It’s been lovely to see the resurgence of paper craft in design, particularly in the commercial, advertising, television and editorial fields of late. Often incorporated with digital design elements and even film, paper craft has been positively embraced as a bona fide aesthetic for modern design.

Offering a tactile nature, with a realism and quality not easily attainable through 3D rendering, this movement is far from going back to basics, with highly intricate, painstaking and beautiful work bringing the element of craft firmly back into the industry where it belongs. Techniques like embossing and laser cutting have also been employed to add to the texture of works. From giant paper sculptures to smaller scale work, paper (as well as other materials like wood and metal) as a medium is proving to be a versatile and growing trend.

With so much of out time spent at the screen, we have begun to crave the real and handmade, yet still demand it delivered to us in a way that suits our digital world.

MTV ident and AOL brand extension by Julien Vallée. Image via JVallee

Paper window dressing at Tiffanys, London. Image via The Window Display Blog

Probably the chap that ignited the interest in paper craft to the mainstream, paper artist Rob Ryan’s work has gone from unique pieces of art to products and books you can now buy on the high street. Images via Mister Rob

I particularly like the editorial work from Benja Harney and Daniel Carlsten. Images via their respective websites

We’ve even recently created a festive email message for Natures Way Foods ourselves by taking their brand symbol and creating a paper wreath.

And we can’t wait to wield our scissors at the next relevant project that comes along!

This summer Bulmers have made an impact  with strong advertising and Social Media campaigns to help provoke brand awareness and advertise the launch of a new product: No17 cider. You may have seen the advert on TV or taken part in a wide array of interesting social experiments across the county to get people talking using social media.

The website is a fun and colourful online social activity centre, You can get involved by voting for your friendliest pubs in the UK, or on pertinent questions such as: Who Tweets the most, birds or humans? Consumers can participate by joining up on Facebook or Twitter. Why not take a look http://www.bulmers.co.uk/index_new.php

There is an app that lets you find your nearest pub with a garden, and also takes you direct to the pubs using the AR pub finder that serves Bulmers, as well as providing you with their latest news and information http://www.exposure.net/digital/clients/bulmers/Support/

I believe this week they have planted a ringing phone on a train and the commuter who answers it will be dared to persuade five fellow passengers to wear a yellow hat. See how the yellow hat experiment went at facebook.com/bulmersuk

To watch my friend’s band TV ad go to

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUlxXT0-yg4

I think the experimental route is a very strong way to get existing and new consumers involved in the campaign, and to give them the opportunity to taste the product at the same time – a winning formula – time and sales will tell…

Since I first wrote about QR Codes here, public awareness seems to have grown about these nifty shortcuts to information for Smartphone users, but I haven’t seen many uses that make me think ‘wow’. But Tesco’s innovative use of them to solve a business problem is exemplary.

The problem
In South Korea, Tesco (known locally as Homeplus) are second in sales to E-Mart due in part to E-mart having lots more stores. Homeplus wanted to gain a bigger market share, but instead of purchasing or building new stores, they used some creative thinking. Realising that South Koreans are among the hardest working nations, Homeplus found a clever way of solving their problem, by taking the store to the customer.

The solution
Homeplus created a virtual store in a subway, with displays that look similar to those in the real stores, but customers can scan QR codes printed next to each product to add them to their basket in their online store. The customer can finalise purchases then check out and their purchases are delivered to their homes, maximising their free time.

The result
Online sales between November 2010 and January 2011 increased by 130 percent, with the number of registered members rising by 76 percent. Homeplus has become the number one online store and has raised the stakes in the offline market.

Originally coined in the 1960s, the term “Supergraphics” used to refer to an architectural movement of applying colour and graphics to interior and exterior building surfaces. Today, the term is more representative of environmental graphics that are so large, they require extension onto surrounding walls, floors and surfaces.

Not only beautiful, Supergraphics can be useful, enabling path finding or environmental and user movement through a space. Often employed to disguise urban ugliness, temporary structures or hoardings, they can also improve well-being for inhabitants in the area.

Our lovely studio is in the New England Quarter development right next to Brighton Train Station and as more areas are marked for development, the surrounding hoardings have been the blank canvas for local graffiti artists, commissioned by the local council. A form of Supergraphics I suppose. It will almost be a shame to see them replaced with the new buildings! Nearby, in Kensington Street we also have the incredible work of artists which extend to the chimney pots and all wall surfaces on the backs of buildings in the whole street.

Supergraphics have recently been brought back to our attention with the publication of Supergraphics from Unit Editions, an inspiring look at design on a gigantic scale.

It was great to see the current Wim Crouwel exhibition at the Design Museum (on until the 3rd July 2011) utlising Supergraphics to promote the exhibition on the museum’s exterior.

Due to the popularity of the book (we have a copy in our studio of course) and the beginnings of usage for high-profile clients, I think we are going to see a lot of Supergraphics appearing in the design and corporate world in the coming future.

So yes, it seems big is certainly back.

*“less is a bore” quote by architect Robert Venturi.
Kensington Street graffiti image from Flickr all other images from Unit Editions.

Quick Response (QR) codes are popular in Japan, and are starting to gain acceptance in europe and the US. Have you seen these little squares of black and white pixels and wondered what they are for? This article explains what they are, gives you a couple to try out and highlights their marketing potential.

What are they?

Well, they are a two dimensional matrix barcode which are readable by dedicated barcode readers and camera phones. They are made up of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. They contain encoded information that is typically text of a URL, but can contain other data. They can be read by special barcode scanners, or by a modern cameraphone. I downloaded i-nigma for my iphone, which seems to work well, and is also available on Android phones.

Who makes them?

Well, they are free from any kind of licence, so anyone can make them. There are various websites that allow you to encode your message as a QR code. Here are a few:
http://qrcode.kaywa.com/
http://www.i-nigma.com
http://www.qurify.com/en/

Here’s a couple I made earlier, with a bit of VGroup customisation. Try scanning them if you like, the first one is a website link, and the second our contact details.

Will they work for marketing?

Perhaps. The main thing to think about is why anyone would bother to scan your QR code. It has to give them something they want, or make something easier, like adding contact information, or any other information that is printed, but would be useful if it was digital.

While this technology is still a novelty, slapping a code on some marketing material may seem a good way to appear current, but there is a danger that without being useful you will be ignored, or annoy people.

What can they be used for?

• They could be added to produce to provide added nutritional information, recipe suggestions or where it has been produced on groceries.
• You could add access to free giveaways, such as wallpapers…
• Add a code to a poster that can be scanned for a walking map from the poster location to the venue. (An extremely long URL – such as a Google Map with directions – can be a simple scan code!)
• Links to product pages on posters showing multiple products

• They could contain calendar info for events – save the date, time and place straight to your calendar.
• Codes to unlock extra levels in computer games, or download bonus tracks on a CD.
• Or added functionality in software, plugins, templates etc.
• They could be added to clothes labels to track back where the clothes were made
• On business cards they can make it easy to save all contact info, and likewise on event nametags.
• In shop windows or point of sale displays

• Add personal info to tattoos (temporary or otherwise), clothing, accessories or possessions.

There’s something brewing over at Starbucks HQ. And it’s not just the coffee. To celebrate its upcoming 40th anniversary Starbucks have launched a new logo set to be rolled out across its stores in March.

Starbucks opened for business on March the 30^th, 1971 in Seattle, Washington. The company was named after Starbuck, the captain’s first mate in the novel Moby Dick. The original logo was based on a 17th-century Norse woodcut depicting a topless siren with a double fish tail. With a coffee brown colour scheme, the circular ring surrounding the mythological mermaid figure contained the text  “Starbucks – Coffee – Tea – Spices”. The overall image was designed to resemble a cigar band label.

Howard Schulz joined the company in 1982, and having been inspired on a trip to Italy to bring the espresso bar and café culture to America went on to create the cafe ‘Il Giornale’. He later purchased Starbucks and merged the two to create the Starbucks Corporation.

Elements of the Il Giornale logo were retained and integrated into the second version of the logo, which was used from 1987– 92, the drawing was refined; and a little more befitting of a new corporate image. The siren’s modesty is now covered by her streamlined flowing hair, but her navel was still visible, and the fish tail was cropped slightly.

A third revision of the logo in use from 1992 – 2011 crops the image of the mermaid to a close-up view. The mermaid’s tails on either side are mostly obscured which creates some mystery and question for those unfamiliar with the provenance of the brand.

The new logo releases the name from the symbol. It is a bold move, but with 16,858 branches and a presence in 50 countries worldwide arguably a justifiable one. In terms or brand recognition, they are now aligned with other companies such as Apple, Nike, Shell and Vodafone. The advantage of a word free logo is that it translates more easily across digital media and abroad.

The rationale behind this step indicates that Starbucks intends to roll their brand out across a wider range of products and are now free to do so without the constraints of the word ‘coffee’ in their logo. Starbucks chief executive Howard Schultz said: “What is really important here is an evolutionary refinement of the logo, which is a mirror image of the strategy”.

We all know how powerful colour can be but when I came across this info graphic recently it really made me wonder which colours were the most powerful.

In the digital world that currently surrounds us, our retinas are constantly filled with colour, from brand logos and packaging to digital and print advertising. Obviously there are a plethora of colours available for designers to use, so obtaining real ‘stand out’ cannot be attributed solely to colour. Brands spend huge amounts of money achieving more market share for their services or products and colour is only one element.

But separating powerful brands from their colours is close to impossible. If you think of Coca Cola you think of red, if you think of Facebook you think of blue, although the latter, I found out, is blue due to the Founder, Mark Zuckerberg, being red-green colour blind and blue is the best colour for him to distinguish. That being said it would seem certain colours have become more powerful through association with brands, particularly online.

The info graphic linked to above was created earlier this year by conducting a large-scale scan of the top million web sites (per Alexa traffic data), collecting the favicon images and creating a visualisation based on the sum of the reach of those websites.

The smallest icons, with approximately 0.0001% reach, the largest icon (Google) is 11,936 x 11,936 pixels, and the whole diagram is 37,440 x 37,440 (1.4 gigapixels).

Gigapixels aside for a moment, viewing this image you get the overwhelming sense that blue is one of the most powerful colours in the world and of course we all know that blue is perceived to be reliable/solid/trustworthy/corporate so this would tally with the results.

Other studies of the top brands in the world have shown that blue has got serious competition from the colour red. This study of the top 100 web brands reveals a much wider ranging palette in use but that blue and red are still dominant.

The colour red, being perceived as exciting/dynamic/sexy (or loving/fortuitous if you’re Chinese), is also prevalent, followed by orange and yellow but it was surprising to see how the colour green hadn’t taken more of a foothold in the branding colour palette. Obviously brands are not showing their ‘green’ environmental credentials literally.

So to conclude, it seems that the most powerful colours in the world are currently blue and red and with many potential start-ups looking to emulate the success of these top brands I get the feeling that this phenomenon will continue for some time to come.

Once again the power of social media has forced a high street retailer Gap to ditch their new logo just days after it was launched. You may have read this news article last week but for those of you who missed it, Gap received thousands of comments online from disgruntled customers who were shocked at what they saw – see the logo

I wonder how long the new Gap logo would have lasted before we had Facebook, Twitter and online forums to voice our views. I bet it would have been longer than a week as was the case. I read that more than 2,000 comments were posted on Gap’s Facebook page and a Twitter account was set up in protest which had about 5,000 followers and “Make your own Gap logo” site went viral on the internet, prompting nearly 14,000 parody versions.

Having been part of numerous branding projects at VGroup and knowing the processes we undertake for our clients, I can’t help but wonder how on earth they could get it so wrong; did they not do any research? Or was it a logo launch after all… some are now lead to believe it was all a PR move to draw attention to the brand and get people crowdsourcing to find out what their consumers would like to see if they changed their logo? Is it a risky move to open yourselves up to this kind of input or is it… on Gap’s Facebook page, the following has been posted: “Thanks for everyone’s input on the new logo! We’ve had the same logo for 20+ years, and this is just one of the things we’re changing. We know this logo created a lot of buzz and we’re thrilled to see passionate debates unfolding! So much so we’re asking you to share your designs. We love our version, but we’d like to…see other ideas. Stay tuned for details in the next few days on this crowd sourcing project”.

Who knows what their next move will be, but you can bet that everyone is waiting to hear – so perhaps it was all a clever PR stunt after all – what do you think?

Augmented reality or AR as it’s become known blends the real and the virtual. AR is not a new idea. Back in the 1970’s Myron Krueger pioneered technologies to explore the space and interaction between human beings and computers. He established an artificial reality laboratory called Videoplace. It used projectors, video cameras, special purpose hardware, and onscreen silhouettes to place the users within an interactive environment.

Tried, tested and developed over the years, and with the advent of new technology AR has now been integrated into everyday technology. The arrival of powerful smartphones and computers with built-in video capabilities means that the possibilities are endless.

The fashion world has been one of the first sectors to realise the potential for using AR to enliven their brand and increase interactivity between the brand and it’s followers. Hugo Boss invited shoppers to play a game of virtual blackjack. Shoppers were invited to pick up a trigger card instore which, when held up against the window display (with integrated webcam) revealed whether they had won £250 worth of Hugo Boss vouchers. Adidas, too, has launched trainers with AR symbols in the tongues: hold them to a webcam and you are taken to interactive games on the Adidas site.

Naturally where advertisers go the publications that house them will follow. Esquire Magazine; In addition to featuring an AR cover, where Robert Downey Jr. came to life and introduced you to the issue, contained a fashion feature where if you tilted your magazine to different angles the weather changed and the model adjusted his clothing accordingly. And of course AR content can be fluid. In this instance there was a time based joke where if you revisited the AR component after midnight the content was different to what you would have found earlier on during the day.

A terrifying and exciting element to bedtime stories; Carlton Publishing released a book in May, featuring dinosaurs that pop out of the pages when viewed through a webcam.  Future releases include war, sport and arts titles which will also have extra AR elements. A designer’s dream for increasing a books dynamism and fantasy.

The most famous app; Layar, uses the phone’s camera and GPS capabilities offering up local area information; history, services, restaurant recommendations and reviews. You can even point the phone at a building, and Layar will tell you if any of the companies within, currently have job vacancies.

Facial recognition has yet to be perfected but it is certainly a work in progress. Currently a prototype application is being worked on that would allow you to point a phone at a person and if it can find their details, it will pull them off the web and attach details; Twitter username, Facebook page and other facts all displayed circling around their head and on your phone screen of course.

Palaeontologists working over a period of time to assemble a dinosaur skeleton could leave virtual “notes” to team members on the bones themselves, and doctors could overlay a digital image of a patient’s X-rays onto a mannequin for added realism.

The future of augmented reality is clearly bright, with the scope for interesting and worthy application only being capped by imagination. If you would like to consider using augmented reality as part of your marketing or promotional campaign give us a call as we can make it work for you.

The background to this subject is from my final major project with convincing ladies to enjoy shopping online. Every woman deserves a good shopping spree so how can retailers improve the consumer experience online.

The issue began with when purchasing clothes online you can never guarantee the fit or suit on the individual. The online fashion market is worth 4.27 billion in 2009 and is predicted to increase significantly between 2010-2013. With a large number of new comers to the online fashion market, the market place has become saturated and diluting shares. With this in mind it is vital that online fashion participants are satisfying the needs and wants of their consumers to gain a competitive advantage over others.

A strong insight into consumers buying habits are trying clothes on with half of women saying so and also a third admitting that items have not met to their expectation according to Mintel Group, suggesting not enough visualization of detail and imagination of how an item would look like on the consumer.

The new online feature trends that have been identified are outfit makers and virtual fitting rooms.

Retailers such as Boden and Oasis have examples such as ‘outfit maker’ and ‘fittingroom’ on their websites. These features you simply dress the model to create outfits. Also catwalk videos are illustrating a better idea of the garment detail with the movement of the material on the model, which is becoming extremely popular with online retailers.

Taking it one step further there are virtual fitting rooms where you can place items onto one self through webcams, upload a picture of yourself or type their measurements in where a mannequin is produced. Examples can be seen on knickerpicker.com and in this video.