The CPB Shine Award is a competition we hold every year to uncover the finest new graphic design talent. It’s open to all 2nd year graphic design students and the winning entry becomes the following year’s poster.

Today I went to the printers to see this year’s Shine Award poster coming to life. Jia Ying Gnoh’s beautiful creation will soon be winging its way to a design course near you, after a few secret finishing touches!

Newspapers are multi-faceted things, addressing the needs of many different groups of readers. But that makes the need for a coherent thread, a single unifying idea or characteristic, -a set of brand values if you like, more not less important.

It’s a point that Guardian newspapers might care to consider when they assess the effectiveness –or otherwise of this week’s last-throw-of-the-dice redesign of The Observer.

It is in part brilliant, in part dire and on the whole, totally confusing. I suspect that my confusion as a reader reflects the lack of certainty at Guardian newspapers over exactly what the paper should be doing.

The overhaul has been thorough, starting with the paper’s most basic ‘architecture’ - its rag bag of supplements and sections. Three of the excellent monthly magazines have been spiked and the paper has been reduced to four sections: news, sport, an expanded Review section and the magazine.

So far so good. It feels more focussed and somehow more confident.

Ultra competitive Gatwick

What can a duty-free shopping mall tell us about the role of brands on-line? Last week I found out. A few dead minutes at an airport turned into an object lesson in the ways that brands work and the benefits they bring to both brand owners and consumers.

I was waiting at Gatwick for a flight to Rome when I realised that I needed an adapter for my phone charger. A couple of years ago they were giving them away free, so I reckoned now I would have to pay between two and three pounds.

I happened to be standing outside Dixon’s, right next to the travel goods carousel .Hurrah, the basic UK-to-European single adapter was on sale. But much to my annoyance the price was about £6.50 - more than twice the price I had in mind.

bye bye ladies

When Unilever’s Persil launched its ‘dirt is good campaign’ a couple of years ago, P&G’s Ariel responded with a campaign based on the thought that ‘clean is better’.

That episode sums up one of the biggest dilemmas facing any brand manager: Sell the product and you’re in danger of competing for your customers’ business on a purely transactional or functional basis. Sell benefits or the social role of the brand and you are always vulnerable to rivals like Ariel coming along with a better product.

So it was fascinating to read in this week’s Marketing magazine, that Unilever’s Dove is shifting from a communication platform based on ‘real beauty’ to a more science-based, product efficacy story.

Gone are the real women in their white underwear. Instead we’ll get the image of a flower and raindrops “intended to represent the product’s three moisturising ingredients,” according to the report. Advertising will explain how the product helps to hold moisture at the surface of the skin.

The news that the Mayor of London has appointed Wally Ollins’ brand consultancy Saffron to create a visual identity for London at a cost of £500,000, has prompted the same predictable press reaction we get every time a design project is reported: “What half a million pounds for a logo?”

Yes that’s right. Cash-strapped City Hall with its legions of procurement professionals has paid some bloke in thick glasses half a mill for a bit of colouring in.

The implication is of course that Saffron (and by extension the entire design industry) are thieves and con men who will happily part their gullible clients from a small fortune. In return they get doodles a four year old might not be proud of.

I’m not sure if it’s wilful ignorance on the part of the media or just that our industry hasn’t explained itself better, but I feel the overpowering need to set the record straight.

I haven’t worked on the London branding project, so I don’t know the precise costs. But lets look more closely at what City Hall might get for its half million.

From my own experience working on the rebranding of the Museum of London, I know that a major issue facing anyone involved with branding London is its extraordinary diversity. That’s what the London 2012 brand was about, that’s what our Museum of London work is about. And that’s what City Hall’s brand London will be about.

That makes the initial research stage particularly expensive. Saffron will have to gather the opinions and attitudes of a huge number of stakeholders to find out what London means to them. They’ll have to consult politicians, business people, Londoners of all races, classes and hues, opinion formers, foreigners and tourists -to name but a few.

And so farewell Cadbury. The nation’s favourite chocolate brand has been gobbled up by US processed cheese giant Kraft. Will we ever see your like again?

The news that Cadbury has fallen to the foreigners is obviously a major business story -it’s the biggest outside acquisition of a British business for at least two years. The weird thing is the effect that the news of Cadbury’s demise has had on the business-savvy brand junkies at CPB.

The overwhelming reaction here hasn’t been ‘Oh what are the new business opportunities?’ There hasn’t even been a dispassionate analysis of the new entity’s brand portfolio. No, it has been sadness. Anyone would think that Kraft had bayoneted our teddy bears from the reaction. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that people wept in the corridors while hardened brand warriors rent their clothes and tore out their hair, when they heard.

Sadness? Sadness? How can that be? In what way is that an appropriate reaction to a business takeover?

Of course there’s a jingoistic element to our collective response. “We don’t want foreigners taking over our brands,” said one sophisticated strategic planner who normally has a markedly global perspective.

Others cite concern for the Cadbury work force. “Kraft are paying too much and will have to make deep cuts to finance the purchase. I’m worried they will compromise the values of this ethical corporation.” said an ambitious young account exec.

But one of our account directors came closer to the truth when she said, “I hope they don’t mess with the chocolate. I don’t think I could bear it if they started to change Cadbury’s. It’s the best chocolate in the world. That’s how proper chocolate should taste.”

What she was saying was that Cadbury, the brand, doesn’t belong to Cadbury’ shareholders -or even Kraft’s. It is hers. It resides in her. As a child it defined the taste of how chocolate should be. It reminds her of parental love and infantile indulgence. Even as an adult it puts her in close touch with her inner child.

And that’s an important point for any brand owner to remember when they are considering tampering with their most famous products. Brands reside not in brand rooms or marketing plans or ad campaigns, but in the hearts and minds of consumers -and other stakeholders. If you mess with them, the response is unlikely to be measured and analytical. It will be emotional, visceral even.

Sadness is only the start of it. The next stage in the bereavement process is often anger. Brand owners beware.

There’s nothing more beautiful than the human form. Welcome to this month’s Wonder Wall with our celebration of its symmetry.

As part of our Creative Quarter, we had a life drawing lesson and we’ve bared the results here, for all to see.

Something’s bound to tickle your fancy. It could be Tom’s curves, or Amanda’s left-handed loop. Or perhaps Habib’s ovals.

And if you wanted to take someone naked home, we’re selling these portraits. All proceeds will go towards our Ugandan charity appeal.

It’s amazing what a little nudity can do.

We have a had very good start to the year with 2 awards already under our belt . We won Gold Chicago Atheneum GOOD DESIGN Awards for our Inishturkbeg and Museum of London Corporate Brand Identities .

In the words of Lary Sommers of The Chicago Atheneum :

‘Founded in Chicago in 1950 by architects Eero Saarinen, Charles and Ray Eames, and Edgar Kaufmann, GOOD DESIGN bestows international recognition upon the worlds most prominent designers and manufacturers for advancing new, visionary, and innovative product concepts, invention and originality, and for stretching the envelope beyond what is considered ordinary product and consumer design’

Thank you to both the Inishturkbeg and the Museum of London client teams for helping us to create two beautiful identities that we are immensely proud of.

For Christmas we have found you five pieces of beautiful inspiration with a festive theme. We hope you enjoy them.

At Coley Porter Bell we believe in making brands beautiful. Beautiful brands are based on a beautiful truth. They stand out from the crowd, they play on your mind and leave a lasting impression.They are beautifully thought, beautifully realised and beautifully effective.

We hope you all have a beautiful Christmas and New Year.

With our best wishes for 2010

december 2009

beautifully dressed for christmas: Luella Bartley, Liberty’s

This year, the beautifully eclectic department store Liberty has teamed up
with British designer Luella Bartley to create a unique take on British
Christmas traditions. With a giant tinsel robin and traditional patriotic
scenes of living rooms over-decorated with paper chains, Christmas cards
and tacky decorations, this window display is guaranteed to get you in
the Christmas spirit… well worth a look if you can brave Regent Street
this year!

To get into the festive mood, what better way than to be greeted each morning this month by our joyous Wonder Wall at Coley Porter Bell. Kitsch, festive, bright and humorous, our Wonder Wall has been decorated with an army of blow-up santas and snowmen all dressed in red, green and white.

You can’t help but smile when you see 30 round faces smiling back at you! Happy Christmas one and all!