British Airways Failure

British Airways as a brand seems to have had one major drama after another as it has stepped into the millenium. In 1997, BA suffered severly by introducing 'ethnic liveries' displaying worldly images on aircraft tailfins. Promoting it's global links and routes seemed a great idea at the time, however they literally lowered the Union Jack and came across as unpatriotic - especially when announcing cost-saving redundancies shortly afterwards.

Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher showed her displeasure at the designs by covering one of the new tailfins on a model 747 with a handkerchief at a launch event. This was a major blow for BA popularity which Virgin Atlantic took advantage of. On the back of this BA controversy, Branson applied the flag to the front end and later the wings of its aircraft, leading up to their relaunch in 1999.

BA brought back the Union Jack tailfin (BBC News Article) along with a rebrand including a modern swoosh logo, tweaked typeface and a new color palette including silver, rebranded by FutureBrand. who were made responsible for setting the new standards of excellence. Having returned the airline to it's 'Britishness' in 2001, negative PR haunted BA including further cabin crew strikes along with the recent merger with Iberia in 2010. One failure after another, until now ...

(find out in the next blog)

The Mighty Post-it

The Post-it is such a recognised brand and I personally love to use the loveable coloured sticky notes at every opportunity I get and so do the French, where a recent Post-it war has kicked off in Paris. French office workers have been using and abusing the contents of their stationery cupboards to battle with offices across the streets to see who can create the best window designs.

I was pointed in the direction of this interesting stop motion animation using hundreds of sticky notes. The film, which is a pure delight to watch is entitled 'Deadline' and was filmed by an individual called Bang-Yao Liu. It took him and a small crew of 9 exactly 163 hours and 23 min to place all the post-it's used and holds almost 7 hours worth of editing.

Stink'n is not yet a house hold name for producing colourful little slips of sticky paper but is attempting to make their big impression stick. They use the same concept to produce a short film in their online and social media campaign to promote their product.

Proving that post-it's are a huge success and a great source of inspiration I used the the mighty sticky square in a small promotion project. This lead me to create a series of images used for print and social media. An eye catching and identifiable image I am sure you'll agree.

No Need to Sugar Coat

There is no need to sugar coat anything, especially design. Long, clever sounding words that is just not needed. This happened to me in my first job after graduating - a snooty PR individual attempted to loose contact with our audience by taking up un-needed, extravagant amplifications in our communications!

Not quite sure how to describe the comical design and appearance of projects and brand such as these but I love it. Ben & Jerrys, Innocent Smoothies and the famous Welsh brand (formely known as Mr Creemy) Subzero Ice cream all choose a specific approach to attract and engage with their audience. Innocent Smoothies is a prime example that doesn't offer a product range but a 'family' of smoothies, juice drinks and other creative approaches to squeezing in your 5-a-day. Their new 'Superhero Smoothie' TV ad follows a DIY approach to creative TV adverts with a simple smoothie bottle on a stick. Very Blue Peter but still quite successful.

Ben & Jerrys have a strong presence in the UK and provide as much fun, games, flavour and goodness as it possibly through colourful TV adverts which drive traffic to their website, successfully making you want to go out and get your head into a tub of chunky monkey.
Mr Creemy has been around for years but due to a dispute over its trademark, it opted for a rebrand and what turned out to be a whole new direction.

Subzero was the result to compete as a contender against big names on the supermarket isle. The 'ultra cool', contemporary and sophisticated new look with quirky website was obviously all aimed at attracting a younger, more affluent audience and I hope it has.

My conclusion for this approach to design and advertising ... very art-and-craft-esque! Enough of this pretentious hogwash and baloney - keep it simple!

Photo of a bin.

From this: To this:

These are a few of our favorite things ...

I created this advert as a concept for a campaign to encourage the use of sending air mail packages through the Post Office and Royal Mail. In todays society, it would remind people how pleasant receiving a package from friends and relatives really is, instead of text or email. Designed to show that the handlers care a great deal about what they do, this could easily be adapted and work well in magazines, newspapers, street billboards as well as online

Return from North Africa

I'm officially back from my mini adventure where I managed to take over 1,500 photos of life in North Africa. I visited the usual touristy destinations such as film locations of Monty Python's Life of Brian, Star Wars and Jesus of Nazareth along with the 3d largest Roman amphitheatre and the Sahara Desert. Other visits included Tunisia's cosmopolitan capital Carthage and Sidi Bou Said, the blue and white picture postcard village. I did venture off the track to many back streets of deprived small towns and villages along with getting quite close to the Libyan border at one stage! I managed to wander through the streets as an outsider with cameras in hand with my very basic spoken French and few Arabic phrases to get by. It was quite an adventure. With 'Survival' - the title of my final major project for my Art+Design course in mind, I hope you find these images captivating.

"Never stop taking photos"

... That will be my famous quote if I ever make it in the Art, Design & Advertising world! Here is a selection from almost 300 images taken from my photographic study of Oxford. Notice I have not adopted any particular style and like to experiment and capture everything.

I'm heading off to North Africa this evening which will be an another excellent opportunity to snap photos on another continent. Will be sure to post my findings.