tmh » design

Are You Trendy?

admin — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 06:32:21 +0000

Have you noticed, there’s a trend for trending blogs at the moment? Even on the TMH Blog. It’s true, they can be a very useful resource to see what’s going on in the world of design, advertising and creativity in an easily digestible bite size. So, please ‘creative team’ do continue to share.

But being one of life’s natural iconoclasts, when I view a trending blog I always get a slight nauseous feeling I am being told what I should be ‘liking’ and what my work should be looking like. If you’re not careful (or maybe just lazy) the doors of creativity can start to swing closed and you’ll find yourself trapped in a dull room marked with a sign saying ‘me too’.

For instance:

Can you imagine Mark Denton (the truly original, eccentric and very funny president of D&AD) delivering a D&AD president’s speech on how following trends helped his career? I think not.

Watch this inspirational link on how to use creative self-promotion to build a career and business

http://www.dandad.org/en/mark-denton-presidents-lecture/

Can you imagine the late Paul Arden (mastermind of ‘Castlemaine XXXX’ and ‘Silk Cut slash’ campaigns and author of books like ‘Whatever You Think, Think The Opposite’ and ‘It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be’) staring at the creative brief and thinking to himself ‘ Hmm – I wonder what’s trending at the moment’? Actually maybe he did just that – but only to find a way to do the direct opposite in a witty and memorable way.

Can you imagine the very much still alive George Lois (the genius behind mold breaking Esquire covers and VW ads and author of Damn Good Advice for people with talent) being so gauche as to follow a ‘trend’? Here is what George has to say about trends in his book:

“I’m usually asked by reporters “What do you think the trends in advertising will be in the coming year” My answer is always identical to what I said the previous year: “Beat the s*** out of me. I’ll know it when I do It.”

Aspire to start trends not follow them.

Graphic Design Trends for 2016

admin — Tue, 09 Feb 2016 12:41:51 +0000

By now, most of you reading this are well into your 2016 briefs, creative, revisions, production and perhaps even, campaign evaluations. But let’s take a step back and look at how the graphic design trend has evolved from 2015 and what’s in store for us this year.

If 2015 taught us anything, it’s that we are leaving over-designed graphics and moving to clean shapes, muted colours and unique typography. Here is a quick snapshot on what I believe is how 2016 will unfold… graphically.

Colour
A few days ago Pantone announced its 2016 colour of the year. which are actually 2 colours – 13-1520-TCX (Rose Quartz) and 14-3919-TCX (Serenity). It’s clear that 2016 will be calming, but colourful with muted tones of otherwise bright and bold palettes.

Flat/Semi Flat graphics
Thanks to Apple’s flat iOS icons reveal in 2014, the trend continues to favour clean and flat designs. However, in 2016, it will start moving into a semi flat design, giving it a 3D feel, which solves all the problems a flat design created.

Typography
While I’m not going to argue about the relevance of Helvetica, it certainly took backstage last year in favor of handwritten typefaces and will continue to do so.

Illustration and graphics
Like hand-lettered typefaces, illustration style is moving to hand drawn illustrations, which will ultimately leave a very lively experience for the users.

Bold Patterns
A re-imagination of the 1950s style lends itself to bold prints with retro style. The use of shapes keeps this trend simple and clean.

Web Design
In 2016 grids and interactive graphics are the way to go. It’s the perfect solutions to great responsive design that adapts to various screen sizes.

The use of interactive graphics is a great way to introduce your product or service to new customers, or learn more about existing customers as they navigate their way through an experience. Instead of animated graphics, people will use cinemagraphs (animated images) because it will give the feel of a photograph and a video altogether.

Gabor Baboth
Senior Designer

The Creative Toolkit

admin — Tue, 29 Dec 2015 11:12:17 +0000

Here’s my attempt to answer the age old question, ‘Where do all the ideas come from?’

For many of us, finding creativity isn’t about waiting for random moments inspiration or moody flashes of genius. Rather, it’s about having a well prepared ‘creative tool kit’ at one’s disposal.

To use the tool kit effectively, a very brief explanation of the three fundamental levels of the human mind maybe helpful:

1. The conscious – The bridge of the ship. Communicates your inner thoughts direct with the outside world. It directs your focus and enables you to visualise new concepts in your mind’s eye using your imagination
2. The sub-conscious – The engine room. Mainly concerned with the short-term memory (similar to RAM on a computer) and keeping you aware of your surroundings
3. The unconscious – The storeroom. Where the core essence of our personality and creative ‘inner child’ resides (So no, it doesn’t mean you’ve been knocked out!)

The toolkit outlined below will help to connect the conscious mind directly to the other deeper part your mind (you ‘normally’ don’t have access to) the unconscious mind and your very important ‘inner child.’ Connecting the conscious to unconscious mind is when the creative sparks start to fly (usually:-)

I should say, the concept of the ‘inner child’ is a complex subject best left to expert psychologists to explain rather an ‘art boy’ like me. But for our purpose the ‘inner child’ is part of unconscious mind that:

• Creates freely without fear of judgment
• Speaks the truth
• Has fun!

The Toolkit

1. Be armed with good information.
Gain a detailed understanding the brief in hand. If the brief is thin, ask lots of questions until you get the insight required. On a big scale be well informed about the world around you. Over the years, the best creative people I’ve worked with have minds like a cross between a mini Wikipedia and an old curiosity shop, full of interesting facts, information and stories they can draw on for inspiration. Collect ideas, facts and information like some people collect stamps, and don’t be shy about using them.

2. Have fun.
“The most creative people have this childlike facility to play”.
John Cleese

This is especially true in brainstorming sessions. Be playful. Be irreverent. Be a bit ‘punk rock’. At a glance, the brainstorm can look like everyone is just messing about, not taking the work ‘seriously’. Occasionally, this can be difficult for some stakeholders (even including junior creatives) to understand what’s going on here. But laughter is an important way to break down the barriers between the conscious and unconscious mind. Give your inner child the brief with a smile.

3. Understand the balance between insight and inspiration.
A well-written RFP or thought-out strategic information is crucial to building a solid foundation for most creative executions. However, a blizzard of (sometimes conflicting) information can fog your creativity. Don’t forget to draw on your own experience and talent to make an informed creative judgment.

4. Find inspiration.
Sitting at your desk waiting for a bolt from the blue is usually a waste of time. Actively fill your head with salient information from the brief and start scamping, doodling, writing and researching. Keep active and make it happen.

5. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel.
“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different”.
T.S. Eliot

Often being creative isn’t actually about ‘reinventing the wheel’ but recognising, from the world around you, when you see a good thing – then making it belong to your creative concept.

To help illustrate the point, here’s some ‘highfalutin’ examples from the world of art and music: JS Bach was influenced by many simple traditional German folk tunes weaving them into his most beautiful preludes and fugues. A young Pablo Picasso was inspired to paint the seminal proto-cubist work ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’ only after going to an exhibition of African tribal art in Paris. So, no – cubism wasn’t invented out of thin air. Lastly, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones used that old ‘hum drum’ chestnut the 12 bar blues chord progress to write many of their most memorable songs.

In the context of advertising David Ogilvy simply “stole” his famous line “At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in this new Rolls Royce comes from the electric clock” straight out of an existing Rolls Royce brochure! That simple! That brilliant!

In short, sometimes, the best solutions are in plain sight. The trick is to recognise it. See diamonds where lesser people see mud – and use them.

6. Get your inner child to come out to play
Your head is full of good information, you’ve had fun in the brainstorm and your notebook is full of scamps but nothing is happening!
• Clear your head and go for a walk/have a coffee break/change your current environment
• Sleep on it. That dreamy time when you first wake up, creatively speaking, is a special time. You may experience something like direct access to your ‘inner child’ seeing the solution in a moment of unfettered clarity
• If you can, think about or do something else for bit. Ideally something fun and relaxing

7. Creative space and boundaries
This can be very challenging in a busy working environment but try to minimise the amount of people trying to trespass on your thinking time. For example;
• If the building is on fire, this needs your immediate attention
• If HR wants a sit down meeting about health and safety, it can wait

Unnecessary interruptions are very costly in terms of time taken to get back to where you were mentally before your were disturbed.

Find spaces to do uninterrupted thinking. An unused meeting room, the drive into work,
In the bath (it was good enough for Archimedes).

8. Delay your decision making as long as possible.
Again this can be tricky in a busy work environment but keep exploring creative options for as long as possible and don’t settle on visualising a creative presentation any sooner than you really have too.

9. Lastly, believe in your own work
If you are not psyched about your work, nobody else will be either. Did your idea give you ‘goose bumps’ when you first thought of it? If it did, the chances are it will have the same effect on other people too.

It’s fair to say, many people with a creative disposition use these tools without thinking about it too much. But others may need a little help and to practice a bit.

Either way. Be bold and have fun with it!

James Wood
Creative Director

Further reading
http://blog.bradleygauthier.com/david-ogilvy-headline-copywriting/
http://www.fastcocreate.com/1680999/4-lessons-in-creativity-from-john-cleese
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-stabile/inner-child_b_5504768.html
http://themindunleashed.org/2014/03/conscious-subconscious-unconscious-mind-work.html