Tom Gauld for Diet Coke

Some really nice illustrative work by Tom Gauld for Diet Coke. I've been looking at co-branding for my dissertation and really liked the use of it here. Diet Coke have teamed up with charity 'The Heart Truth' to create these can designs. It looks very feminine, the main audience for Diet Coke, whilst the charity also focuses on women's heart problems.

Dead Star

I really like this piece of sculpture by Michel de Broin which is made from discarded batteries. I don't think I would want it in my own house but the idea that a piece of art can be made from something that you would just normally throw away, and would never consider to be somewhat attractive is really interesting. It looks like a futuristic rock. Maybe this is what the environment will begin to look like in a few centuries time?

Guilty Pleasures...

As a student there are a lot of things that we're not meant to be able to afford, ie. food and such. But one thing I will always have (just) enough money to buy is Cath Kidston. I don't know what it is about her designs but I can't get enough of them. If it was just any old designer who had created the patterns I would probably hate them. They are, afterall, quite grandma/charity shop -esque. Maybe it's just following the trends of everyone else? 

iHobo App

Searching through the top free apps in the App Store last night (I'm still a student - the only app I have willingly paid for is a Glee one) I came across the iHobo app, of which I downloaded. Initially finding the name of the app comical, I thought the app's contents would be the same....

iHobo is a game that takes place in real-time over 3 days. You are given a homeless man to live on your phone for 72 hours. In that time you have to be there to provide him with every need, whether it be food, money or a sleeping bag. If you're not there for him then he can turn to drugs, or even die. Annoyingly, I didn't request push notifications on this, so when my homeless man wanted something I wasn't there for him. Basically, when I checked up on him by the morning he had been mugged for his sleeping bag, didn't have any money for a hostel and had taken drugs to stop the cold. Clearly I'm not cut out for this malarkey.

The app was created by Publicis London to raise awareness of Depaul UK, a charity devoted to youth homelessness, with the aim of trying to get more young people involved in the issue. I found it to be effective in the way that it instills a sense of guilt in you when you come back to find out what's been happening with your hobo after leaving him for the night - putting the issue into an almost entertaining setting helps the user to understand what can happen when homeless, and hopefully will encourage others to think twice when they pass a real homeless person on the street.

Waitrose by Kitcatt Nohr Alexander Shaw

I've been aware of the Waitrose advertising campaign with Delia Smith and Heston Blumenthal for a while now. Using two of the countries best known chefs, particularly two from such a middle classed background, was a clever take on the Sainsburys campaign which used Jamie Oliver. Great way to personify a brand through a cook. 

Kitcatt Nohr Alexander Shaw worked with Waitrose on the release of this campaign after the MyWaitrose website had been launched. This site focused on the closest Waitrose customers, the most active members of MyWaitrose and the most influential food bloggers. The idea was that the best advertising isn't simply just heard, its talked about. This lead the design agency to come up with a food box containing all the ingredients for Delia's first TV advert recipe and to deliver it to the most active MyWaitrose members so they could make the recipe themselves. 

The outcome was a great success and over half of the receivers wrote about it on their blogs. What had been achieved was the customers had launched the campaign for Waitrose themselves. 

Looking at more designs from Kitcatt Nohr Alexander Shaw, I really liked the way that they had put their work under the title 'how to', such as 'how to get your customer's talking', 'how to rebrand 15 million people' and 'how to sell hope'. It really looks like they know exactly what they're doing meaning clients will be encouraged to use them.

MySpace - Reviving the Brand?

As in a previous post I mentioned the public reaction to the new GAP logo, and the problem being that GAP had not done enough investigation into the opinions of the audience before it was published on the website - leading to complaints.


Now another brand is looking to redesign their logo in the hope to revive itself - MySpace. One of the original social networking sites, since the introduction of Facebook it has lost popularity, and is now about to begin a brand relaunch. 


The idea of the logo is that it makes a visual change in the brand since it first came about in 2003. The new logo will replace the 'Space' with a blank line, in which user generated images can be placed as MySpace is about the user and is what you make it according to Mike Macadaan (MySpace vice president of user experience and design);

"If we really are getting into a place where you're going to be able to show off what you're into - or what it is you're trying to get famous by - the logo needs to be a vessel, an empty stage. It can't be a logo that is all about some big company that's trying to express a whole bunch of their own philosophies."

Although I like the new design, in all honesty I think that it is going to take much more than logo design to revive MySpace as a brand. The decline of it has very little to do with the logo but more with the user experience. People are taking to Facebook and other forms of social media, which although may not seem to be as visually appealing, are much easier for networking and have a much wider target audience.

Gap Logo

Gap's new logo has been pulled by the company after criticism through social media. The logo had originally replaced the existing one on the website, where many people become confused as to whether it was more to encourage debate than to actually be changing. A Gap spokesperson however stated that they had wanted to make the logo more contemporary whilst still including the blue box, but after all the criticism also invited the public to give their suggestions.

It looks like the public won, as Gap have now reinstated their original logo. I can understand why a company may want to update their logo to make it more 'with the times', however the new logo is completely different to the original and a lot of the more successful changes are much more subtle. A change of typeface for example. I definitely prefer the original and as Gap is such a global brand, think that if they were to change their logo they should create much more of a media storm than just changing it on the website.

Cosmo on Campus

Walking around university most people keep their head downs to avoid the hundreds of leaflets, advertising events or special offers that are shoved into their faces. Being handed out today however was a new magazine by Cosmopolitan called Cosmo on Campus. Most of it is advertising, in fact more than 1/3, but I thought it was a really good way to reach the student female population who a lot of the time don't buy magazines to save money. Giving out a free magazine which can be related to a full price one is a really good form of brand recognition as people will choose to read it over another less known magazine.

What the Flock?

I'm quite interested to see what this campaign is about.

Walking through Hyde Park into university the other day I was greeted by a large number of black sheep stuck into the grass, along with the words 'what the flock?' painted on the ground. Although I thought it was a bit weird, it's definitely not the weirdest thing I've seen in Hyde Park before so I didn't think much of it until I saw a friend had been tagged in 'What the Flocks?' album on Facebook.

So what the flock is with all the sheep in Leeds? No idea. The website www.whattheflock.org.uk says all will be revealed on 10/10/10, but all we have no aside from the large amount of fake wooly creatures around the town is a short video with a lot of students looking shocked and saying '17?'.

The suspense around this campaign is enthralling, it makes me want to check back and see what it's actually about. Maybe a not so good comparison was when Pantene Pro V shampoo did a campaign where they sent out non branded sachets of shampoo of their product and didn't tell any of the receivers what the product was. By doing this they had confidence that the effects of their product would outweigh the brand name.

I'm looking forward to seeing what this is all about on 10/10/10.

Current Issues

South African agency TBWAHuntLascaris has created a really clever piece of ambient advertising to draw attention to human trafficking in South Africa. Created on behalf of the Southern African Counter-Trafficking Assistance Programme, it is aimed at potential victims of trafficking.


“We realised that human trafficking relies on the fact that potential victims will be uninformed," say the creatives, Miguel Nunes and Charles Pantland. "So we needed to talk to the community directly, the way human traffickers do. Like the recruiters, we targeted children near schools or just walking the streets of poverty stricken townships and dense urban slums where unemployment and forced prostitution are common. And like the criminals, we employed an element of deception: we created tunnels with false walls which precisely matched the walls behind them, so that when people walked through, they disappeared – leaving onlookers wondering what had happened to them. By forcing people to imagine the unimaginable, the potential victims actually became the message." (copied from the Creative Review blog post)


Having taken part in projects where we had to create ambient advertising, I know how hard it can be to come up with an effective idea which still makes people look at it and say ‘why didn’t I think of that?’ This campaign not only targets the appropriate audience but manages to blend into the surroundings though it’s simple design effectively.

Agency: TBWAHuntLascaris
Art director: Miguel Nunes
Copywriter: Charles Pantland
Creative director: Vanessa Gibson
Executive creative director: Damon Stapleton
Photographer: Des Ellis
Director: Rob Wilson

Simon Danaher

I really like these advertising pieces by digital designer Simon Danaher. I find image manipulation to this level really fascinating, as although I would consider myself as a 'designer', I doubt I would ever be able to create pieces of work like this.

I would like to see what the original images looked like and the process he went through to get to each final image as I can image it was a long and painful task to get them looking as good as they do now.

Dual Branding

As a final year student, I'm being slowly forced into thinking and reading up for my dissertation. After a whole placement year of frantically reading design publications to try and find something I'm prepared to spend a whole year writing about I've become interested in the subject of dual branding, which has been spotted as a trend to look out for in 2010.

Judge Gill's five retail design trend predictions for 2010

• Stores must become 'brand homes', not walk-in advertisements
• Experiential design will become a necessity
• There will be an explosion in dual-branded stores
• Retailers will aim to develop ongoing relationships with customers
• There will be a growth in digital elements

"Dual-branded areas will be driven by the practical consideration of sharing risks and cost, and also by brands becoming 'less precious' about maintaining their singularity, and realising the benefits to be had from teaming up" says Judge. But was has happened to the importance of intellectual property? It seems brands have lost their need to be individual.

A famous dual branding movement at the moment is Red, the aids awareness fund which has teamed up with a number of large brands such as Nike and Gap (you may have noticed the tshirts sold in Gap 'Inspi(red)'.

Inspi(red) t-shirt

The marketers at Diet Coke who's target audience is women, wanted the can to be more of a fashion accessory, so teamed up with online store ASOS to create a leopard print can. Limited edition bottles are also available.

Dual branding - Nike and Apple

Branching Out Exhibition

According to Andrew Varah, chairman of The Liveries Wood Group, woodworking skills are 'as good, if not better, today than at any other time'. This being one of the reasons behind a new exhibition called 'Branching Out' conceived by himself, and being displayed at the Arboretum Trust, Kew at Castle Howard in York.

Giving several designers and celebrities a 15cm long piece of a dead oak tree, the idea was that they were to be turned into pieces of art and design which could then be signed and auctioned off for charity. Many pieces show different types of woodworking skills such as turning and carving to cabinet-making. And designwise many of the chosen designers used their specific design skills to create something relating to their interests such as a pencil holder/sharpener by Sebastian Conran.

Although having only read about this exhibition, I found the idea incredibly innovative. It highlights the way in which materials that may otherwise be thrown away can be reused and turned into pieces of art. It required each individual to manipulate something using their imagination and skills in an individual way. Some of the designs were incredibly intricate and clever including a beautiful sculpture by Joey Richardson (see below).

Notting Hill Carnival

For most Londoners, August bank holiday means one thing - Notting Hill Carnival. People come from all over the world to experience this 2 day street festival so it always shocks me when someone who actually lives in, or around London, admits they haven't been there.

Europe's largest street festival with over one million people coming to experience the sounds and tastes of the Caribbean, it's the kind of event that you just can't imagine unless you've been there. Trucks with hundreds of speakers drive along the roads, followed by processions of brightly costumed dancers of all ages. Having never been to the actual Caribbean, this carnival makes you almost feel like you're there.

The one thing that stands out for me the most are the costumes. Some of them are so intricately designed that they must have taken months to create, whilst some are so large that they get caught up in the trees as they walk along the road. Colours that normally would clash work together in this setting and watching the procession is definitely the highlight of the carnival in my opinion.

Peter Saville's New England Shirt Design

Peter Saville has designed a new England shirt that will be worn on the teams home match against Bulgaria on September 3rd. The shirt will be available to the public for £49.99. The makers, Umbro, state that the design is inspired by the more formal classic shirts of England's footballing past.

Not being a great fan of football I have noticed little difference in the new design. Saville has had very little input by only adding a number of different coloured crosses on the shoulders of the shirt, which is meant to be 'evocative of stitches synonymous with bespoke tailoring'. They also aim to represent the diverse nature of modern English society.

Coming from a design aspect I have no clue how this is meant to represent our society in anyway. Possibly the colours to replicate the different ethnic groups? I do however know that England fans will not be impressed with having to pay such a large amount of money for a shirt that has very little difference to it's predecessors.

Innocent Smoothies for Kids

Innocent have always been known as an exciting and innovative brand. Bright, friendly and simple, the packaging of their food and drinks, as well as the lifestyle that it promotes, attracts the audience easily. Their feel good packaging even made it’s way into my A Level English Language exam, where we had to write an hour-long essay on the design… so it must be pretty good.

Targeting many different audiences through their different product ranges, Innocent have recently redesigned the cartons for their Smoothies for Kids range along with the help of design agency New Future Graphic. The new designs feature 12 activities where you can re-use the cartons, including turning the packaging into a bird feeder, or a false nose.

Not only does the product now become more enticing to children, who may need a bit of encouraging to drink a ‘healthy’ smoothie, but it also shows how even an old drinks carton can be recycled into something fun and different. I really liked the designs, and feel that New Future Graphic have managed to capture the essence and style of the brand perfectly.