is something that you obviously do like.

But has anyone ever asked why? Why is music so important, and why does it play such a massive role in our lives?

It’s a stimulus. Music stimulates our brain, our thoughts, and our emotions. Music gives us inspiration, raises our spirits, it’s what makes you finally turn round and forgive someone, you and your partner probably have a certain song, it brings people together and just as easily tears people apart.

But Imagine a life with no music, no tones, no harmonies. It would be depressing.

Some of the best commercials out there wouldn’t be half as effective without the right soundtrack carrying it through. As I’m writing this I’m also listening to Hallelujah by Katherine Jenkins (which by the way, is amazing) and it extrudes emotion. I’m listening to this and I don’t have a care in the world.

What I’m getting at is that music IS more powerful than you can care to imagine. The use of it, if used correctly, is a very, very powerful tool and it can be applied to anything. Take for example Christmas, sure over the years it may have lost some of it’s meaning to the younger generations, but do you think they had Christmas carols when Jesus was actually around? Probably not, but I’ll bet good money that Christmas wouldn’t have the same impact on us without the uplifting Christmas cheer that’s spread through it’s carols.

So it leads me to ask why does it have such a massive effect on us?

Well… I couldn’t tell you. Music seems to make no sense. It comes from nowhere and goes nowhere, but it’s so closely connected to all of us in some way, shape or form that I’m sure you’ll have something to say.

Categories
Inspiration

A Little Something To Brighten Up The Morning.

Noah and the whale – 5 Years Time.

Such a happy tune, I find it hard to believe some people don’t like this. It just oozes goodness, like a Nestlé cereal!

Categories
Inspiration

Do Brands Matter In A Recession?

Ije Nwokorie, Senior Strategist, Wolff Olins

Categories
Journal

Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Not only the new, but pretty much every product that has been around for a few years has evolved into a more simple form of itself whilst achieving even more functionality than before.

You can look at any computer, gaming console or fireplace to see that this, in the modern world that we’re living in today, is the case!

Granted, there are the odd exceptions such as that oh so familiar, modestly named game ‘Pong’. I can say that in confidence as it is still a widely played (and enjoyed) game, maybe under a different alias, but nevertheless, it’s still the same game.

Why? Simple.

It was a simple idea executed to perfection. This is something I think a lot of people take for granted nowadays.

I’ve seen hundereds of over crowded advertisements in an attempt to make them more appealing or informative, yet I’ve also seen a monkey piss in it’s own mouth. I personally prefer the latter, it’s memorable, straight to the point, and humourus to the right audience.

Leonardo Da Vinci once said “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”

Which leads me to my next thought.

Can simple be too simple? What is too simple?

Categories
Journal

Standing Out – Be Creative

This is the key phrase for the advertising youth of today.

As an ever growing and highly competitive industry you really do have to do something different to get noticed.

But how far can one actually go before it’s considered distasteful, vulgar or God forbid, get black listed from the industry in an attempt to stand out?

The majority of attainable clients for the new blood, (I’m talking about low budget businesses that are close minded to the proverbial “less is more” that just want you to put as much information as they possibly can onto a tiny bit of paper) have no creative flair, which consistently makes it increasingly hard for us newbies to “Be Different”. Maybe more so to Graphic Designers.

I’m not being ignorant to the fact that yes, we can set our own briefs and come up with some kick-ass ideas.

Sure, it’ll go into our portfolio, we can send it around hundreds of different agencies, hopefully they’ll get your ideas and we’ll get an opportunity.

Hopefully.

It’s not like the kind of publicity that you get with a live client. A true problem to be solved using your ideas, which are being mailed direct to homes and being posted up around the town for everyone to see. Maybe it’s just the ego boost from it all that makes it seem so much better.

Or maybe it’s the fact that one person can see that idea, like it and tell another person, maybe they’ll tell someone else who knows someone in the industry and boom, there is another opportunity.

Does this mean to say that it would be a good idea to run your own personal campaigns?

For newbies that want to make it into industry, it may not be a bad idea, why not? Be creative. Hold an event, attempt a viral or use guerrilla tactics.

Get your work seen

Get your work out there any way you can.

It’s one thing being different, but if no ones going to see it. Should you really be trying to get into this game?

Categories
Makings

Convince people to keep a worm as a domestic pet

That’s right, an earth worm. This is what we had to advertise, in groups of two. So with my partner Caroline Henson (thought I’d throw in a mention as this was a team effort) we came up with a few ideas for this project and decided on one. Which at the time we were very skeptical about proceeding with, but it was a risk we were definitely willing to take.
And we did.

It went down really well with our tutor (who has worked on many famous adverts and was part of Tesco’s “Every little helps” slogan), we received good feedback and it was suggested that we continue developing it, make a video, take it further.

Finalized Poster
Finalized Poster
Categories
Makings

A Lesson In Typography

We had a 2 day workshop dedicated to typography, and at the end we had a task set to design a typographic poster in InDesign, in black and white only, with 200 words on what we had learned throughout the duration of the course.

Typography Poster
Finalized Typographic Poster.