D&AD Blog

Augmented Reality

2009-12-22T03:10:00+00:00

Simon Sankaraya, aka Sanky, is a founding partner of interactive agency AllofUs and D&AD Deputy President.

Sanky sees brands getting very excited about an emerging technological toy recently. “Augmented Reality (AR) combines real-world images with computer-generated content on screen,’ he says. “It enhances what we see, hear, feel and smell.”

A basic form of it has been in use in broadcast for a while – like when weather reporters stand in front of changing weather maps (lately full of rain clouds).

“As always brands want to take advantage of new developments in technology but it’s a question of using things appropriately,’ says Sanky. “There’s a way to go until AR is being used most effectively.”

Sanky feels that AR at its best results from a magic mix - “a great concept, annoyingly deft execution and a ‘real world’ benefit”. He’s found 3 projects that are each getting an element of this mix right. “I’m looking forward to seeing projects in the future that fuse them all together, then we’d have a benchmark,’ he says.

The best project that Sanky’s seen is in terms of concept is www.weareautobots.com. The site launched this summer to promote the opening of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Fans get to see what they look like with the original 3D CGI head of ‘legendary’ Autobot leader Optimus Prime. “This is a great idea for content,’ says Sanky. “If I was a kid, I’d be giddy.”

The Picture Production Group created the Autobot site for Paramount Pictures international. The PPC’s Dan Light wants to take Augmented Reality forward in future projects. “The key is to enable people to capture and share personalised, augmented video,’ he says. Now that it’s technically possible, Light says his team is looking at how they might use it with upcoming movie projects.

Two more projects represent the other crucial ingredients of Sanky’s magic mix. Toppstown.com, a US site created by Wondergroup, has taken the US childhood tradition of trading sports cards to the virtual world.

“I really like the way this extends something that already exists,’ says Sanky. “It’s also a social thing, which is great for kids.”

For execution, nothing beats the projects by Swiss designer Camille Scherrer. Le Monde des Montagnes, is an interactive project that reveals the secrets hidden inside a book. “It’s a beautifully crafted narrative with the tech hidden away. I’m a little bit jealous’, says Sanky.

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Christmas Advent Window

2009-12-22T03:05:00+00:00

Two D&AD Student of the Year winners are bringing Christmas cheer to east London. Harri Leppälä and Petra Muda won the prize just this summer and we are really happy to report, they are now gainfully employed by Wieden+Kennedy. They're part of the creative team behind W+K’s interactive Advent Calendar this year.

You can check out the real world version at the agency's office on Hanbury Street in London. Each day a new door opens revealing street objects sourced from the local neighbourhood – but the everyday mundane objects inside have been given a Christmas twist.

We caught up with Harri last week to find out how things have been going since they picked up their Pencil in London.

"Everything went really fast after we got home from the Student Awards. We were in contact with a couple of agencies already, but when we got an e-mail from W+K we got really excited, and fortunately we impressed them enough to be here today. We moved to London on a Monday and started working on Tuesday. We were pretty overwhelmed, because this was our first job in advertising and we had just moved to a new city.

It’s been over 3 months since we started. It still feels like it was yesterday but at the same time it feels like we have been here a lot longer. We have mostly been working on Nokia, among other things we are working on some stuff for their latest phone N900 where we involve users of the device. It’s been great so far, everyone is really nice and helpful. And now we are just trying to learn as much as possible."

We love to hear how our 'alumni' are getting on. Let us know if you have an update.

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Behind the Idea: Apple iMac

2009-12-15T03:10:00+00:00

Co-founder of internationally renowned product design consultancy SeymourPowell, Dick Powell was awarded a D&AD President’s Award for his outstanding contribution to design in 1995. Pick your way through an Argos catalogue, and it’s fair to say that his consultancy has created most of the products you’ll find in there. SeymourPowell will soon be taking us to the stars, having designed the interiors of Virgin Galactic’s spacecraft that was unveiled last week.

Powell wants to see one of the new Apple iMacs under his Christmas tree this year, which he describes as just the latest in a long evolutionary line of design excellence. “It started with the ground-breaking translucent multi-coloured computers launched on an unsuspecting world in 1998,’ he says.

“They turned the home computer from a dull grey technical box festooned by wires into a slick desirable consumer product.”

The third generation iMacs were the first ‘all in one’ flat screen computers (with all the gubbins concealed flat behind the screen). The fourth generation iMac picked up D&AD’s most coveted award for creative excellence - the famous Black Pencil. “And now, just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, along comes the fifth generation iMac,’ Powell adds.

Designed by Apple’s Design team, led by Jonathan Ive, Powell says iMac’s look and feel derives inexorably from a fanatical obsession with functional integrity, detail, material and a relentless distillation of complexity. It produces a contemporary style, but it’s a style mapped firmly by the classic aesthetic values of form, proportion, balance and composition.

“There is an intellectual completeness about Apple’s products, evidenced by their singular and uncompromising vision, that goes much deeper than just their look and feel. And it is this which makes them so compelling,’ says Powell.

With its surround-less screen and floating form, iMac is a product, as Jony Ive says “with nothing that doesn’t need to be there”. It is utterly simple. Powell challenges readers to look around the back and try to resist the temptation to run a hand over the rear surface, “It’s stunning,’ he says.

The latest generation of iMacs also comes with another little product likely to sweep up design awards everywhere - Magic Mouse: the world’s first multi-touch mouse, with a touch sensitive surface enabling all of the gestural control now familiar from the iPhone - swiping, scrolling and pinching. It’s the future…and it’s here now.

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Retail therapy

2009-12-15T03:05:00+00:00

Apparently we’re all shopping online these days, so why doesn’t it seem to have affected the crowds and endless queues that are a hallmark of Christmas shopping misery each year? We salute the designers who create spaces that work brilliantly, look beautiful and – dare we say it? – make it worth battling the crowds.

Heatherwick Studio won a D&AD Black Pencil 1998 for their groundbreaking take on Harvey Nichol’s shop windows in Knightsbridge. They created a single façade by using a single 200 metre-long element, twisting across the shop-front. Weaving in and out of the windows, it climbed up the façade by up to ten metres.

Chocolate Research Facility, Asylum, In-Book 2009

A haven for chocolate lovers - an actual chocolate bar. The Chocolate Research Facility in Singapore sports clinical white interiors and a shop window containing rows of LED numbers, akin to the running numbers in a laboratory. But wait, there's more - the shop offers products in 100 different flavours with a distincttive monochromatic box for each bar. Turn the box around and things take a patterned and printed twist.

La Maison Unique, Heatherwick Studio, Nomination 2007

Heatherwick Studio was nominated for its Longchamp flagship design. With a retail space situated above street level, the challenge was to draw people up into the store from the street. The studio's solution uses natural light from a large glazed core cut through the building to draw people up a stair landscape to the floor above.

Freitag Shop Zurich, Markus and Daniel Freitag, Yellow Pencil 2007

In 1993, graphic designers, Markus and Daniel Freitag, were inspired by the the Zurich transit intersection in front of their flat and designed a messenger bag made of old truck tarpaulins, used cycle inner tubes, car seat belts and airbags. In 2006 they decided to sell their bags-made-from-tarps in a shop-made-from-containers. The Freitag Shop Zurich is completely built from rusty, recycled freight containers, which were gutted, reinforced, piled up and secured.

Puma Red World, GBH, In-Book 2008

The aim of this large project was to inject the Puma brand attitude into the shopping experience of its flagship stores - the result a series of 10 trompe l’oeil changing rooms, super lifelike silicon mannequins, a VideoGobo, which projects a virtual puma that roams the store and sleeps in the window at night. There is also a wider library of images and an interactive shoe wall, which displays film clips that are triggered when a show is lifted or put down.

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Neville Brody President's Lecture: Q&A

2009-12-10T17:28:46+00:00

Neville Brody's President's Lecture took place on 25 November. About 1000 people turned up to hear Brody discuss his work and to come to some conclusion about whether or not the man is a genius or wanker.

Do you like the prospect of global culture?

Who is as innovative as Alexander Rodchenko?

and finally, Genius or Wanker?

The film of the whole lecture is currently being edited, and we'll let you know when it's up online. In the meantime, you can see other past President's Lecture films here.

New Blood: Graduate festival moves to east London

2009-12-09T11:29:01+00:00

New Blood will be undergoing radical transformation and moving to Shoreditch in east London next summer.

2009 New Blood Exhibition at Olympia. Photo Credit: Christine Donnier-Valentin

The exhibition element will take up one week of graduate show Free Range from 24-29 June. We'll fill the Truman Brewery with the best advertising and design courses from our University Network membership. The exhibition will be complemented by a range of events and activities arranged in partnership with creative organisations and companies in the area.

Laura Woodroffe, Director of Education & Professional Development says “New Blood will centre around networking – a crucial skill for students to learn. Where better to learn that than in the middle of one of London’s creative hubs? We’re going to take over Shoreditch and are calling on all our industry friends in the area to work with us to participate in creative ways. We will run a series of industry events, along with workshops and training for students and tutors. Additional content will be provided by our education partners Shellsuitzombie, who will run activities within the exhibition itself.”

Tamsin O'Hanlon, Free Range Director said “Free Range and D&AD New Blood are quite simply stronger by working together. Through this partnership we will be better able to support tomorrows' creative talent and their tutors.”

Chris Waite, the Course Leader at University College Falmouth says “New Blood has always been a motivating and inspiring occasion for our Graphic Design, Illustration and Advertising students."

"It’s a great opportunity for them to show off their talents to a genuinely influential audience. The move of venue to Shoreditch – smack in the middle of London’s communications industry – promises not only a great show, but also a whole series of satellite workshop and training events, to be run in collaboration with the kind of organisations where our graduates aspire to work. The potential for networking – students, employers, tutors, media – is without equal. We’re looking forward to it immensely.”

“This is a prime opportunity for the industry,’ said Greg Quinton, D&AD Education Chairman and Creative Partner at The Partners. “Not only will it be incredibly convenient for many to be able to simply drop in to the exhibition, the savvy within the industry should also be getting in touch with D&AD to organise events that get those graduates into their agencies and studios. Agencies and graduates both learn so much about ’agency fit’ by simply sharing a bit of time in their own space/habitat/turf/caravan/etc.”

Behind the Idea: Meerkat

2009-12-08T03:10:00+00:00

Past President Michael Johnson has made this week's selection for Metro.

He's impressed by the rise and rise of Aleksandr Orlov – the Russian Meerkat who’s taken over TV and the web in his ongoing campaign to differentiate his brand from ComparetheMarket.com.

Orlov has become a cult phenomenon since the campaign launched in January 2009 with over 600,000 friends on Facebook and 33,000 followers on twitter. Orlov has extended his reach to a celebrity podcast and now there’s even a cuddly toy available in Harrods. Rumour has it that there is even more to come from the world’s most famous Meerkat in 2010.

This is what Michael Johnson has to say about the campaign:

A great product or unique service makes advertising one of the easiest jobs ever– just tell the consumer what it does, why it’s great, then go home, job done. So the first iPod and first iPhone made advertising a doddle because the product WAS the ad.

But in markets where products seem dull and undifferentiated? Much, much trickier. A classic example is ‘market comparison’ sites - acres of green, blue and white cyberspace stuffed with endless jolly couples willing you to fritter endless unjolly hours shaving 3 quid off your car insurance.

Then along came a mad Russian meerkat called Aleksandr. And an annoyed and slightly victimised one at that, cross that you wanted to compare markets, not meerkats. With one slightly barmy joke (or bad pun, or slice of genius, you decide), Compare the Market has become a brand.

Briefed to create a campaign that linked both the words ‘compare’ and ‘market’ and somehow instill genuine love and affection, VCCP (the agency) has created a classic.

Have we found our turn of the decade Smash Martians or Hofmeister bear? Perhaps. Launched only in January, Aleksandr already seems part of the zeitgeist. Enough people enjoy the joke to visit the real site and doing some actual comparing, the site has 100% more visitors than a year ago, and our velvet-jacketed friend joins that list of characters created to sell ‘stuff’ that becomes more memorable than the stuff itself.

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Want to work in advertising?

2009-12-08T03:05:00+00:00

Are you finding it hard to get in to advertising or even just to get a placement? Nigel Edginton-Vigus, Creative Director at Wunderman has been there.

When you’re busy ‘doing’ your career, you don’t really stop to analyse how you got into it in the first place do you? Or you don’t until the D&AD ask you. So with the delightful Dr Rhiannon James in the padded leather, wing-backed armchair (no doubt peering attentively over a pair of expensive horn rimmed spectacles) and me lying prostrate on a comfy chaise longue, here goes. “Mummy!” Oh dear, let’s start again.

Steven King was once asked why he’d chosen to write horror novels. He replied; “What makes you think I had a choice?” And that’s pretty much how I feel about this game.

Yes I did terribly at school, except in art and English, so you can see where I was heading. And true to form I flourished at art-college. Although even there I spent most of the final year on placement at all the best agencies I could get into (working all hours with the brilliant Dave Buonaguidi). Of course, there’s the ultimately rewarding slog through placements that I went through just like everyone else. Over the years, I’ve also sold Betterware door-to-door, been an apprentice panel beater and sprayer, driven breakdown trucks, worked in bars and sold print services. I’ve been a designer (I won prizes for it and everything!), ran my own design agency for 6 years and worked in both new business and account services. I’ve even worked on a traveling funfair, which I loved, and I’ve been redundant. Twice.

But while I’ve enjoyed doing all these jobs and learnt something valuable from them all, I’ve always felt compelled to be in advertising.

And D&AD’s always been there to help me. In fact, here’s a little story that might give you hope if you’re trying to break into the industry yourself. I was ‘downsized’ from a job as a new business manager at a design agency, back in ’96. I was in my late 30s, had a two-year old daughter and suddenly, no income. Christ! However, the situation forced me to think about what I really wanted to do: write ads. So I signed up for a D&AD workshop, got a book together, pestered all the CDs/teams I met, designed a mailer and within weeks I was working as the oldest junior writer Carlson had ever employed – as well as the cheapest! I won’t bore you with my career trajectory from there. But it perhaps shows that hard work, tenacity, grim determination, enthusiasm and love of what you do (plus a generous measure of good luck) can take you quite a long way.

And when you work with such bright, fun, talented, exciting, switched on, curious, creative, often dysfunctional and always passionate individuals, what’s not to love about the business?

So that’s how I got into advertising. Now you know and I’ve remembered.

On the subject of getting into the business, one of the most important things you can do as someone trying to get into this industry is consider yourself as a brand. Then make sure you market and promote yourselves. Which is why I always set a self-promotion brief to every placement team I take on. Here’s my current favourite from Mark Lees and Laura Davies. They’re now on an extended contract with us at Wunderman. So it worked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tjav1JFqi0

Although it’s got me thinking: how did advertising get into me? But that’s months of analysis.

Are you taking the diss?

2009-12-07T18:21:45+00:00

Steve Price is founder of Plan-B Studio and writer of the www.designweak.com blog. Having worked both as a designer/creative director and a tutor, he has been inspired to discuss the merits of writing a dissertation for a bachelor's degree. Both he and D&AD are interested to hear your thoughts!

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‘Does MTV design or create Youth Culture?’... ‘Visualising Boundaries: Between Architecture and Design’. You’ve not read these titles? Are they not on your Amazon wishlist? No? Really? That’s because these are the titles of my dissertations. The first for my Bachelors, the second my Masters. The former I believe could be completely scrapped. Not the contextual part, but the ten-thousand-word-dissertation part.

Why? Simple. No-one has ever asked about or been bothered to listen to me recounting my dissertation topic even with an invitation to do so. Not one. It is high-time we revised this part of a BA degree.

‘Art schools prompt you to try and go in to depth about your ideas and you end up writing documents after documents. It makes you feel like that is how the real world exists, and actually it’s not true in all cases. Often you might be working with television companies who manage to present an idea for a ten programme series, with a few million pounds budget, on a single sheet of A4. It’s about being able to articulate an idea as simply as possible.’
Nicolas Roope, Creative Founder at Poke interviewed by Core77

The design education comes in for harsh criticism amongst myself and many of my peers. The same problems are still being met - basic, and fundamental skills aren’t present in many graduates; as they weren’t when I graduated. Helping to produce designers that can think conceptually is important, but it is now only one portion of a very big pie that all too often comes out half baked (sorry I used to be a chef).

I never understood the need for writing a dissertation. Surely I wouldn’t have made it through to the interview if I wasn’t able to read or write? Arguably, if I had, I should be welcomed and embraced for having the ability to surf through life without those basic communication requirements. So if not to test your language and grammar - what is the use of a dissertation today?

It is an annual grind for all concerned - the students who spend months hibernating the whole process under a layer of procrastination and hangovers. Teachers who are burdened with the task of tutoring and modulating them throughout the process. What a waste of time and resource. Not to mention a complete waste of materials. In the final year of my BA there were some ninety-six students. Each student was forced to submit two, hardback bound copies of their dissertation (on my MA at Central Saint Martins, five copies!). Working on the basis that each dissertation was sixty pages long, that’s 11,520 sheets of A4
alone!

I have an idea. Rather than a lengthy dissertation what about five reviews/commentaries on the chosen topics that interest each individual student; these could be reviews of books, web sites, technology, projects by agencies, interviews... Minimum of 500 words each. These could be posted on their own blogs, or submitted as PDFs on Slideshare for all to see and read. The emphasis is to help them simplify their message. To refine their skills as communicators.

These topics would be set between tutor and student at the start of each semester. Each student would then present their findings/topic to an audience. Perhaps in varying formats; Pecha Kucha, or presented along side only the use of images, or sound, or words? Each format should set to test and challenge how the student deals with differing formats and audiences. Heckling encouraged.

Or, as part of New Blood, create a design graduate summit whereby the best presentations/essays get to present their ideas and findings to the people that might want to employ them.

The design education has to evolve and right now it doesn’t appear to be doing so at the same pace of the industry. Graduates are already under increasing pressure to perform and do so almost immediately. Without giving them the necessary time to learn practical skills I’m afraid that their efforts will be as useful as their dissertations which will sit dormant on their book shelf, just like mine.

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Sir Ken Robinson spoke at the Cumulus conference in London earlier this year and also commented on this topic. His argument was if we are looking for a nation of creative communicators, why do we ask creative graduates to present in a form that they are not expert in (ie long-form essay writing) as opposed to using the visual methods and craft which they have been developing on in their degree. If you would like to hear more and what Sir Ken has to say on this issue, please have a look at his TED talk on education and creativity.

Tiptoe through Pencil history

2009-12-07T11:26:21+00:00

Our new Archive has just gone live. You can search for work across the Annuals back to 2005 by title, entrant, brand and of course, by individual.

A quick search has revealed the 79 entries that include President Braze in the credits.

Work from 2003 & 2004 will start to become available from next week. We'll let you know as new work goes up.

D&AD Student Awards Update

2009-12-04T11:36:31+00:00

Today we have posted up the first set of Tutor Packs for the Advertising, Graphic Design, Digital and Craft briefs. The remaining pack for the Product and Environmental categories will be posted shortly.

Also, we have now uploaded the first set of videos from our recent workshops this covers talks from Imagination, Creative Orchestra, Red Bee Media and Which. Each is around 15 minutes long and will give you insights into the advertising briefs as part of this year's programme.

Additionally we have PDF presentations from Westfield and IKEA available to download from their individual pages on the Student Awards site.

The remaining video's will be posted soon.

For those of you awaiting the remaining Product Design briefs and the Environmental Design brief, we hope to have these shortly and will be emailing people directly when they are released.

Lida have also set a Direct Response Brief around MINI cars and we will be announcing some workshops around this for late January in the next couple of weeks.

If you haven't already done so you can now follow the Student Awards on twitter.

Finally, a small amount of students and tutors are reporting difficulties accessing the site, if you experience any problems please email studentawards@dandad.co.uk with your details including the email address you have registered.

Behind the Idea: "Weetabix"

2009-12-01T03:05:00+00:00

Jim Thornton is a leading creative director and writer, and he’s got a collection of Yellow Pencils to prove it. You’d know his work from the recent Post Office campaign featuring a cameo from British icon Roger Moore.

Thornton stumbled across the new TV commercial for breakfast cereal Weetabix while watching the X Factor recently. “I found myself becoming increasingly depressed,’ he says. “Not just by the endless parade of mediocrity in the show, but also by the dreary, cautious advertising in the break. But then a jockey fell off his horse.”

The scene is set with the blast of a starter’s gun at a steeplechase. Our jockey takes a spill only to be urged by his horse to ‘Go on without me…run…run like the wind.’ “I was hooked,’ says Thornton. Harry Potter fans will recognise the horse’s voice as that of one of Britain’s finest actors Michael Gambon, who plays Dumbledore.

Larry Seftel and Dave Day, a creative team at agency WCRS watched a lot of old Weetabix ads before they started on this latest one. “We noticed a few things,’ says Seftel. “They were funny, they made you feel good and they were about as simple and wholesome as eating a bowl of breakfast cereal.” This new commercial is a conscious return to what the team feels is the simple, funny style of older campaigns.

The horse was almost voiced by the ad’s director, Ringan Ledwidge. “Some people weren’t sure about a talking horse,’ says Day. “Then they heard Michael Gambon doing a talking horse."

Irish actor Anthony Morrison played the jockey. “He was a much, much faster runner than either we or he realised,’ says Seftel.

This new ad for Weetabix has restored Thorntons faith in “lovingly written, crafted and executed advertising as entertainment.” He explains, “An idea is neither a good idea nor a bad idea ‘til it’s executed, and so much can go wrong in between.” Thornton thinks it all went right with this ad. “The genius, for me, is in the talking horse. The idea would still have worked without it, but it would have lost its magic, and it would have lost this customer who’s had Weetabix every morning since he saw it.”

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Mobile Marketing

2009-12-01T03:00:00+00:00

How much more can technology be integrated into our lives and what does it mean for the future of communications? It's all in our hands - the mobile phone is the future (well, it's now for many). Below are some Pencil winners from D&AD's newest category - mobile marketing. Click on the images to learn more.

Down under, agency M&C Saatchi created a campaign for The Sydney Dogs & Cats Home allowing people to interact with a virtual dog using their mobile phones. Send a message via SMS and receive an instant dog trick in return.

Every bone thrown is a $5 donation. In just 3 days, 1327 bones thrown, 17.4 per cent of people threw twice or more, 25 per cent of dogs needing homes were adopted and the shelter saw a 600 per cent increase in new volunteers. The project also won a D&AD Yellow Pencil in 2009.

Tohato won a Yellow Pencil when it launched two different but similar spicy snacks on the market: Ultra Tyrant Habanero and Satan Joloquia. From that, the company produced a war game between the two products. Purchasers could participate by scanning the QR code on the package with their mobile phones. Players can get stronger by summoning friends or winning points.

The challenge with Get in There was to encourage boys who flirt online to get in there and talk to real girls, where the Lynx product can play a role. This is an application that allows the unsuspecting female to think you’ve got some powerful chemistry. In 2008, the application won a D&AD Yellow Pencil.

The UN Voices project was created to give everyone a voice. How it works: After taking a mobile phone photo of the featured person’s mouth, you send it to the number shown as a text message. Almost instantly your mobile will ring and you’ll hear their story in a brief pre-recorded message. The project won a Yellow Pencil in 2009.

Find out more about what we do.

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Brand forgiveness

2009-11-30T14:02:42+00:00

Many thanks to Sarah Wade, Account Director at Elmwood for this brand study, looking at the development of Sunny Delight.

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Watching BBC3’s ‘The Noughties, was that it?’ a while ago made me ponder how easy it can be to forget the bad stuff in the face of great reinvention. Look at Cheryl Cole, squeaky-clean goddess and all round nice gal of talent show telly. Does anyone remember that she liked a good few beers and a toilet punch up a few years back? Did she castigate herself forever more? No, on some very smart PR advice she dumped the bad and built on the good and voila, butter wouldn’t melt on a Saturday night. Whatever you might think of Ms Cole, she’s done a fine job of transforming herself from being loathed to loved.

Sunny Delight has had a chequered history, starting out with stellar success within months of launch in 1998. It seemed that P&G, the then owners had pulled off the impossible - to successfully launch a new brand. The odds for any new brand are not good, even with a huge marketing budget to support it – 9 out of every 10 brand innovations fail - fact.

Where P&G got it right is through a compelling mix of product and storytelling to bring to life the idea of sunshine in a bottle. What they hadn’t banked on was the overindulgence of some of their Sunny D fans who drank so much of the stuff they began to turn orange, apparently caused by the high levels of beta-carotene in the product. Life for the brand suddenly became not so delightful.

This is where the difference comes between our friend Cheryl and the nations most notorious soft drink – Sunny D just kept on and on apologising for itself, even on its packaging, which undermined its credibility, drained away any consumer trust that was left and acted as a constant reminder to the poor publicity it had received. They publicly invited mums to tell them what to do (AKA the Parents Advisory Group), splashing this all over the pack – a clear signal that Sunny D wasn’t in control any more. They adopted a tone of voice that was an attempt to befriend consumers and demystify the ingredients which only kept the ‘orange children incident’ front of mind. Add this to a poorly printed label depiction very unreal looking fruit and the brand continued to slide for many years. Repeated references to past mistakes are not the way to move forward for any brand so it became do or die for Sunny D and clearly an evolutionary tweak was not going to be enough.

We live in an exceptionally brand literate society – we can see through the hype, even the stuff we buy into, but our love for our favourite brands makes us magnanimous in our forgiveness, up to a point. It’s the love that facilitates the forgiveness but the product must also deliver, so the task for Sunny D was twofold – sort the product out and bring back the love.

Gillian McKeith, Jamie Oliver, et al have seen to it that we know & care about what we eat – a changing food and drink market demanded a healthier, more natural, less ‘colourful’ product from Sunny D, which has now been duly delivered through significant investment.

The branding task was more complex. After so many years of trying to please all the people all the time Sunny D had forgotten who it was. In a world where only one brand can be the cheapest, who will you be? Well, product functions and benefits are ownable for a short while until someone comes up with a cheaper, faster way of doing it better. But the real equity is in who you are – what you are, not what you can claim is what will make you unique. Sunny D looked back to its roots in west coast surf culture to find its true identity and brought this to life through a pack reinvention that focussed on the positive aspects of the brand and new product formula. A new clear bottle which clearly showed the product was developed and further investment in the quality of print meant that fresher, better quality images of real fruit could be used. The heart of the pack is a bright blue logo surfing under an orange-slice sun bringing the sunshine freshness to life on the label and the fruit reinforce the nothing artificial claims and act as strong flavour indicators. It’s a pack that looks like its enjoying life and wants you to with it. This new identity moves the brand from an artificial squash that’s cheated its way into the chiller and feels guilty about it to a juice to be savoured whilst surfing off the coast of the O.C.

If you want forgiveness then you have to prove you deserve it by taking responsibility for your mistakes and then moving on. So far the outlook for Sunny D is good – sales are up and confidence seems to be building. At long last the love might be coming back. It’s a big ask to get your consumers to trust you after such turbulent times but if it can work for Cheryl…. Watch this space.

Neville Brody

2009-11-24T03:00:00+00:00

Designer behind legendary street magazine THE FACE and men’s style bible Arena, Neville Brody has spent much of his career on the cutting edge of design as a typographer, art director, brand strategist and consultant. He founded Research Studios in themid-nineties and is Creative Director of Arena Homme, which launched it’s 32^nd issue last September.

Brody will discuss his work with designer and writer Adrian Shaughnessy at his D&AD President’s Lecture this Wednesday, 25 November. The lecture is completely sold out.

'Fuse' 2008

'Free Me From Freedom', by Neville Brody/Research Studios, 2008

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Behind the Idea: "Favourites"

2009-11-24T02:50:00+00:00

Iain Tait is a founding partner and creative director at digital creative agency Poke. He was recently named 'most influential person in new media' by New Media Age magazine. You’d know his work from the D&AD-nominated ‘Balloonacy’ - the world’s first Internet balloon race for Orange.

35 years after McDonald’s opened its first UK restaurant, their latest TV commercial gets Tait’s vote.

‘Favourites’ has a diverse range of characters with their own little quirks and rituals moving in and out of the restaurant. The ad also features an ‘ode’ to McDonald’s delivered by actor David Morrissey.

“I love these ads for their words. In most ad breaks you'll be hard to pushed to find any that use words to paint a picture,’ says Tait.

“The gentle humour in the observations are spot on. They're everyday and simple but charming and haven't been dumbed-down. And the texture and the rhythm of the words are strangely hypnotic, next time I'm 'just passing by' McDonald's I'm not sure I'll be able to stop myself.”

Created by agency Leo Burnett, the initial inspiration for this commercial came from a somewhat unlikely source. Art Director Guy Moore was watching Have I Got News for You, with Rolf Harris hosting. “Then Rolf broke into his famous song The Court of King Caractacus,” he explains.

The tune uses repetitive lines in ever-increasing length and always ending with the phrase ‘were just passing by’.

“It’s the sort of thing you might say when you pop into a friend’s for a relaxed cup of tea...”hello Vera, I was just passing by,”’ he adds. “It seemed the perfect way to tell a McDonald’s story.”

Copywriter Tony Malcolm wrote lyrics to the tune, which reflected the democracy of McDonald’s. From the beginning, both the agency and McDonald’s were keen not to get in the way of what really happens in a McDonald’s and choreograph it. Director Neil Gorringe set about casting people in groups who all knew one another and were comfortable in each other’s company.

Final thoughts from Tait; “I hope these ads remind everyone that it's possible to create something beautiful and compelling based around good old-fashioned writing. And that great ads aren't just about trillions of dollars worth of special effects or a cast of thousands shutting down the streets of London to play an impromptu game of tiddlywinks.”

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D&AD and Metro: Behind the Idea - Smokescreen

2009-11-17T03:00:00+00:00

Ben Terrett is a designer and partner in the Really Interesting Group – a multidisciplinary organisation that leads the charge for ‘post-digital design’. A new online game targeted at educating teens about Internet privacy is top of Terrett’s list.

“Have you heard about the guy who got fired because of an inappropriate Tweet? Or the girl whose house got trashed because she advertised her house party on Facebook while Mum and Dad were away? This is what Smokescreen is about - teaching kids the pitfalls of online security in a fun, natural and intelligent way,’ he says.

Targeting teens online rather than on TV, broadcaster Channel 4 first commissioned Smokescreen two years ago – it was created by entertainment production company Six to Start. It follows the fictional story of Max Winston and Cal Godfrey, two friends who set up a social network called White Smoke; it's a place with no ads, no rules, and no adults. But not long after White Smoke becomes hugely popular, the trouble begins.

Instead of using a video or leaflet to tell teens what they shouldn't do online, the game puts them directly into a simulated online world. White Smoke even incorporates a search engine called Gaggle and a social network called Fakebook.

"When you play Smokescreen, it's like you're really surfing the web – you get emails, IMs, text messages, even fake phone calls. You actually learn how to change your privacy settings on Facebook and how to spot when someone's stealing your personal data,’ said Adrian Hon, the lead designer of the game.

Players undertake 13 missions exploring a fictional online world to discover who they can and can’t trust. “This has fantastic game play, clever stories, looks great and it's charming as well,’ says Terrett.

Terrett feels that games like these are very fashionable with brands at the moment, but they're often inappropriate for their market or just not very good. “Have a go’, he says. “Mission 3 'Too Much Information' is a good one to start with - it's pretty easy, really funny, and it's quick.”

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Product Design We Love: Ethical

2009-11-17T02:55:00+00:00

Our last category for product design is work that has an ethical focus. Some of the best ideas come from innovative and creative ways to help others.

One Laptop per Child (OLPC) 's design is centred around energy efficiency and low-cost production. The aim is to bring learning, information and communication to children where it is needed most: developing countries. It was nominated for a Pencil in 2007.

Nominated in 2008, the 15 Below jacket from TAXI Canada is a high-concept, low-cost solution to help the homeless survive extreme winter conditions. Stuffed with newsprint, it can be worn as a winter coat; stuffing removed, it becomes a raincoat. When not being worn, it folds into a backpack and can be used as a pillow.

Concrete Canvas is a rapidly deployable hardened shelter that requires only water and air for construction. It can be deployed by two people in under 40 minutes and is ready to use in only 12 hours. The design won a Yellow Pencil in 2007.

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Product Designs We Love: All kinds of transport

2009-11-17T02:54:00+00:00

Here are some of the biggest (literally), daring product designs. If you want extreme, these products have it.

The Rosenbauer Panther from Spirit Design is geared for airport fire brigades future requirements. The eight by eight model has a panoramic windscreen made of safety glass and completely transparent doors. The front and side panes extend a long way up and down, giving the driver an unobstructed wide-angle view of his surroundings. The electric swing-forward doors close automatically at a speed of five kilometres per hour. This went In-Book in 2005.

The creators of the PUMA bike also went In-Book in 2005. The bike is an urban apartment friendly folding bike that is comfortable and easy to ride around the busy city streets.

2005 was a good year for transport going In-Book. SeymourPowell designed this Meridian train. It's a diesel electric high-speed train able to reach 125 mph. It has sixteen four-car units and seven nine-car units and runs between London, East Midlands and South Yorkshire.

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Product Designs We Love: Apple

2009-11-17T02:52:00+00:00

With new ‘must have’ gadgets hitting the market every day, it takes something really groundbreaking to stand out from the crowd and yet Apple has been doing this for years. They are the only company to have won a full six Black Pencils at D&AD ever – their first was for the first edition of the all-in-one iMac back in 1999 – their latest was for the iPhone. Have a look at the full set of Apple's Black Pencils.

iMac, 1999

Cinema Display, 2000

Pro Mouse, 2001

iMac, 2008

iPhone, 2008

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