Jim Northover

De La Warr celebration

Yesterday the foyers, stairways and public areas at the De La Warr Pavilion were thronged with people, gathered to celebrate - to the day - 80 years of this democratic space. Original posters of the opening ceremony stand alongside the new identity. In Director and CEO Stewart Drew's words "It feels like the brand is really starting to kick in and I’m so pleased with it." Thanks, Stewart. It's been fun working with Playne Design and the DLWP team.

For more background, see our interview with Grafik magazine: http://www.grafik.net/category/feature/well-rounded

A symbol of our time

Once again now that British bombs are raining down on the people of the Middle East, the symbols and slogans of peace reappear on our screens and in the media. Of all the symbols of my generation nothing has had the stand out and endurance of Gerald Holtom's CND device, designed over 50 years ago and based on the semaphore code for N and D. Its adoption across the globe as a universal sign of peace and opposition to military action, whether nuclear or not, proves how simple imagery can resonate way beyond its original purpose. There must be few on Earth now who do not recognise it, perhaps having comparable familiarity to the cross or the crescent. This a symbol many would love to see disappear one day, its work done.

Est.1935. Modern ever since.

For the last couple of months I've been working on a brand project for the UK's best known Modernist public building - the De La Warr Pavilion on the South Coast. This year the Pavilion, now with an international reputation on the arts scene, celebrates its 80th anniversary. Director Stewart Drew and his team decided to commission a brand review 'to help the De La Warr re-connect with its roots and look to the next 80 years'.

Playne Design , based in Hastings and London, took on the commission and Clare Playne asked me to get involved. Working alongside Clare and the DLWP team has been a great experience - delving into the past, reviewing the many aspects of the building and its heritage, searching for clues that might form the basis for a brand for the future. There is something about a building such as the De La Warr and its origins that requires an identity which allows the architecture to speak, not override it. The persistent lightness of its being and re-echoing of its circular forms suggested to us a way forward.

In the new design a roundel motif is the focus and lower case type is replaced with capitals. New typography and a colour palette based on the original colours in the building complete the key visual elements of the identity.

To draw attention to DLWP's longevity and its commitment to modernity we have introduced the line 'Est.1935. Modern ever since.' The Pavilion is essentially a democratic space as well as a Modernist one - it has a highly diverse audience base - and a spirit that is all about openness and doing things a little differently. It's been a joy and privilege to see the Pavilion and its people embrace the new look. Onward to the next 80 years…

Typewords

Remembering Rodney Fitch

The sun shone yesterday in London for Rodney Fitch. At Central Saint Martins there was a celebration of Rodney's life, attended by over a hundred people. For a day it was 'Central Saint Rodney's' as some of those who knew him spoke of this generous and courageous man who had such an influence of the business of design. It was a chance to see some old friends and colleagues. I first met Rodney when I went for a job interview at Conran Design Group where he was creative director at the time. I then worked for Rodney for five years, during which time he took over the business that became Fitch. Those years were a real opportunity to gain experience and as a young designer I was given full responsibility for many projects, becoming an associate of the company at the age of 24. By example, Rodney taught me to make the vital connection between design and the client's commercial success, to surround yourself with the best talent, and to be ambitious. The confidence I gained during those years was enough to help me start my own business. Lloyd Northover was one of many that spun out the Conran/Fitch stable. I kept in touch with Rodney and always found him to be warm, generous and a good friend. He will be remembered, for sure.

Joseph Cornell: Magpie Man

This exhibition review I wrote for Grafik appeared online earlier this month.

Joseph Cornell: Wanderlust has just opened at the Royal Academy. It’s a show no graphic designer should miss.

Cornell occupies an ambiguous position in the art world. I sense that critics and historians find him hard to place. While flirting with recognised movements from symbolism to surrealism to modernism but completely untrained as an artist, Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) made highly eclectic work that bends conventional artistic categories and genres. Designers, on the other hand, may find him to be much more mainstream.

To understand why is to know something of his background and his way of working. Cornell’s life spanned much of the 20th century, but despite an interest in far-off places he barely left his home state of New York. From an early age he cared for his widowed mother and his disabled brother, an experience that perhaps helped confine his work to a personal interiority, although ‘confining’ is hardly the right description of his creative explorations. The work on show in this exhibition demonstrates his own creation of a virtual world long before the age of the internet.

He was an assiduous gatherer, collector and hoarder of ephemera and objects. With careful selection and precise placement he put together collages and cabinets of curiosity, fantasy and narrative. By recycling imagery from ‘foreign’ places - things such as postage stamps, maps, old engravings and photographs - into compositions defined by frames or containers, his work moves through time and space while standing still. His free associative use of found imagery to create a new whole is a technique familiar to many designers, for whom selection and placement are part and parcel of making a design work.

Cornell used text and typography too as part of his work, deploying the components with a highly developed aesthetic sensibility. Sitting in his suburban New York studio at 3708 Utopia Parkway, poring through his files and boxes, Cornell reminds me of today’s designer who now finds herself searching Google for the right visual references and often making connections by coincidence or random surfing. Of course, Cornell’s library and archive was painstakingly acquired over time from the secondhand stores, bookshops and museums he visited in New York. The worlds he constructed are at different times romantic, nostalgic, quaint and sinister. Like a Victorian traveller, naturalist or collector he draws in everything he can find to populate his interior voyage of discovery. Sometimes his vision becomes obsessive and dark, both literally and metaphorically. He dedicated some of his works to ballerinas and Hollywood movie stars, reflecting his virtual passions and his entrancement with all things theatrical. Memories and mysteries loom large in Cornell’s world.

During his lifetime he maintained a dialogue with a number of artists from Marcel Duchamp to Andy Warhol and exhibited alongside contemporaries such as Robert Rauschenberg, all of whom would have recognised Cornell’s unique talent, and it is clear to see the all too obvious debt that artists such as Peter Blake and Damien Hirst owe to Cornell, as well as the ongoing influence he exerts on contemporary installation and performance artforms.

However, for all the subtlety of his juxtapositions and confections there is a lurking sense that Cornell’s work is something of conjuring trick, a sleight of hand that beguiles the viewer, drawing him ever closer into the imagined drama that he has concocted. Alternatively, we can view his contribution as one in which he enjoins us in an exploration of how we observe the world through mediated imagery, making connections as we go in order to understand things better. A bit like graphic design really.

Joseph Cornell: Wanderlust Royal Academy of Arts, London 4 July – 27 September 2015

Shades of grey

Hooded Crow at Jewish Holocaust Memorial, Berlin, 26 June

Ordinary by design

This commentary I wrote was published this week by Design Week under the title 'Is there ever a case for ordinary branding?'

For years we’ve been telling our clients, and ourselves, that branding is all about differentiation – standing out, getting noticed, offering something special, relevant or valuable - or just being different.

So, when a fashion trend comes along lauding a certain ‘ordinariness’ – the polar opposite of what the fashion world traditionally sees as its business – what are we supposed to make of it in branding terms?

There is an attraction in neutrality. When everyone else is shouting or talking, silence is golden. But we’ve learnt to equate proactivity with success - neutrality is just for boring losers. And who wants a boring brand?

Well, maybe there’s more to ordinariness than being boring. Take the NHS, for example. Now there’s a case for normcore. I want my NHS to be ordinary. A service that’s not threatening, but neither is it uncaring. I want it to be there in an everyday kind of way. I’m also quite happy for my utility services to be normcore. Think of having all your home infrastructure services provided in an ordinary way - giving you electricity, gas, telecoms and broadband in a consistent, everyday way. Simple, no hype, just plain ordinary. How wonderful! And just imagine, under a newly elected government, a re-nationalised normcore rail service could be just the ticket.

Of course, normcore doesn’t imply underperformance. Your normcore trainers, jeans and t-shirts still need to fit, wear well and, in their ordinary way, look good. Normcore, as I understand it, implies getting on with your life without worrying too much about self-conscious appearances.

So, what might a normcore brand look and feel like? Clear, straightforward, competent, functional, familiar – characteristics that wouldn’t be bad starters for a design brief.

I know that many will say that normcore is just another fashion, and in the fashion world it probably is, already being discarded as last year’s fad as I write. In the branding world though we don’t see ourselves as being about fashion, but we are certainly about spotting cultural trends that might add new meanings to what we do. Perhaps normcore could lend something new to how we lead our lives and the brands we help create.

The brand lessons universities can learn from supermarkets

Thought piece for Industry Branding website link text

At first glance the state of Britain’s grocery trade has little to do with higher education, but recent warnings from those in the know, and the supermarkets themselves, suggest a vital parallel.

Recently, the credit ratings agency Moody’s predicted tough times ahead for the leading mainstream supermarket brands as outlying competitors make inroads into their traditional customer base. Something is clearly up. Naturally, supermarkets, like other service businesses, have always had to fight competition, but this time it’s different. Traditional brand loyalties have been disrupted. Customers are not following the predicted course. The same is true for prospective university students.

We know that the so-called marketisation of universities has put pressure on universities to compete. In a sense they always have competed for the best students. It is just that nowadays information, and even misinformation, flows much faster. Prospective students no longer rely on advice from teachers and family; they find out what they want to know for themselves. This can make their choice even more bewildering. It’s a bit like looking at a supermarket shelf stuffed with products and suddenly everything begins to look the same, whether you are in Tesco, Sainsbury’s or Asda. What the brand stands for becomes as important as what’s on offer.

The big supermarkets have been battling it out among themselves for a share of the market, paying scant attention to the outsiders who have been doing things a bit differently. The so-called discounters, such as Aldi and Lidl, have been playing a clever game. Their story is no longer just one of price, but also of difference and convenience, realising that recession has changed people’s behaviour. Buying locally, buying less but more frequently has resulted in some customers spurning the big supermarket outlets. To challenge stale brand perceptions Lidl, for example, are now promoting themselves seriously as a fine wine supplier. This trend away from the norm has also favoured the more established top-end players such as Waitrose and Marks & Spencer.

So, what are the lessons for universities?

Firstly, competition comes from where you least expect it. Private universities, and those offering focused degrees faster and at less cost will attract some students who do not consider the university experience per se a priority. A good qualification in a subject directly related to their envisaged career is likely to count for more, especially if it can be delivered quickly and at lower cost. Overseas universities can attract the more adventurous and offer an experience that no British university can match in quite the same way. Winning university brands will be the ones that anticipate the future needs of students, rather than trade on past successes.

Secondly, students are behaving more like customers. Much as academics may bemoan the fact, the truth is that a university education is becoming more of a transaction. This should not be a threat to academic excellence or inspirational teaching, but once money enters the equation, as it does now, no one can be blamed for seeking value, as they perceive it. The challenge is to define the value of the institution’s brand and make sure it is delivered.

Thirdly, convenience and living costs will often trump other factors. It’s not just fees that worry students. Living costs are clearly becoming a major factor in deciding where to study. Student accommodation is already prohibitively expensive in some cities, so more students are likely to study close to home - buying locally, if you like. This indicates a re-focusing of marketing effort for universities best placed to make a compelling ‘local’ offer.

Fourthly, big may not mean better. While this has never been a generally accepted assumption, it is now much more likely that small and different can be beautiful. Universities that carry big costs and heavy bureaucracies are less likely to move fast to take advantage of changing circumstances, as some new providers have done. Brand strategies need to be light on their feet, engaging not constraining.

Finally, offering clear difference gets you noticed, being a ‘me too’ doesn’t. Like the big supermarkets, some universities are not thinking differently. So many still offer a wide selection of courses, but now it is time to concentrate on where the brand strengths and real quality lie. Being famous for something is always better than being perceived as just another commodity provider. The challenge for universities is to make some radical decisions about what their brands stand for and how they are communicated.

The battle lines now being redrawn amongst supermarkets can help higher education institutions to see their own vulnerabilities and opportunities more clearly. Increasingly, students will ‘shop around’ for the kind of educational experience and outcomes that suit them best. The online option is already with us, and while universities will never award ‘click and collect’ degrees, there is still something useful to be gleaned from the current crisis in the grocery trade.

Out of office

In the hills above Malibu for Christmas. Looking across to Santa Catalina island.

This is out of office Malibu style.

This is social media (non digital) Venice CA style: the nails and staples on a telegraph pole are used to attach notices in the neighbourhood.