So pretty but a nightmare to get to!
Strelley Hall is a beautiful location to work from at the best of times but it looks absolutley amazing in the snow! Getting there in the snow though is a whole different story!!
A room with a view...
Well the cold weather has set in for sure! We’ve noticed the sun is very reluctant to get out of bed in the morning (just like one of our designers...!) and its very quick to set. We managed to capture this shot out of our studio window before the sun hit the deck for the night. Its quite pretty where we work! Click here to see more of our studio in Strelley Hall.
It's a load of namby pamby tut
I’m a massive fan of Lord Alan Sugar, his one liners are legendary:
“If you survive, I promise you this, as sure as I’ve got a hole in my bloody a**e…”.
I’m currently following Lord Al on Twitter and his tweets are just as straight down the line as his conversation. One of his recent tweets was: “I agree as my book explains most ad agencies are looking for awards at Cannes and forget what they’re actually advertising” . This isn’t the first time he’s shown his dislike either, whenever the ‘branding’ task on the Apprentice comes around you hear about it: “I’ve written books on advertising. Cheque books.” and “I hope that one day you run a business that has got a turnover the size of the amount of money I’ve pi**ed up the wall over the years on advertising”.
Now Lord Sugar wants straight talking advertising to go with his straight talking attitude, but even so, I reckon he’s actually right on some of his points – some agencies can be obsessed with wining awards!
One of our designers told us a story about going to a job interview. He was waiting in the meeting room when the MD walked in, slammed an award down on the table in front of him and sat down without saying anything but with a rather smug look on his face. Hmmm, so what! Needless to say the designer came to work with us rather than them.
Saying that, we aren’t against entering awards but we certainly don’t design something with this in mind. And in terms of ‘forgetting what we’re actually advertising’ we don’t do that either. At Threerooms, we’ve got a really good combination of skills. Myself and Ian (co-founders) were both originally designers and, in the past, are both guilty of designing for designs sake, and cursing under our breath whenever the client wanted to ‘make the logo bigger’, as it was going to ruin our kick-ass design.
Since then though we’ve developed the business and now see things from the other perspective – what the client is trying to achieve, and not just how it looks. As a growing business with talented designers who care about the design and account/marketing people who care about the message, we’ve got the perfect combination.
We don’t want to ever stop pushing the creativity though if it’s right for the client. The majority of clients will always prefer to play it safe, that’s why when a client comes along and lets us be creative we love it! And then after the project is finished, the client is happy, the objective of the campaign has been successful, then that’s when we consider entering it for an award. Never the other way around.
Makes you feel all happy inside
I'm sure the majority of people who see the new T-Mobile advert flash mob advert can't help but smile.
Fun in the Snow
Okay, so most of the time we're too busy working hard for our clients but some of the Threerooms team managed to get out in the snow to build 'Three Snowmen' in the grounds of Strelley Hall. Here's a pic...
Everyone's heard of Robin!
I’ve recently come back from Las Vegas. I went with a friend from Sheffield and when asked where in the UK we were from, not one American had heard of Sheffield but EVERYBODY had heard of Nottingham. Why? ...because of you-know-who, Mr Robin Hood.
Some Americans were amazed it was actually a real place and were even more amazed that there actually was a Sherwood Forest and a Sheriff of Nottingham.
In fact, wherever I’ve been in the world, I have never had a problem explaining where I’m from because everyone has heard of Nottingham, due to Robin Hood. Apart from the obvious, London, I can’t think of anywhere else in the UK that has this sort of legendary recognition, perhaps Stratford from Shakespeare fame? (Let me know if you have any suggestions.)
So when tourists visit Nottingham, after seeing the legend in films, such as Robin Hood Prince of Thieves and the latest film starring Russell Crowe, what do they think?
I know the City Council are looking into the possibility of building some kind of Robin Hood experience, as per their recent trip to the US to explore the idea.
Investing in Robin Hood and the city will help increase International tourism, and therefore increase the flow of money into the city. Could we ask individual businesses to invest as a collective interest through sponsorship etc?
We should definitely make more of The Castle. Warwick Castle have created a really successful tourist attraction. They have a better castle perhaps, but they also have daily re-enactments, falconry displays, archery displays, a Trebuchet, to name only a few. Of course we have the Robin Hood Pageant though.
At Threerooms we love Notts, are really proud to be based here, and would do anything to promote it… so what other ideas could we come up with to promote our fantastic city?
Amazing what see by the side of the road
These Google Street View images are endless so only take a look if you have some spare time on your hands.
Obviously when Google started collecting images of streets around the world it was going to snap some strange goings on. Even our own designer, Lee, was snapped taking a cake out of the boot of his car at his mother-in-laws (not that that was strange at all!) But here is a collection of some of the interesting things google street view has seen - there's quite a few of them!
Colour is king?
Have ever really thought about colour? No, really thought? Well, colour plays a huge role in brand design. You may flick through the pages of a magazine or perhaps walk down your local high street and be seemingly oblivious to the colours of brands around you.
Okay, so you’re in the city centre, it’s raining an you’re in a rush so you haven’t got time to think, but subconsciously your mind is seeing colour and making decisions on what and where you might buy all of the time.
The choice of colour is very pivotal in the buying decisions of consumers and so should be considered very carefully when creating a brand identity.
The case for bad design
On a journey to work I was studying a company’s van. I forget now but it was something to do with solar installations. The layout of the information on it was brash, unclear and obviously created with only an average understanding of effective layout; there was too much information on there and the logo ran over an image, distorting it slightly.
Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t the worst I’d seen, they had a decent logo at least, and, while you might not call it a design crime, it was certainly a misdemeanor.
Well, I started thinking: “Based on what I saw, what did I think of that company?” Putting myself in the shoes of potential customer, and assuming I was interested in their service, I probably would have given them a them a call for a quote; while they didn’t look the most professional and premium, they did look reputable and probably competitive on price - of course this is just my opinion. Am I the type of person they want to call them? Well, that I might never know.
All this from 45 seconds sat at traffic lights? Well, yes! Maybe other people might not break it down in this way but the same psychological processes will be happening, the same quick decisions being made.
Every aspect of a company’s brand communicates to the outside world on a continual basis. Every aspect must be considered and designed for the right market, positioning the company in the right price range, projecting the right values. All this has a huge impact for the company, and this goes for small businesses, SME’s, right through to the blue chips too.
And finally, to link back to the title of the post. If you apply this same kind of thinking but with ultra-budget, low-cost services, does bad design work? What I mean is: does someone look at a rusty transit van with a dodgy home-made logo on the side (written in Comic Sans or Copper Plate, no doubt) and think: “Hmmm, I’m looking for cheap and they just might have it on offer”. Maybe they’ve got their branding spot on after all.
It was certainly worth a spare thought on a drive to work. What else was I going to do?
The Definition of Branding
Okay, so the dictionary says that a brand is: “A type of product manufactured by a company under a particular name. A brand name.”
That’s all fine and dandy, but one thing that seems to be clear is that people simply don’t have a single, unified understanding of what branding and brand identity really is. You could argue that it is because there is no single, all-encompassing definition. Business owners, marketing managers, PR departments, staff all see branding in many different ways. To some it is the design of a logo, to others it is their packaging design, to another the perception of their business from their customers perspective; the truth is, it is all of these things and more.
If you research branding, looking at the widely accepted definitions, what has come before and the evolution of branding, you get a good idea of how branding works and what branding can do for an organisation. By doing research in the market you can discover what people like, what they respond to and how you can improve an existing brand. What is harder tell for certain is the businesses own perception of branding; what do they like and what do they want? If you don’t know this then the whole banding process could be pointless and even the most effective solution can be shot down in flames.
It seems quite clear that not only understanding the discipline of branding but equally understanding the expectations of your client leads to acceptance and confidence in an idea. Without both the client and the branding company working hand-in-hand then even the best idea will never fly.
