Design Symposium North: dba

The first lecture by DBA also featured a very motivational talk by two creatives from Love. Ann Rimmer talked mainly about branding, design effectiveness and interpreted this information to explain how a graduate should present themselves. Ann talked about how professionals talk the language of their audience and this should apply to graduates looking for a job or work experience. We should do this by researching the agency, gaining an understanding their wider business community, such as their competitors and what does or doesn't work, and use the information we gather to impress. Ann Rimmer used an example of effective branding and design to show how an effective design can reap great rewards. The example she used was that of Clipper Tea which was rebranded by Wiliam Murray Hamm. The result of the rebranding has been a phenomenal sales boom across the consumer market but also a huge increase in demand from organisations such as hotels and also other countries. The export demand for Clipper Teas has gone from one country to twenty three and their sales increased by 400% in four years despite the tea market rapidly decreasing in Britain. I found this a highly impressive example. Ann Rimmer also advised us to have a strategy, focus on your strategy and target specific types of agencies that best fit your strategy. This wasn't massively new advise, however, it was very refreshing to hear this and I feel that the words really sunk in.

Love spoke about working out a unique selling point and referred to the diagrams around which they base their design and business operations. The best part of Love's talk was the Umbro toilet signage. The way that they had removed the head to appear as a football was a beautiful and comical reflection of the brand which really stuck out to me. This element of saturating the environment with the brand was a very exciting tough. They also urged students to specialise because nobody wants somebody who can do a bit of everything, they would rather employ more people but people who are really amazing at the one thing that they do. I feel this near I really need to home in on my skills and chose more of a specialism. Perhaps this may revolve around my idea generation which was pointed out as being very strong in my portfolio surgeries by all three creatives.