Anyone who has ever visited the Creative Department at Red C will know that we love our music… and there’s nothing more we like than discovering some new sounds to tap our little feet to during the working day… that is until Dawn makes our ears bleed by putting on some awful rave radio station like Energy 98.

The band Urusen have just supplied the music for our recent TV Commercial for Cottages4you, and as well as the track ‘Now that she has flown’, that features in the advert… they have some other great tunes as well… which is why we thought we’d do a little piece about that as we also quite like listening to them to help our creativity.

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You get a great feeling of pride when you see your work appearing in a book. It’s like that nice feeling you got when your Mum put that picture you did at school on the fridge for all the family and relatives to see. I knew when I received my copy of ‘Touch this, Graphic Design that feels good’, that I had a piece inside it… it was only when I flicked through the pages that I was amazed to see three pieces of work I did with my then Art Director, Simon Rowlands, had been chosen to appear in this fabulous book.

Compiled by Designer Scott Witham, who has worked for global clients including Sony, Virgin, Orange and the Royal Bank of Scotland, ‘Touch this, Graphic Design that feels good’ features intriguing projects that incorporate a gamut of “you can’t print on that” materials, including pleated, Issey Miyake type forms and razor-thin metal business cards; X-ray film; heat-sensitive inks; ceramic tiles; and carpet samples. In short, there are design solutions in this book that use any and everything, except plain paper.

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It’s a sad truth about advertising that we’re not always able to justify having a young woman walk around our office in her delicates. Although we were selling the same kind of service in this advert, Grattan customers are a little different to Freemans’ – so, bearing in mind this new target audience, we came up with a more ‘sensible’ concept that explained the practicalities and benefits of Flex in greater detail. And, believe it or not, I found this testimonial route the more enjoyable of the two ads to write… after all, it’s incredibly satisfying when you manage to explain an extremely sophisticated service like Grattan Flex in a concise and engaging way.

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Abram Games was one of the most influential Graphic Designers that this country has ever seen. He created some of the most memorable designs of the 20th Century by following his own personal belief of: Maximum Meaning, Minimum Means… and back in the early 90s, maybe ’92 or ’93, I had the pleasure of attending a talk by this true great of design at Icograda (the International Council of Graphic Design Associations) Conference.

To be honest, when I attended Icograda that year, I had absolutely no idea who Abram Games was. In fact as far as I was concerned he was just a warm-up to the main attraction… Neville Brody. Yet as I entered the Odeon Cinema where Icograda was being held that year and was greeted by his work… it soon became clear that even though I did not know the name Abram Games… I certainly knew his work.

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Our ‘Under the skin’ approach led us to understand Taxi drivers. That they are hard-working, hard-done-by, no nonsense characters. Getting their business can be tough, but once you’ve got it they can help you multiply it by word of mouth.

So when Swinton’s Taxi division came to us to ceate a promotion to drive enquiries for Taxi insurance… we knew we needed to create something special. Enter The Swinton Mystery Tipper. The campaign uses trade press, DM, flyers and shout outs on local radio to get the word out about a mysterious woman tipping cabbies a grand in different UK cities throughout 2008. No skill required, just a sticker. And to get a sticker, you have to get a quote. Easy, effective and successful, the Mystery Tipper’s appeal is its simplicity. It’s made a good few cabbies a grand richer and has given Swinton Taxi Division record results. Read more…

Red C’s Mystery Tipper Campaign for Swinton Taxi Division is a finalist at this year’s DMA Awards. The campaign which has had thousands of taxi drivers clambering for a quote is nominated in the Financial Services and Customer Acquisition categories.

Work that wins a DMA Award has also won customers. That’s what makes the DMAs stand apart from other awards.

With brilliant strategic thought and creative ideas acting as the drivers to achieve outstanding results it’s no wonder that the DMAs are highly regarded by clients and agencies.

Thanks to the Swinton Mystery Tipper campaign’s staggering results and exciting concept, the Red C creative team are guaranteed glory.