Hurray. We are (retained) on the BBC’s Design Roster for Brand Strategy & Design Identity. w00t.
Archive for the 'agency' Category
‘The great folks at Getty Images and Flickr are joining forces to create a collection of royalty free, rights ready and rights managed photographs. This announcement is just the first step and there’s a lot to do before we launch. We’ve created a FAQ to address what we think will be the initial questions. ‘
Yes, as I said you should.
Oh and while we’re on the subject: Intel. If you had done Work / Play like I had said you should have three years ago, it would have been better than what you have ended up with now. There.
Currently I’m faced with the challenge of answering the questions ‘What is a Brand’ and ‘What what will Branding be?’ both big questions. Branding has moved on a lot in the last ten years as a result of ‘digital’ (though I am fed up with that term so for a change may start using the Welsh: Digidol). Defining what actually constitutes a Brand these days is quite difficult: do for example the manifestations of a ‘Brand’ found online that are not originated by the Brand itself, but by it’s customers or community, actually count as part of the Master Brand or overall Identity? Something we need to answer. Initially I’d say yes, the challenge there is how the Brand influences this.
Anyway, a post on Forrester blogs, slightly un-relatedly, talks about how ‘digital thinking’ should span into other areas of corporate communication such as media relations and investor relations. Though I’m slightly stumped by the overall tone of the article which implies that digital or interactive thinking in these areas would be new. Uh, what do you think we’ve been doing for the last ten years Sherlock, pretty banners and ‘wizzy micro sites’? Anyway, back to Brands and Branding…
I guess the point is that, and sorry to state the obvious, that digital is now so critically important in practically every aspect of doing business and communications, that the art of Branding needs to move bloody quickly to re-define what we mean by ‘a Brand’, and how we articulate it across these channels. This is especially critical as to a large degree the deliverables of Branding exercises are still largely focussed on the non digital, in a visual rather than behavioral way. Branding agencies need to re define their deliverables away from what a Brand looks like, and spend a greater time focusing on how the brand behaves, the challenge with that, is how we articulate to our clients what behaviour actually means.
The Partners live in a really lovely building at the end of Greenhill Rents just off Cowcross Street in Farringdon, London. In their reception they have lots of awards, or more specifically Pencils including a black one. Awards are something they have lots off, in fact I think, hundreds, which for a company of less than 50 people is pretty damn inspiring. The trouble is though, that to me they are a challenge. None of them are so far, I think, for work that is entirely Digital. I have a lot to live up to. Gulp.
Done by Sapient London and really rather quite good.
When I started working commercially in the internet back in 98 (Oh! 10 year anniversary, Yay! ) the Agency that I worked in then had 5 kinds of people working for it:
Account Managers, Project Managers, Designers, Back End Developers, Front End Developers
That was it. Five. There wasn’t even much of a sense of rank or hierarchy. Look inside a Digital Agency now and it will look something like this:
All those discipline above exist, but may have within them 5 to 7 levels of seniority. The tech Department may have separated into technology disciplines: MS Practice, Java Practice, Data Warehousing etc. The creative department will now contain traditional Designers as well as Copywriters (of an advertising ilk), Flash Designers (not Flash Developers… they sit in Tech), more traditional Creative Teams of two if the Agency is biased towards online campaigns, 3D Animators, Video & Motion Graphics specialists. New disciplines have emerged or transfered form another mediums: Editorial and Content (written), Information Architects, Usability Experts, Usability Testers, Interaction Designers, User Experience Architects……. Planners, Strategists, SEO & SEM experts and so on…
The point is that many of the Digital Agencies that exist today are pretty mature, despite only been 10 to 15 years old. The people who have worked there through this period, now really do know their stuff. Forces to be reckoned with, digitally…. So why are most ‘traditional agencies’ now trying to compete with these guys on their ground? Advertising dollars, no shock there.
If you look at what digital agencies are trying to do, they all want a piece of the Traditional Agencies action… they’re now talking about Branding, Advertising and so on. The reason here not being dollars, but one of ego’s. Digital people now realise it’s ‘their day’, and after ten years of scavenging the crumbs of advertising dollars, want a seat at the table just like their big brother at the Ad Agency. Traditional Agencies on the other hand are now all talking Digital ‘cos that’s the way it’s going isn’t it… uh…. computers’. Both as bad as the other. The point is, both kinds of agency have fathoms of deep expertise in their own areas. Where is the experience deeper? On the traditional side, it’s been around longer.
‘Digital’ people who have grown up in web agencies do know a lot about technology, the internet, the world wide web and the magic therein that can be woven. Where we can lack experience is in a deep understanding of things like Branding, Design, Advertising, PR. Despite what we may think, we still have a lot to learn. It’s interesting that recently both AKQA and Digitas have launched content offerings: AKQA Film and Digitas - The Third Act. Why? Is that what thy are really good at?
There’s an ad campaign running at the moment that lazily uses the idea of ’sleeve facing’ as popularised on flickr. The ad is so lazy I can’t even remember what it’s for, but I would be interested to know if the bone idle agency that came up with the bright ‘idea’ shared their inspiration with their clients.
According to McCann Ericsson we are all moody here in Blighty. (No shit Sherlock) Anyway, just thought it compared nicely to yesterdays post about the BBC’s WHITE | Spectrum…. which has a way lovelier execution. Though McCanns drawings are nice.
So lets face it, I guess 90% of people who call themselves a User Experience Architect, except some really old, beardy types, grew up and gained all their experience in and around the Internet. The thing is that can leave your experience or designing experiences a little narrow. My tips:
1. Go get yourself a job in one of the large integrated networks for a few years, such as McCann or Ogilvy and gain an appreciation of what Media Planning, Advertising, Branding, Experiential and PR are and how they can all work together (despite what you think you wont gain this sat in a pure Web Shop even if you do have the odd meeting with your sister agencies).
2. Get a job in an Agency that does little or no web at all…. i.e. right outside your comfort zone. This can realy help re-set your perspective on what experience design is, having to frame it around other mediums that aren’t screen based.
Go on, it will make you a better person.
LBI Is now publishing a ‘magazine’ and on first glance it looks quite interesting: LBIQ. “We’re not experiencing a ‘digital revolution’ and this isn’t a ‘digital age’ any more than the 50s were the ‘atomic age’ or the 60s the ‘space age’. We simply live, as we always have done, in fast-changing times. LBiQ is a response to this frantic pace of change, and it’s one that responds from an attitude and point of view that we’ve shamelessly stolen from Ferris Bueller: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
I am recruiting people to come and work on my internets. Details, or rather lack of them here.
“In your opinion, what elements make for a truly great Web site design?”
“What emerging technologies will have the greatest impact on your Web design practice? What types of skills and techniques will you have to master to grow a successful Web design practice across multiple channels? What steps are you taking now to move in that direction?”
So I wonder if there is a planner sat somewhere feeling very pleased with themselves saying “I told you so!!! If we make the logo really shit then the ‘users’ are bound to make LOL’s”
Recent Comments