Happy New Year

I thought it might be nice to share some of the work nothing does have carried out over 2007. It's been a busy year with various branding and re-branding work carried out. I have included a small selection here but there is a more detailed gallery on our website along with a selection of case studies. If you would like to receive more information regarding our work or wish to see some of our case studies then please just get in touch.

Small Business, Small Mind

'Isn't branding just for big companies?'

This was the question I was recently asked and it is true that large companies spend vast amounts of money on their respective brand and it's also true that branding is a multi million pound industry. However that doesn't mean that it's only the global companies who should take branding seriously. Or equally that it isn't just as important for the smaller companies. In fact it could be argued that due to the huge competition within the S.M.E. arena (sorry about the acronym, you have permission to hit me with a big stick) that branding and brand position are actually more valuable for the smaller business.

It doesn't have to cost you your whole marketing budget for the next five years or even swallow up huge chunks of your time. Done properly it's actually a fun and interesting venture that can and will help you and your company stand out in a crowded marketplace and give you a huge advantage over your competition.

So go and stick one in the eye of the global giants and get branded like the big boys.

9 Branding Top Tips

Well 10 would be too obvious and at nothing does we like to do something different.

Communicate what you want to be and how you want your customers to think you are. And then believe it 100%

Your brand is your company's personality. Make sure your personality is right for you and your company.

Love it and live it! Embrace your brand and eat, sleep, drink, shower, shave and sh** it.
It does mean THAT much.

Ensure all your staff understand, and more importantly are proud of the brand they work for.

Your brand should be in everything: The way you answer the phone, send emails and the pictures on your (branded) walls. It all speaks volumes about your brand. (See point 3).

Review it. Brands do (and should) evolve. Customers and climates change and your brand should adapt to your business changes.

Less is more. Don't over egg it with mixed messages. Focus on what makes you and your brand unique.

Create a cult. Getting people to fall in love with and express loyalty to your brand is the holy grail.

If it ain't working change it. Don't carry on with something that doesn't express your company, this will only damage your business.

Revolt-ing

Go on then lets do it; Let's say 'it's revolution not evolution.' (I hate tired old marketing terms more than Ikea even if you do turn them on their heads.)

Right, well we've got that out of the way but come on let's really go for it. If you want to stand out, if you want to be seen as different and if you want to take the lead then you are going to have to revolt. You are going to have to say: screw everybody else I am better than them and the way I do it is the best. By god it takes guts to do that and you may find yourself stood alone but soon everyone else can see that because you have had the balls to stand alone and you have positioned yourself exactly how you want to, without any influence from your competitors. That this sets you miles in front of them.

Great design and great marketing comes from revolution and ultimately having the guts to believe so much in who you are that you will go out on a limb and revolt. So hats off to the revolutionaries and long may they find the courage to stand-alone.

It's great to stand alone when it gives you the time to watch everyone else catch up

shock photography

Most clients see it as an easy way to cut costs and some designers see it as an easy way to great imagery. The photo library!

They've been around for years and god bless 'em they've embraced the internet like it's some kind of saviour. So much so that now it's not just an easy option for designers, it's thier first point of call. Picture the scene. Monday morning in your typical design studio. The Creative Director gathers his troops to announce that there is a new brief to be worked on and some poor sod has been told to trawl through the online photo libraries to look for suitable images. What the hell does that Creative Director think he's gonna get? Well I can tell you. He'll end up with a pile of sterile images that fall far short of what he wants to communicate, a bunch of bland shots that will never effectively communicate a brand because of their overall state of nothingness. But what the hell, he'll go with them anyway.

Stock photography is the paint by numbers of the design world. When you log on to their website it's like passing through those spinning yellow, urine coloured doors of Ikea. You leave your imagination behind. They will try and dress it up as the cutting edge of creativity and the place to buy (as will the photo libraries), but mass appeal does not equate to good design. It's just plain lazy. The right images require the input of the designer and the client to develop something that is unique, and when this is done successfully you have an image that not only is right but it embraces your brand without a hint of ambiguity. I know that this takes a little extra time and money but it's time and money well spent and it will, without question focus your brand to where you want it to be.

So look at it like this: Stock photography is the Ikea of branding. They might sell hot dogs but boy do they give you indigestion.

we know the marketing that goes

'We know the colours that go.'
What a statement. 'We know.' Not we will suggest or recommend but 'we know.' No messing, no flannel. We have positioned ourselves as the experts and everybody else really can't question our understanding. It's a standard marketing ploy to position yourself as an expert and hats off to Dulux as they have done this so well and have a great campaign to back up this statement. So much so that I bet their colour charts have become the dog eared bibles of home decorating across the country. Designers may stick they collective necks out to say that tonally some of the matches could be better or that some of the colours that 'don't go' could with a little tweaking, but the success of the campaign means that they would be questioning the new colour experts. Modern marketing done well and backed up by a great advertising campaign. Dulux say they know the colours that go and if they have the balls to say that who are we to question?

london olympic logo

Oh what the hell, everyone else has chucked in their ten pence worth so why shouldn't I?

Right let's try and look at this from a designer's point of view. I would love to say it makes a bold forward looking statement for London and its hosting of the Olympic games. I would love to disagree with the general public and state that it's a fantastic piece of design that in years to come will be held up as a real modern design classic, but I can't. To be frank it stinks. But I think more importantly it points out how big agencies with 'credibility' can produce inadequate design and 'up sell' it.

When I first saw this logo I was in a presentation and my gut reaction was 'hey let's give it time.' But then I went back and took another look at it and if I'm being really honest, if any of my designers came to me with this I would be very disappointed. I understand that it's supposed to represent '2012' in it's form but it looks so angular it produces a feeling of uneasiness. I read that the inspiration was from graffiti - oh God old designers trying to be trendy, it's worse than your dad dancing to the Arctic Monkeys at your cousin's wedding. But to me the biggest gaff is the typography. Bottom line is that the type is too small within the logo. This device will have to be produced on every kind of merchandising that the marketeers can think of, from caps to crap pens and it just wont work. It fails on so many levels of communication. Just yet another case of the emperor's new clothes and I'm so sad to say that designers seem to do that so well.