Olympic Dreams Book Cover by James Dodd

Having realised that most of my ‘we like’ articles are about photography, I started work on a lovely little article about illustration. But that all came to a stop as soon as I saw ‘Olympic Dreams’ – a beautiful series of photographs by James Dodd – that I just had to write about. So it’s photography again!

When I first saw them, these beautiful black and white shots really stopped me in my tracks. I’m now kicking myself that I missed the exhibition in Sheffield late last year. Read more…

It was Punctuation Day on 24^th September which, I’m sure, was observed respectfully by you all.  No doubt you spent the day taking extra special care to ensure all your apostrophes’ were correctly placed… and tempered your use of ellipsis and exclamation marks!!!

This weekend also saw a surprise appearance from the interrobang on Q.I., and, believe it or not, I actually knew both the name and purpose of this peculiar punctuation mark – probably the first and last time I’ll ever know a Q.I. question outright. So after gaining my massive chufty badge, I began digging around the weird and wonderful world of obscure punctuation and uncovered some bizarre characters indeed.

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50+ women would like to have fun with fashion again. That’s what JD Williams discovered when they conducted a research panel with prospects and customers of their That’s My Style brand. So when it came to creating the DRTV ad for the Spring/Summer 2011 collection, making customers feel confident with fashion again was something they were keen to push.

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Quite. And life is better with beautiful design.

I rarely get really excited about packaging these days. In fact, apart from Apple, Boden, Innocent and Jane’s Addiction’s Cabinet of Curiosities I can’t really think of much that has grabbed my attention in the last few years.

And that’s why when I received my vinyl wall graphics from Blik through the post I almost jumped for joy. Gorgeous package design fizzing with witty copy and a fab product to boot… pure joy from start to finish. Read more…

When Build Center (one of our clients at Wolseley) called us with an urgent brief to spread the word about their £3 loft insulation plus free delivery promotion, we knew we had a real challenge on our hands. Not only did we have just over a week to develop the campaign and roll it out… they wanted us to deliver something a little out of the ordinary to maximise the impact. Cue one Mini, one woman, 17 rolls of loft insulation, a 56-link chainsaw and a 2 minute viral ad. Read more…

This is a strange one for the we like section but I’m treating it as more of a celebration of the life and work of photographer, Corinne Day who sadly passed away recently after a long term illness.

Corinne’s unique style introduced us all to a new way of shooting fashion. It’s a more realistic, unposed & edgy feel known as ‘heroin chic’ which to some people was seen to “make heroin addiction seem glamorous and sexy and cool”. And although her style at times was shocking it has changed the way we all look at fashion photography. Helping us to try new styles and inject more personality.

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The great thing about city breaks is wandering around taking in the different cultures, the history and the amazing architecture (in between shopping of course).

There are some fascinating buildings around the world that have been built with great care and consideration by talented tradesman and have lasted the test of time and Mother Nature but are starting to show their age.

German artist Jan Vormann has spent the last three years traveling the world fixing some of these crumbling walls and monuments. Instead of bricks and mortar, though, he’s used Lego!

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There has been a scandal at the World Cup and no it doesn’t involve a dodgy penalty decision or some kind of WAG swapping saga. Instead it centres on a group of around 30 scantily clad Dutch ladies who were removed from a game and arrested. Yet it wasn’t their lack of attire that got them into trouble… the crime was them taking part in the dark arts of “ambush marketing”. So what exactly is ambush marketing? Basically, it’s a marketing campaign that takes place around an event but does not involve payment of a sponsorship fee to that event. That means companies taking part in such sneaky tactics benefit from free association while also reducing the effectiveness of any rival brand’s connection to the event.

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Location photo-shoots are one of my favourite parts of my job as an Art Director at Red C. I love the exhilarating mix of logistics, teamwork, improvisation and on the spot creativity that is required to pull off a successful shoot for a client. Factor the British weather into the mix and it can make for quite a challenging day!

However when the excitement is over you can find yourself sitting in a Travelodge feeling like Alan Partridge, contemplating dismantling the trouser press. So it’s great when you meet a photographer who is not only up to the job of taking fantastic images but can entertain you in the bar that evening (whilst the days photos are uploading, obviously) with wild tales of photographing Motley Crue and Aerosmith in LA!.

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The truth is out there

At Red C, as well as juggling our busy schedules, we have a number of Creative team projects and initiatives that bubble along throughout the year. These include filming and editing video case studies to researching search engine optimisation. This time around, our team got the tricky task of generating new business opportunities with our current clients.

Finding new business avenues for clients sounds easy, but there are lots of things you need to consider. Identifying potential oportunities requires a deep understanding of a brand and the directions in which it could and would want to expand. And that’s just for starters. On top of that, it has to be financially viable, fit in with wider brand and marketing strategies and be measurable in terms of return on investment.

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