Eco Forest

This flyer is used for the Bradford Climate Offset Programme, where they endeavour to plant trees according to your carbon footprint. They are a non profit organisation and deliver direct action on climate change in their local environment.

What caught my eye initially, was the graphic and how even without the copy you got a firm sense of what the flyer would be about. The concept of having a tree inside a light bulb suggests to me an idea for forest protection, or maybe represents the fight against deforestation. Also the copy fits snuggly at the bottom and appears to be the driving force behind the programme given its positioning. The play on words adds another element and ties in with the image of the light bulb, however without the graphic i think it would be a little out of place and trying too hard.

Carlsberg

This is an interesting idea of viral marketing from Carlsberg beer. The company promoted their “Don’t do litter” campaign by dropping £5000 in £10 and £20 notes randomly around London. Each note was slapped with removable stickers that noted “Carlsberg don’t do litter. But if they did it would probably be the best litter in the world.” I am guessing that the company hopes anyone who’s lucky enough to pick up the notes may head to a local market and get a six pack of beer.

Now on the face of things, this seems an expensive marketing campaign especially for a small niche area of London but considering the old saying, "I told two friends, and they told two more friends" it seems to make more sense. It, as most viral/guerrilla marketing tactics do, will ensure a massive audience and them prove to be a highly effective marketing tactic. The exposure that Carlsberg will receive from this ad will me pretty widespread i am sure.

Advertising Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi, London, UK
Executive Creative Director: Kate Stanners
Creative Directors: Richard Denney, Dave Henderson
Creatives: Rob Porteous, Dave Askwith

Thornton's Chocolate Billboard

I heard about this piece of ingenuity a few days ago now and decided to investigate further, as the concept behing this ad simply amazed me. It was a record-breaking Easter publicity stunt that helped lift sales at the chocolate specialist Thorntons.
After a "difficult start to the year", the company unveiled a pure chocolate edible billboard in Covent Garden in the run up to Easter.

A world first, Thorntons’ creation was made of 390kg of chocolate and measured 14.5ft by 9.5ft. In a trading statement, the chocolate manufacturer and retailer reported that "the billboard was a well-worthwhile investment". It was expected to last a week, but chocolate lovers managed to eat it in three hours. Mr Davies said the recent sales increase was encouraging, but there was a "long-way to go yet".

All in all the idea behing this advert was what made it such a success. The fact that the billboard becomes interactive with the public makes it carry more weight and also more importantly makes it memorable - the key to any good advert. Also the amount of exposure that the advert has received made a huge contribution to the adverts publicity. This is all down to an inventive, creative and different way to advertising a product.

Texas Toilet Paper

I recently aquired this toilet paper from Texas for various reasons and was amused by the concept of the design. I think this is a great example of taking something that is generally a mundane, common thing and giving it a personality so that it will sell. The characture and the typography seem to both work in harmony together along with the word play of the strapline. A great example of creating and bringing something to life that is normally a common house hold item, that lacks personality and only serves a single fairly boring purpose.

Dorset Cereals

This box of cereal had been hidden in the back of the kitchen cupboard for some time, until the other day when i thankfully discovered it. In short it's a purple rectangular box, that serves no other purpose than to hold and stop the cereal inside spilling everywhere. At least that was my immediate reaction when it caught my glance. However, after having examined the box further, it quickly became apparent that there was much more to it, that ought to be given credit and exposed.

Firstly a bit about Dorset Cereals.

Dorset Cereals is a Dorset-based company, producing award-winning premium breakfast cereal since 1986. Under a new entrepreneurial management team since early 2005, plans are now underway to realise the full potential of the business and the brand. A passion for the simple, honest pleasures of life and a commitment to quality and taste lies at the heart of the business. Feedback from consumers is welcomed to help Dorset Cereals develop and improve, providing the tastiest recipes possible.

Uncompromising in the dedication to finding the very best in quality, the ingredients used are sourced from the four corners of the world. For example, the recipes don’t just use raisins, they use Chilean jumbo size 'flame' raisins, which are believed to be the most flavoursome and have become Dorset Cereals’ signature ingredient. The ingredients are then carefully blended and balanced to ensure the right amount of fruits, nuts and seeds for the perfect taste in each recipe. The special blending process keeps the ingredients as whole and with as little ‘dust’ as possible in the pack.

It is quite apparent from this little introduction that a lot of time care and personal passion has gone into making this cereal one of the leading competitors of the market. Obviously there has to be a lot of key preparation and fundamental issues have to be put right, before this product was to take off and really make its statement. They needed to decide from the start what this product was going to be about, what i would say if it could talk and in what tone of voice it would be speaking.

If i was on the board for this products birth, not only would i be full of anticipation and excitement, but i would also be somewhat nervous. My reasoning is simple: this product has got the potential to work very effectively if executed in the right manner, but the more concerning factor, is that if it is not done properly a great chance for success would be thrown awry .

For me there were 4 factors that were crucial to its successful marketing. First and foremost, was the quality of the product. If the product wasn't authentic (especially important with natural foods), then it wouldn't sell, simple as that. You will never get anywhere when trying to market something if you aren't selling a genuine article. Moreover, if you are selling something that boasts it is unique, genuine and different from similar products, then you ought to be exploiting this fact and using it to you advantage.

This is the first tick in the box. When you look at the container from the top, this is one of the first things you are forced to realise through the products meaty and punchy strap-line: 'honest, tasty and real'. The product is already telling you that the contents inside are no-nonsense cereal made from unmodified ingredients. This side of the box is for me the real essence of what the brand is about. The well balanced leafy logo, accompanied by the bold brand name and the hearty strap-line really convey the character of the brand in a modest and up front fashion.

The second factor is the products aesthetic appearance, both in terms of catching its audiences attention and also persuading them that this product is in a different class from its competitors. Imagine walking down a supermarket aisle, this product wouldn't necessarily jump right out at you, as the colour palette isn't blindingly striking, and so it shouldn't be. This product is organic and natural, therefore a its palette ought to reflect this. In this case the cereal flavour is berries and cherries, so what colour would you really use other than a deep red or purple?

The copy is another aesthetic element that adds to the appearance of any packaging design. It can either become a feature, be neatly tucked away or just become a visual eye-saw and conflict with other graphic elements. For 'Dorset Cereals' the copy becomes a definite feature and compliments the overall design. On the front of the container, the copy serves to remove some of the awkward negative space, that would be found underneath the logo and the brand name. Instead, it becomes an informative and well balanced section that conveys the bare but essential facts to its audience.

What does this product say to you? 'False', 'cheap' or maybe 'run of the mill'? I think not. This product is proud, has stature and a dignified voice to go with it. Part of this is owed to its visual appeal and design, and the other part is not. The language and wording used represents the major bulk of the tone of voice of the product. This is the chance for the product to communicate on a personal level - you are the only one reading this, you are the only one who will judge what is being said to you.

When i read all of the spiel, i felt content. I hadn't even tried the product, knew little about it or bought anything. The language is very straight forward, playful and genuine. You feel like you are being spoken to you by the man in the fields that makes this stuff. For this reason, you as the audience already feel subconsciously, that you have made a connection with the product as it becomes more personalised hearing it speak.

Lastly i must draw attention to the transparent panels, that again add another dimension to the container's design. Yeah alright, i have blown the trumpet of this product somewhat and stressed its honest and authentic brand values. But to have this little bit of design genius right on the front of the container, really shows off its design and why shouldn't it. After all this product subtly praises itself for being made from real stuff so why not really convince us all and show us what is inside? Job done, it's in the trolley and off we go!

Designed by Big Fish

Guinness Birthday Card

I just wanted to throw this one out there to see what you guys and girls thought. Would be grateful if you could give me any pointers, as to how you think i could improve this birthday card. (please click for an enlarged version)

It was my Dad's girlfriends 50th birthday not that long ago, so i thought i would design her a birthday card she would remember. She was born in Ireland and has a soft spot for Guinness funnily enough so i thought this theme would be appropriate. Have also posted the original image, which i photographed myself having stolen a pint glass from the pub. The pub will remain unnamed!

Blue Screen Website

http://b-l-u-e-s-c-r-e-e-n.net/streamscape/

This website is a must see. A friend sent me the link and was interested to see what I thought. The concept behind the website is fairly easy to explain, however, the programming that must have been used to achieve this is far from easy and out of my league so I will have that up to you to decipher.

The concept is to produce a hybridization of images from 15 web cams scattered all over the world. Every minute the streams from all of these cameras are captured on a server and then incorporated with the help of a very progressive dissolve, resulting in the landscape visible on this site. The aim of the website is to give birth to a landscape that lives from the inside, an inhabited landscape, which has a particular life form and is nourished from the flow that inhabits it. This landscape is timeless or at least not subjected to a specific timeframe, and shares some of its time with the viewer, the time that it lives.

The web designers have attempted to create such landscapes by substituting the image with the stream from live web cams. A still image by definition fixes time, a moving image captures, contracts or extends it; live display of camera stream has for its part the particularity of placing the viewer and what is to be seen in the same timeframe: the time in which we are living. The landscapes one is able to see are composed with the help of a special program, which was specially developed for this project and devoted to the manipulation of this sort of image stream from distant web cams. The resulting landscapes originate from the re-composition and live hybridisation of the stream from sources located in different places all over the world. What is projected and what we observe is no longer a singular, immobile, stored image, but a transitory state resulting from the orchestration of a multitude of streams, a sort of network of fragmented landscapes, rendering and simultaneously mixing distinct views of spaces sent by the web cams. This kind of mental landscape incessantly rebuilds itself from views that arrive instantaneously from different distant places and spaces.

In essence this is an interactive piece of media that allows the viewer to become part of a global cycle. Can you see this concept becoming something that will be developed further, I think I can.