Yesterday the Daily Mail reported on the new Foreign Office logo. “Miliband wastes £80,000 changing official font on Foreign Office logo,” trilled the headline in brilliantly venomous Mail style.
Yes it’s true that the two logos aren’t very different. And if you just glanced at the story you would probably agree that Miliband has indeed wasted £80,000 of tax payers’ money.
But I loved this story because it was a perfect summary of so many of the issues, prejudices and hoary old chestnuts facing the design industry today.
Last night I attended a networking evening held by the lovely people at LS:N Global
For those of you that don’t know who they are - LS:N is an online consumer news and insights network set up by The Future Laboratory. In its simplest form the guys at LS:N provide news of whats going on around the globe in fashion, interiors, architecture, design you name it they are on to it and last night they held a fascinating evening at The Connaught Hotel in London.
The topic of the evening was luxury and the way the evening was set up was a bit like speed dating. 6 tables, 6 speakers, 6 minutes all we had to do was sit and listen.
The speakers included Stephen Alden, CEO of the Maybourne Hotel Group who spoke about how luxury is becoming more meaningful in 2010. ‘Frivolity, excess & waste’ have become a thing of the past, consumers are looking for values, authenticity and craftsmanship in their luxury brands.
For those of you that missed our latest Visual Futures presentation ‘Bitesize’ earlier this month, we have made a 3 minute bitesized version which covers some of the key points from the full presentation.
Take a look and if you’re interested in having us present the full story to you, please don’t hesitate to contact me at vicky.bullen@cpb.co.uk.
It’s probably a bit late to post this considering this event is taking place this weekend, but I thought I’d put it up anyway because it’s good reference. Onedotzero is a festival of the latest digital happenings going on at the BFI Southbank. Click on the link below for a closer look.
http://www.onedotzero.com/event.php?id=31216
And look at this video to give yourselves a taster of what’s on.
As some of you know Coley Porter Bell have been part of founding Many Ogilvy Hands, an initiative set up across the Ogilvy UK group to consolidate all of our CSR efforts, making a real impact on a community in Uganda’s lives by building a school. Stephen Bell, our creative director is currently in Uganda with a team of people from across the group. This is the first team to go out to actually help build the school. This is one of his regular bulletins:
Yesterday was long and tiring but we achieved alot. We finished all the brickwork and iIcan now claim that I can lay bricks, well after a fashion! We also visited the homes of 8 families who have benefited from the school and the livestock scheme. The poverty and conditions they live in are staggering and everything is hard work, from fetching water and cooking to farming the food. Each day is simply taken up with the fundamental stuff that we barely think about. However, the people have a real sense of joy about them and are wonderfully welcoming. The kids are always so happy despite having so little and they make their own entertainment through singing and dancing. They think it is the funniest thing when we join in. They are eternally grateful for all that we are doing. The school is a centre point of hope and progress in the community and believe me, all our fundraising makes and will continue to make a huge difference!
There is just no end to our fundraising at the moment! Following on from our quiz night last week (discussed in a previous blog; Gaga about Quiz Night) we have raised even more money for ‘Many Ogilvy Hands’. In case you are not already aware, ‘Many Ogilvy Hands’ is a project which we, as part of the Ogilvy UK group, have set up with the aim of building a secondary school in Uganda for 450 children. We’re sending out a team of 10 people to Uganda later this month to start the building so we need to raise as much money as possible!
Ever wanted a years supply of Krispy Kreme donughts? Well now you have the chance, the much loved brand has launched a global contest to search for their number 1super fan. All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is to tell people “How has Krispy Kreme made your life special?”. This is a really fun and engaging way of connecting the brand to consumers, a good exapmle of crowsurfing which we spoke about back in March. To find out more about the competion check out the Krispy Kreme fan search website
As reported in Vicky’s blog, ‘Many Hands make light work’, we are lucky enough to be involved in building a secondary school for 450 children in Uganda. Not only did we name the charity and create the visual identity, but we are also involved in physically building the school. As Vicky said, later this month a team of Ogilvy people, including our very own Creative Director, Stephen Bell and Mark Whiting from the IT department will be heading to Uganda. One of the big events to help them raise money for this trip, was a quiz night which took place on Thursday night at our offices.
A couple of weeks ago I went to Hampton Court Flower Show with my mum, we had such a lovely afternoon wandering round all the various exhibits, displays and garden designs, even the rain couldn’t spoil the day for us. It was a day full of beauty and inspiration we both spent most of it trying to work out how we could re create some of the wonderful designs back home.
Out of everything we saw throughout the day, there was one exhibit that really blew me away and that was the wonderful creations from Jane Packer and her team of florists, or creators of beauty as Iike to think of them. Take a look at some of my photos below, I’m sure you will agree that they look good enough to eat!!
LS:N wanted to explore the impact the recession was having on design with another members networking event last night that took place in the ‘rising cultural hub’ of Kings Cross. In the courtyard of Rabih Hage Gallery we met seven practitioners that are influencing design in a wider context, and therefore have an opinion to share. Captured below are some of the sound bites gathered from the roundtable debates by those of us who attended.
Logic leads to simplification Sam Hecht, co-founder ofIndustrial Facility, who has worked with clients such as Mujispoke about his common sense approach of how logic leads to design simplification. By examining what is fundamentally relevant to the user and rediscovering the mundane encourages designers to be creative and produce surprising results. He didn’t appear to feel that the recession has affected design. If anything, it could be argued that his works embraces the increased need for functionality and discretion in design, as evident in his pared back solutions, like the Jetlag clock.
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