A cut above...

A new venture I've embarked upon (or should I say rediscovered) is lino-cutting, here's one of the lino-cuts I've been doing this month...

Based on a design I did for a friend who was moving house..


I have also been re-discovering doodling (lots of re-discovery going on here!!) and made these note books, which I might start using myself - as an obsessive notebook purchaser!!

Also, I have finally done something with my Lighthouse Keeper pattern that I did aaaaaages ago - I've turned it into a toiletries bin and a toiletries bag, and even though it's white it's still pristine...

Brand Values??

I was at a networking event recently and someone asked what it was that I did. When I said we were a design agency (giant plug... The Design Project NW) I could sense the confusion, so I then said that we specialised in branding... "oh, you mean like logos and stuff".

It occurred to me, whilst ranting on about valuing things (see previous posts), that quite a lot of people don't realise the value of a brand, to dismiss your brand as "logos and stuff" is almost like turning up to the royal garden party in your pants!

A brand is an image that evokes emotion with consumers - that's how important a brand is. Imagine getting that wrong, how many customers might walk past/ignore/throw business cards away because the branding is wrong or just totally confusing.

Remember when Coca-Cola did clear coke (many moons ago). It didn't last long did it?! The confusion between client, brand and what they were getting from the brand was just all wrong...
Brand said "Coca-cola", appearance said "lemonade" taste said "WTF".

If you get branding right and it creates the right emotion within prospective clients the possibilities are endless. The clients enjoy being a part of that brand (as well as your staff)!

A brand should reflect the company values and integrity. Even if you, personally, have no integrity whatsoever and your values are completely selfish, if the brand of your company reflects a value/integrity that the consumer can relate to it almost doesn't matter what you, as a person, stand for.

The consumer is looking to that brand for stability and confidence in the product/company. There will, however, come a time when you as a person may affect your company brand - just for being an @r$ehole, but that's a whole other blog post!!!

What is Value?!?

On being somewhat annoyed by the "I paid all that money and only got 1 logo" comment, I decided to have a look into why and how we put value on things?

Quite a lot of interesting things came up - not least someone suggesting money was "symbolic energy"!!! I don't know about you but I don't find money symbolic, or energetic!! Or is that just me??

The basic suggestion from a variety of blogs/forums etc was that things need to have value so we can trade them, which is why we put a value on something!

The part I found hardest to ascertain was the 'how' we put value on something.

For example, take 2 leather handbags, both made in Britain and finished to particular standards, one is £120 while the other is £540 -  (I'm not going to name names) the only difference is their logos.

So, this got me thinking - again... Branding, and the value of it?

A really fascinating article from The Guardian last year brings up this question for universities - who are relatively 'new' to the world of branding...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2012/apr/03/branding-universities

It raises the point of synergy in marketing and branding - a point that many people think irrelevant! What some people may also not realise is the productivity and pride that comes with a solid, distinctive brand. This in itself is worth hundreds of thousands!

People think they can design their own stationery, leaflets and brochures and they can market themselves, and to some extent they can. But to add that value to their company takes expertise - expertise that have been gleaned through years of education, learning and experience.

So, that's where the value is, but I'm still struggling with the how we value something.

It's a tough one - the problem is that great design looks effortless. Someone once told me that they'd created a full marketing strategy for a client, only to be told by the client "well I could have come up with that"!!! So why didn't they come up with the idea?!?

This is where the problem lies with valuing creativity.

I'm not saying everyone is like that - thankfully a lot of people aren't, and they realise the potential of creative input and the value it can bring to a project.

I wonder if I'm flogging a dead horse, trying to explain the value in creativity...

If someone doesn't see it in the first place, I don't think they ever will and that's such a shame - some people, I guess, see value as getting the most of something for next to nothing. It's a good job everyone isn't like that - Harrods, Selfridges and Harvey Nics would have gone bust years ago!

I'd love to hear other people's experience on being valued, or how they value something, such as creativity, ideas etc....

How Much?!?!?!?

Ok, so this blog post is for "nice stuff", but I really need to rant from time to time, and that time is now...

As well as doodling I also run The Design Project (NW) along with my other half Geoff. Because, clearly, I couldn't earn a living on my doodling!!

A person was heard moaning to someone that "I paid all that money and all I got was 1 logo". What they had clearly forgotten was the several variants of logo that were supplied. The brief was a very wide open one: "classic" and "expensive" - a case of the client not really knowing what he wanted, so the designs created were to assist in the filtering process. So this filtering process went on - not too long I hasten to add, it wasn't a nightmare client by any stretch.

So, what I'm ranting about is the fact that this person has "filtered" out all the behind the scenes work that goes into designing a logo. Not to mention coming up with the ideas in the first place, but also the years of experience in knowing how to bring it all together.

I'm probably also ranting about the way people under-value what designers actually do. It's one of those careers that people in general think is "easy" it's colouring in!!

A story I love is the guy that went to fix a boat...
He hammered a nail into the corner of the boat and then charged £1000 to fix it.
When the boat owner asked him how he could charge so much for just hammering a new nail in, the gentleman fixing it said "£1 for the nail and £999 for the experience and knowledge of knowing where to put the nail"

For a more comprehensive, and less ranting version of what you're actually paying
for check out these sites...

http://blog.steveperrycreative.com/hiring-a-designer/

http://www.matdolphin.com/blog/2012/01/25/how-lo-can-you-go/

New Ginger Nut Tree Book... Giant Tales

So, I thought I'd doodle an image for one of the other Ginger Nut Tree books (Frank Lampard has nothing on me!!!!!! Oh, apart from a hefty big contract, but hey!!)

One of the other books I did was about elves that look after a giant, and clean his house, clean him, and at night time clean his teeth!!

This doodle is from the part where they're cleaning his teeth...

Ginger Nut Tree Stories Continues...

Well, my 'January Resolution' is nearly up and I need to think of one for February - my plan was to make a new resolution to stick to each month, I figured it would be easier!!

So, this weeks blog I've done a doodle for The Ginger Nut Tree Stories, but it's for a part that's a bit further into the book. So it probably won't make any sense, but it was just the doodle that I had in my head at the time!

This part of the book, the little boy discovers a patch of grass that, at the stroke of midnight (it always has to be midnight!!), turns into a slide and takes him underground to a world of elves, fairies and, of course, SWEETS - I'm thinking Willy Wonka style :)

As January's resolution comes to a close, I'm thinking February's might be the same - to keep doodling
until I finish the book :)

Not quite there yet...

Ok, so , my resolution for January was to blog every week - by the skin of my teeth I've made the blog this week....

I've not managed to do much more doodling to go with the story of the book, but I've done fairies - fairies are always good in a book about a tree that grows ginger-nut biscuits and tells stories, don't you think...

I have to confess though, fairies are always my favourite characters.... the tooth fairy, the christmas fairy, the creme egg fairy (what do you mean you didn't have one of those)....

So, which one should be my creme egg fairy.... :)