In this digital age of computer-generated graphics and typography, it's refreshing to discover designers and typographers who still believe in the advantages of working by hand to produce unique and innovative work. No longer relegated to designer's sketchbooks, illustration has emerged as a dynamic vehicle for visual communication and is being employed in a variety of industries including music, fashion, packaging and entertainment.
If you want to take a look at a pop act who is also an expert in marketing, then you don't need to look much further than Lady Gaga.
In the history of music, there have been some great self-marketing acts - Madonna, Michael Jackson, Sex Pistols, Beatles, Eminem - groups and artists that have their very marketing built into who they are, and their image and route to market is as important as their music.
This article was originally written by Dallas Lawrence, the Chair of the Social and Digital Media Practice at Levick Strategic Communications and appeared on Mashable. We have changed a few parts but most of Dallas's original text remains here, with our additional comments towards the end.
We’re all often guilty of over complicating things. Advertisers especially.
Over 4 million views on YouTube as I write this blog post, so we're already well on the way to having proof that the Old Spice advert 'The Man Your Man Could Smell Like' is the best advert ever, but there are a number of key reasons, other than YouTube views as to why this is the case.
This could equally apply to Facebook as well as Twitter, and its actually from Facebook that I picked up this example.
There is a difference, and the later seems to often be mistaken for the former. In all spheres of design, simplicity implies a level of functionality; that a problem has been responded to with a measured economy of elements. Minimalism often discards functionality for adherence to style.
We've reached an age in branding where the line between product and brand has blurred to become one. So much so that we, as consumers, have subconsciously formed a new discourse of symbolism.
I want you to have a look at the following images and identify a brand relative to each.
So it went that Chanel, the Parisian fashion house, had a show around October last year. The models in the show had a flattering little detail drawn onto them in the form of a tattoo which they kept for show as they swaned around Paris after the event.
Garance Dore, fashion illustrator come blogger, found that the tattoos were going to be commercialised in Chanel boutiques – a touch of marketing genius, Garance opined. And it probably is. Something so simple and quite beautiful that resonates with a market.
I saw a status update from a friend of mine today asking ‘how good is cold rock?’ Now he’s a good friend of mine, but he’s from Yorkshire, and as far as I’m aware, the number of great ice cream makers that have come out of that northern county of England is fairly small, if not zero. So I can forgive him for his belief that the ice cream being served in Cold Rocks up and down Australia is of a high quality. I suspect he knows no different.
