Jaqoda

Anamorphic Type

2011-07-11T21:51:00.003+01:00

Results of a recent collaboration with me and fellow studio inmate Pete O'Toole -

The new studio bar...

2011-05-18T19:31:00.007+01:00

Pete O'Toole - Interview

2011-04-14T16:34:00.002+01:00

Here's an interview I filmed with Huddersfield-based illustrator Pete O'Toole. See more of his work at http://www.peter-otoole.co.uk/.

Cream Ibiza sneak peek

2011-03-21T12:03:00.011Z

Studio photos

2011-02-24T13:37:00.008Z

New studio

2011-02-21T15:22:00.000Z

I finally moved in to the new studio today, despite Apple's best intentions.

On the day of the move (last Monday), the iMac's hard drive decided that it wasn't getting out of bed any more and that was that. Thankfully I managed to salvage most of the important stuff with DiskWarrior.

Anyway, I'm in now, so keep 'em peeled for some pictures of the new space coming this week. If anyone wants to come in to see the space first hand, just give me a call and come up! It looks much nicer in person.

I'm back

2011-02-09T00:23:00.000Z

Hi everyone!

I've not posted for a while, so just to let you know I'm still here, moving in to new studios next Monday (photos will be provided) and doing bigger and better things all this year.

Thanks for your support.

Design process

2010-01-31T12:21:00.000Z

If you read my previous blog post about price wars, you'll know that one aspect of differentiation I suggested (based on the 'split the market' technique that the vodka market employed) was creating a new design process.

If you're a designer reading this, there's a very good chance that the entirety of your production is done using the Adobe Suite. Maybe Freehand if you're old school. To differentiate in this process, you need to start looking further afield. A classic example is Vault49, who almost always bring hand drawn sketches in to the mix. This differentiates them from the creative masses because they have a clear, identifiable and unique process.

Why do most people stick to software based design? Its easier for the creative directors and studio heads to amend digital artwork, to tinker with it (as they invariably do). Designers know that this will happen and so take steps to make their artwork easy to change. Therefore the studio heads have to enable this process. Give more power to the designers. Base their relationship with the designers on trust.

This is just one positive change that you could implement to differentiate. More ideas to come. Keep 'em peeled.

Price wars

2010-01-24T10:57:00.000Z

The design industry is in a price war. Take a handful of large agencies out of the mix and the rest of the design industry comprises of 3-20 man studios and a few one man bands. Lots of one man bands now that the big boys have cut their staff by 20%. Thousands of one man bands now that graduates can't find a job and are setting up shop solo.

Due to the availability of pirated software and decreasing print costs, students and one man bands can produce a professional front relatively easily, so market differentiation is difficult. So most people resort to the staple of the capitalist market - price. Rates come down, competitors follow suite.

Supply is massive, demand is low.

So how else can you differentiate?

Look at a few other industries - the design industry isn't the first to have a price war. The vodka market went through this. So did the airline industry.

Vodka split the market. Premium vodka and basic vodka. The distinction between cheap and premium vodka is largely in the marketing and the process used to make the vodka. Some filter through diamonds, others through charcoal.

Design could split the market. The problem is that the cheap brands market themselves as professional and disguise their process. They don't say that for £200 you're only getting recycled logos.

So maybe premium brands could create a new process, one that's difficult to copy. Market it well. Split the market.

Another option is to become the cheapest. Pile the templates high, sell them cheap. Plenty of companies are already doing this. In fact I know of a local company that is running purely at cost for the first three years in order to build up a client base. They plan to sell the company as a design franchise, with low overheads employing students working off templates. Like a factory. But cheap.

You could always maintain the same prices, hope your clients don't start looking around.

Or you could innovate. Off something no-one else can. And no, service doesn't count. Everyone offers a high level of customer service (or at least they say they do). Create something new, embrace new technologies, use techniques that everyone stopped using. Experiment, buy an old letterpress machine for your studio, ring your paper manufacturer up and see whats new. Stop printing on 9 lives silk stock. When was the last time you used a special ink? Can you offer AR business cards? How about new markets? Check out the big boys, they're doing deals in the middle east, India and Africa. South America is going to be a massive market soon. Thailand is an opportunity - name a big Thai design company or a big Thai brand.

Do something new and stop whining that no-one will pay what they used to. Why should they?

Fresh Kids / Album launch event

2010-01-22T11:05:00.001Z

On Friday 29th of January at 9pm we will be at Verve celebrating the launch of the new album that I designed the cover art for. Feel free to come along and check out the event details here.

AR and the logo

2010-01-11T22:45:00.000Z

Finally, we've come full circle.

Remember what constitutes a great print logo?

Simplicity, scalability, identification.

This used to apply to the limitations of a printing press coupled with the need for immediate recognition.

Now this apples to the limitations of augmented reality coupled with the need for immediate recognition.

Sure, AR will start to recognise drop shadows in ten years, but by then something else will be the next big thing. And it will start simple.

Creative Review

2010-01-08T00:12:00.005Z

Just a quick thankyou to Creative Review for featuring me on the CR homepage. My work is now available to view on the CR feed - http://www.creativereview.co.uk/feed/january-2010/05/monopoly-super-fun-remix

Attend or observe?

2009-12-26T12:26:00.000Z

There are many arguments for owning a television.

If you own one, you'll be able to observe the 2010 World Cup from 90 different camera angles. You'll be able to pause the live action while you go to the toilet and make some nachos. You'll have the best seat in the stadium, with Jonathan Pearce giving you the lowdown and Alan Hanson giving you valuable pub quiz ammunition. All at the flick of a button, in the warmth of your own home with some cold beers.

Alternatively, you could attend. You could travel to South Africa to watch the World Cup. It'll cost a fortune, you'll have to queue up to get in and your seat will be so far from the pitch that you'd be better off watching the match on Google Earth. The guy in front will be wearing a stripy afro and a Les Battersby lookalike will be sat next to you making you deaf in one ear.

Attend or observe?

If you're one of those people who isn't really that bothered about the World Cup, you'll probably observe. Even if you like the World Cup, you'll still probably observe. That's OK, millions of people around the world do the same.

However, the true die-hard fans will attend. They'll make sacrifices to buy the tickets, work overtime to afford the plane fare. They'll do everything they can to pay more for what is (on paper) an inferior product when compared to what the TV can offer.

Why? Because TV can't give you the atmosphere, the feeling of being part of a tribe that is unified in support of one thing. It can't communicate the most basic primal instincts that form the collective consciousness of a football crowd.

These die hard supporters, the people who will attend, are the most important people in your audience. They only make up a fraction of the people who see what you do, but they'll extol the virtues of what you do beyond reason (or price).

These are the people who have the power to tell you what your brand is, because however they feel, they're right.

Money well spent

2009-12-08T19:45:00.000Z

The town square in Huddersfield town centre has recently been revamped - it has been completely repaved with york stone and has been extended, with the addition of fountains and lights.

It cost four million pounds.

My girlfriend said "what a waste of money, think of what they could have spent that on instead."

Four million could have been spent on providing a new library, funding new businesses or promoting youth activities. They could have spent it on a new sports centre, they could have spent it on drug rehabilitation or they could have renovated the indoor market.

But they spent it on colourful fountains.

Now every time I get off the train and walk out on to a plaza filled with colourful fountains it makes me feel a bit happier. You can't measure that in polls, surveys or demographics, but that single act makes me view my council in a more positive light than any of their other policies.

The same could be said of investing money in your brand. You may not be able to measure the benefits in numbers, you may not be able to show a sales chart that suddenly takes on a 45 degree angle. Some people will criticize and say "what a waste of money, think of what they could have spent that on instead."

But people who interact with your brand will get that same feeling that I feel when I see the colourful fountains. They'll feel happier. Some so much so that they'll write about it on their blogs and tell their friends. They'll even defend you against the naysayers.

And that's money well spent.

What's your customer worth?

2009-12-07T11:06:00.000Z

All too often (especially in retail) managers look at short term figures at the expense of the long term. This is often due to the culture of driving sales and comparing weekly figures.

I went for a meal at Cragrats Brasserie recently. The food is great, as is the service. The surroundings are also pleasant. When it was time to pay the bill, my friend wanted to use a £30 gift voucher that he'd received as a birthday present. We asked to use it and the waitress took it to be processed at the till.

Five minutes later the (very apologetic) assistant manager came to explain that, because the brasserie had recently gone in to administration and set up under new management, the new owner (Jonathan) said he couldn't accept the voucher. However, Jonathan said he would honour 50% of the voucher as a goodwill gesture. My friend asked to speak to Jonathan. Jonathan wasn't at the restaurant, he was somewhere else but was available on the phone.

My friend spoke to Jonathan. Jonathan started explaining how he could claim the other 50% of the voucher from the administrators etc etc.

In the end, we paid and got £15 off a £100 meal.

The moral of the story is this. Jonathan valued us at £15 - he wasn't willing to pay any more to keep us happy. There were four people in the party, so he valued each of us at £3.75 despite the fact that the average amount we spend when we go there is £30 each. We would also have continued to spend that amount and spread the good word to our friends. Now I am spreading the bad word and will never go again. But Jonathan didn't see that far ahead.

The next big thing is already out of date

2009-10-19T21:07:00.002+01:00

Once your Dad signs up to Twitter, you know its past its peak. It may still lurk there, like previous chart topper Myspace (perhaps popping up for a Chistmas number one now and then) but it has lost its cool. Every other tweet is a plug, free marketing tip or update on what your friend's Labradoodle just did. Too much noise, just like the Myspace custom profile epidemic - cue .gif backgrounds and semi-transparent dialog boxes. Eventually people just block it out.

So what's the next big thing?

Various online blogs seem to reveal two popular suggestions, the rise of Qik and the dawn of the Open Internet.

The fact is that both of these are already out of date if you're wanting to capitalise on the marketing opportunities presented by the world of web. Qik will suffer the same fate as Twitter (free plugs, free marketing tips and videos of your friend's Labradoodle) while the Open Internet can only be launched by organisations with enough clout to pull together the plethora of existing multi-million user sites. This will inevitably end with well-publicised launches and a cue of users waiting to exploit the new routes to market.

So what comes after the Open Internet?

Difficult to tell, perhaps one way of making an educated guess is to look at media theory as a whole and apply some way of logically progressing or upgrading the media outlets we have now.

For example, below is a list of some of the uses and gratifications people seek from media (taken from this source)-

Information

# finding out about relevant events and conditions in immediate surroundings, society and the world
# seeking advice on practical matters or opinion and decision choices
# satisfying curiosity and general interest
# learning; self-education
# gaining a sense of security through knowledge

Personal Identity

# finding reinforcement for personal values
# finding models of behaviour
# identifying with valued other (in the media)
# gaining insight into one's self

Integration and Social Interaction

# gaining insight into circumstances of others; social empathy
# identifying with others and gaining a sense of belonging
# finding a basis for conversation and social interaction
# having a substitute for real-life companionship
# helping to carry out social roles
# enabling one to connect with family, friends and society

Entertainment

# escaping, or being diverted, from problems
# relaxing
# getting intrinsic cultural or aesthetic enjoyment
# filling time
# emotional release
# sexual arousal

Take an item from the list above and try to think of how social media and the internet meet the needs of it. Now think of how that could be improved, streamlined, made in to a real time format and you might be on your way.

Example: How do we fulfil the need to "find out about relevant events and conditions in immediate surroundings, society and the world"? We check the news websites, Youtube (for TV events) maybe check relevant twitter feeds and TV. At the moment I still need to go to all these different sites. With the advent of the Open Internet, I will need to go to one site to check all these. But is there a way to streamline and shorten the amount of time it takes to get that information and make sense of it? Perhaps an algorithm that detects when a major event happens, alerts me in some way, opens the relevant news channels and also opens avenues for me to publish my responses? And the biggest challenge, how can I do all that through one interface in an intuitive and simple manner?

Prediction: interface design will become one of the biggest boom industries as technology begins to burst its banks and flow from the screen to the real world.

(B2B+B2C) = £

2009-10-15T20:46:00.001+01:00

Is Google a B2B company? Or a B2C company? What about Facebook, Youtube (OK that's technically Google now) Twitter, Blogspot or Myspace?

All these companies, by using the internet as a free platform, created a new service for consumers, gave it away for free and made their money from other businesses. What are these other businesses buying? Mostly they're buying an opportunity to advertise to an audience. Lets hope the big advertising firms don't go in to meltdown, or the biggest online companies might start feeling the pinch and I'll have to pay 50p per tweet.

What's your UUSP?

2009-10-05T12:25:00.005+01:00

That's not a typo. I was at a recent networking event and asked a director of a small financial company what his USP was.

"We offer a more personal level of service than the big companies."

What else?

"We offer our services at a better cost than our main rivals."

OK, that's great, but what's your USP? Every company out there says they offer a more personal level of service, at a better cost and faster, quicker, stronger, better than anyone else.

Unique
Selling
Point

So what's your unique unique selling point? What do you do that no-one, absolutely no-one does?

Do you have one?

If you don't, I suggest you get creative, either internally or by bringing a fresh mind to the table.

What designers hate about clients

2009-10-05T12:23:00.004+01:00

If you ask a designer what the most frustrating aspect of their job is, you can bet that quite a few will mention something about clients.

Why do designers feel like this? Are they poorly managing their projects, avoiding developing their own management skills? Or do clients have an unrealistic or misguided view of design?

Social media marketing

2009-09-18T12:01:00.006+01:00

Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Digg, Delicious, Blogs, Myspace, Linkedin, Flickr, Bebo, DeviantArt.

Anyone in the creative industries could use all these sites to market themselves online, for free.

Except its not really free. To put enough time in to make it worthwhile (lets say 30 minutes a day) it would take five and a half hours a day to market yourself online on all the above sites. If it costs you ten pounds an hour to cover your costs, thats fifty five pounds a day to become prominent. And you haven't even made any money yet.

Of course, most people will only use a few of these, but being sucked in to these time portals can cost you money that would be better spent elsewhere. Fortunately, there are a few ways to cut down your costs.

First, you can link your sites together. For example, if I have a Google account, any videos I post on my Youtube account will automatically show up on my blog, my Twitter and my Facebook. Second, you can use shortcuts. Twitterbar by Christopher Fink enables me to type anything up to 140 characters in to the address bar of my browser, click a button and post it to Twitter. That saves my time logging in and diverting from what I'm doing. Third and finally, the biggest time saver, get someone else to do your work for you. Be creative, design a wonderful new service or product, get people talking about what you do. No-one cares that your dog just ate organic dog food for breakfast.

Unless, maybe, you run an organic dog food business.

Hierarchy of six

2009-09-17T09:00:00.005+01:00

This week I read Seth Godin's post about the hierarchy of success here and it made me think. For those of you who want to see the list now it goes as follows, with the most important at the top-

Attitude
Approach
Goals
Strategy
Tactics
Execution

This can be expanded to meet all areas of business.

Think about how a potential customer appoints you. Do they do it purely on how nice your brochure looks, or do they do it because they like your personality, how you do things, your opinion and your values?

Joe works at a small independent bakery and wants a promotion. Is he better off coming in an hour early and being proactive by sourcing new markets for the bakery? Or is he better off spending his time on figuring out how to get the icing on the cupcakes just so?

What is the value of design?

2009-09-15T22:27:00.004+01:00

Many clients don't like working with designers. Rightly so.

The design process is often shrouded in secrecy and mystique, clients often don't see where the time goes and then get charged a big bill at the end.

"Three thousand pounds!? But its just a logo!"

"Five hundred pounds for printing it? But I only want a hundred!"

Often these exclamations are made whilst looking at an annual budget, departmental allowance or financial forecast report. While looking at that, yes, £3000 pounds for a logo does seem like a lot. But if the logo lasts you for 10 years, that's £300 per year. Or £25 per month.

How much do you spend on coffee and paper supplies per month?

Final Fantasy VII and the future of branding

2009-09-07T17:00:00.007+01:00

Anyone who was born in the eighties has probably played a Sony Playstation and is therefore likely to have heard of the Final Fantasy series, one of the most popular videogame franchises ever. Although now in its thirteenth incarnation (or XIII for the fans), it is perhaps best known for the seventh installation in the series. Final Fantasy VII is one of the greatest ten video games of all time according to a multitude of industry media and fans polls. Especially in the RPG (role playing game) genre.

So why is it the showing us the future of branding, despite being released in 1997?

There are three reasons why FF VII is so successful. First, it tells a fantastic story. But this is nothing new to the Final Fantasy series or indeed the RPG genre.

The second reason why FF VII is so successful is that it is slick and graphically well presented. Think about it, even War & Peace would be ill received if the typeface was illegible.

Third, it immerses the user in the experience. If you play Final Fantasy VIII, the next title in the series (which also has a great story and characters, with even better graphics), it feels like watching a film. There is little to no user immersion.

Any one of these characteristics is not enough, all three must combine seamlessly to create the successful game.

The same is true of a modern brand.

Next time you're looking at your website/PR/advertising, stop and think.

What's your story?
How is it presented?

And how can the customer get involved?