Design | Blog and News

Archive for the ‘Design’ Category

Those Crunchy Nutters

02/1/13 by Sarah Cameron

I’m going to put this out there – I’m just not sure about the new Crunchy Nut variant. I’m a die-hard Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut fan, but this extension to a ‘luxury’ apply / rasin etc. granola variant is a stretch too far for me. Where’s the honey? Where’s the golden promise of nuts? Where on earth are the cornflakes?!

The white and green identity looks a bit cold rather than luxury (and not at ALL welcoming in the wintery mornings), and unfortunately ‘cold’ is exactly what this pack has left me feeling…

Ugliness is seasoning for beauty

12/17/12 by Alex Benady

Spot the blemish

If you look at the home page of the Coley Porter Bell web site you will notice the words, “we believe in the power of beauty to create successful brands.” Yes we have unashamedly hitched our company horse to the wagon of beauty.

But in his recent book ‘Ugly: the Aesthetics of Everything’, design writer Stephen Bayley (who once modestly described himself as the second cleverest man in Britain), argues that that beauty is boring and that without ugliness, there could be no beauty.

He claims the evidence is piling up. “Beauty is a conformist conspiracy,” he fulminates. “And the conspirators include the fashion, cosmetics and movie businesses: a terrible Greek chorus of brainless idolatry towards abstract form. The conspirators insist that women – and, nowadays, men, too – should be un-creased, smooth, fat-free, tanned and, with the exception of the skull, hairless. Flawlessly dull. ”

If you’ve ever been in the unfortunate position of being the only normal person in a room full of beautiful people, you will know that Stephen’s argument makes intuitive sense. Certainly beauty as interpreted by the ‘brainless Greek chorus of Hollywood and the cosmetics business’, can be repetitious, soulless and dull.

So where does that leave our argument that beauty is the route to commercial success? (more…)

Imitation is flattery…isn’t it?

11/16/12 by Jenni Mellor

My heart and my head are torn…

This week, the government repealed section 52 of the 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents act meaning that the UK will extend the amount of time that artistic copyright exists on ‘industrial practices’ (aka knock-offs), bringing it in line with the rest of the EU.

Essentially the amendment means that no-one can make copies of protected designs for the author/artist’s life, plus 70 years; a lot longer than the current 25 year limit… Elle Decoration are rejoicing after a year long campaign and the design industry is hailing it as a coup.

Undoubtedly it is fantastic news for designers and craftsmen both now and in the future, though not necessarily for design-loving, but relatively poor, consumers.

And this is my dilemma:

Intellectual Property laws allow growth and security when creating something beautiful and unique but, frankly, I’d quite like to own some cool furniture.

right? right

It’s not that I don’t think craftsmen and designers should be recognised and rewarded for their work, more that there’s a disparity between this and other creative industry outputs.

A great piece of art? I hang a print

The best music? I buy the CD

New writing? I get the book

(The obvious answer to this would be miniature imitations of originals so they could sit on a bookshelf and be admired, but the only person I know who has things like this is my Knoll-working uncle who already owns the full sized versions anyway)

Sir Terrance Conran argues that:

“By protecting new designs more generously, we are encouraging more investment of time and talent in British design

…Properly protected design can help make the UK a profitable workshop again…

…We have the creative talent – lets use it”

Of course he’s not wrong, but perhaps a solution can be found, allowing the average-Joe design fan to experience and enjoy the best of British design in their homes, at the creator’s gain, not expense.

Co-created ranges with high street retailers (like Conran with Marks and Spencer) are one route though these are still ‘expensive’ to the everyday consumer. Inevitably, the recession has made it mark.

And with some of the most design-savvy everyday names disappearing (the Home Retail group which owns Argos, Habitat and Homebase announced the closure of 75 Argos stores in October), the design industry runs the risk of alienating itself from some of its best advocates, creating a chasm between average but affordable, and innovative, beautiful and very cool but completely unattainable…

Perhaps lessons can be learnt from the fashion industry, where high fashion sits comfortably alongside high street and joint ranges are becoming the norm (see H&M and TopShop for fantastic examples of how to do this very well).

Or a British version of Ikea that promotes great design at really affordable prices and possibly compromises on quality of materials in order to focus on the quality of the creation.*

Or even something as obvious as designers creating their own ‘ready-to-wear’ ranges of furniture, cutting out the middle-men who they say take their profits and bastardise their detail and intricacies.

At this week's London launch for the range, customers began queuing at around 1am

Something needs to happen, whatever it is. If not, design will continue to be superb but no-one will recognise it outside of the industry, and Ikea will continue to dominate unchallenged (a position which can only lead to a deterioration in quality across all facets).

If Britain can pioneer this then, to steal Conran’s words, the UK can become both a profitable workshop and a guiding light, and the knock-on effect will benefit the wider creative industry enormously too.

Give a designer a pumpkin…

11/1/12 by Sarah Cameron

It’s amazing the scalpel-skills our team have built up over the years, evidenced by these wonderful pumpkins! Happy Halloween.

Five Beautiful Things – Autumn edition

10/24/12 by Sarah Cameron

The leaves are orange, the fog has come down and we’ve finally had to accept that an Indian Summer is not just around the corner… Don’t worry though; wrap your hands round a steaming cup of tea and check out our latest (and particularly bright!) Five Beautiful Things for inspiration despite the drizzle.

60 Shades of Royalty

Throughout the madness of her Diamond Jubilee, it seemed impossible to escape the Queen’s face, but a piece of colourful genius stood out amongst the generic QEII masks and biscuit tins. Leo Burnett has created a masterpiece ‘Pantone Queen: 60 Years of Matching Colours’. Each colour of outfit is accompanied by the date it was worn, and the Pantone colour reference. And after all the press the younger royals are getting these days, we suspect Her Majesty will be blushing a rosy Pantone 231.

Jolly Brollies

This playful exhibition of colour and abstract beauty was featured in Agueda Portugal, as part of the Agitagueda Art Festival. The Wonderland-esque display carried a soothing elegance while maintaining a stunning array of colour across the sky. The umbrellas also proved to be somewhat practical by providing a shaded stroll for all those admiring the aerial spectacle; an umbrella function us Brits can only envy.

Inside London

OK, so it’s one of ours, but our drinks team at Coley Porter Bell are rather pleased with their new identity for Beefeater’s limited edition ‘Inside London’ bottle, planned as celebration of 2012 – a truly momentous year for London.
Our idea for the bottle stems from the British outwardly conservative appearance and ‘stiff upper lip’ attitude, contrasting with our ‘inner eccentricity’ seen in London’s diverse range of people, culture and activities.

Nice And Toastie

If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the… bus stop? Caribou Coffee, along with the trusty sous chefs at Colle + McVoy, launch their ‘Hot ‘n Wholesome’ breakfast sandwiches by converting bus shelters in Minneapolis into oversized ovens. Not to miss a trick, these public appliances have been fitted with digital clocks and fully functional heaters.

Living With Patterns

Eley Kishimoto, a husband and wife duo, opened their ‘Living With Patterns’ exhibition at The Aram Gallery, London in September, coinciding with both London Fashion Week and The London Design Festival. The exhibition showcases their collection of women’s wear, named ‘In Shape’, and is on show until 27th October. If you like these retro inspired prints, Clarks will be launching a range of shoes inspired by this work in March next year in the UK.

http://www.thearamgallery.org/

Beefeater Inside London – Best of British

10/24/12 by Alex Ririe

We’ve just won another award for our Beefeater Inside London Limited Edition design! This time for the Packaging Innovations London 2012 Best of British design.

Against stiff competition including Marmite’s ‘Ma’amite’ design and Tate & Lyle’s syrup ‘Happy & Glorious’ limited edition we won a silver.

Congratulations to all involved!

Pentawards Victory in Paris

10/5/12 by Craig Barnes

After being shortlisted for many awards in 2012 for the Morrisons M Savers work, we finally won not one, but two awards on the same night! Sadly there were not enough of us available at the office to go to both The Fresh awards and the Pentawards ceremonies in person. However, Claire and Craig managed to head off to Paris to pick up a Gold Pentaward at their glamorous 6th annual ceremony. It was a glitzy affair at International Paris Le Grand Hotel in the heart of the city. The building itself was incredible; only the French can do opera houses like this one, and we felt very special heading up to the stage to collect the coveted trophy in front of 200 members of the design world.

Not long had we struck gold with Morrisons before we were awarded a bronze for our Beefeater Inside London design. This, and being totally seduced by our surroundings, meant we couldn’t help but celebrate our success with a drink or two – and a few more for the others back at base who couldn’t make it!

Look for Longer

10/3/12 by Craig Barnes

As I was standing waiting for my train this morning I noticed this beautiful poster on the platform, which engrossed me and confused me in equal measure. A quick bit of research on twitter upon arriving into the office (on twitter somebody, somewhere has the answer to everything) and I have discovered it is a cryptic piece of art depicting 75 London Underground station names. I am going to have to struggle not to spend my whole working day tying to crack them all! I’ve got Barbican (Barbie and Ken, get it?), Angel (easy) and Green Park already. This could take some time…

I’m still not sure why these posters have come about, but as a bit of a London Underground nerd, I do know that next year is the 150th anniversary of the world’s first underground train network. Perhaps this is all part of a bigger countdown campaign? I hope so; with all the Brititshness of the Olympics and Diamond Jubilee this year now over, leaving a lot of us on a post-patriotic comedown, a Tube Birthday Party in 2013 could be just the ticket…

Take a look at the website for a full resolution version and say goodbye to your lunch hour!

http://www.lookforlonger.com/

Wine wraps cast new light on labelling conventions

09/25/12 by Alex Benady

Beautiful game changer?

At the risk of sounding like straight talking former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, it’s very hard to know what you don’t know, especially if that’s all you’ve ever known. By which I mean that often we are not aware of the limitations of things because they are so ubiquitous and so pervasive that it doesn’t even occur to us to question them.

Sometimes it takes a new way of doing or looking at things to expose the short comings of convention.

A new series of utterly beautiful wine bottle wraps for California wine maker Truett Hurst does just that for the design of wine labels. They seem to have been running on the same tram lines for at least the last two hundred years.

It’s not until you see the Truett Hurst designs that you realize quite how lazy and self-centered wine labelling has been. Conventional wine labelling is all about provenance, (Grape, country, year,) (aka me, me me) the producer. Imagine a chocolate bar wrapper that just listed the ingredients and when and where it was made. Want a bar of, glucose, caramel and chocolate, Slough 2012 anyone?

In contrast, the Evocative Wrapped Bottles line designed by Stranger and Stranger is defined by the way the wines are to be consumed.

Consumer research helped the company to identify 22 events that trigger wine purchase. Each wrap design is covered in recipes, pictures and words that relate to that particular occasion. There’s ‘Curious Beasts’, a red blend made for Halloween which has a dark foil wrapper decorated with skeletons and skulls; Schuck’s pinot noir, has fish illustrations and recipes on its foil wrapper. A brut rose from the Russian River Valley is designed for occasions like an anniversary or the birth of a child.

It’s easy to see how and why the restrictive conventions in wine labelling came about. In a highly competitive and fragmented industry with world-wide markets, it has been hard to establish brands. Country of origin was the main discriminator so labels have tended to be little more than stamps showing ingredients and where the product was made. Slap on a crest of some kind to show that the estate has been around for a while and there you have it.

The surprise is that those conventions have been so rarely challenged. OK Truett Hurst’s lovely designs are not the first or only wine packaging to take a different approach. For decades wines have gone the branded route. Think Blue Nun and Black Tower in the eighties. But these were designed to be nonthreatening entry level wines for plebs who found themselves intimidated by conventional wine livery.

But consumers are changing. No longer are they prepared to be cowed into deferential subservience by category conventions. Supermarketnews.com reports that Research by the US Wine Market Council says that 60% of those aged 26 to 34 find “fun and contemporary looking” wine labels of great importance when purchasing wine.

And the fact that these designs are strikingly handsome is not just bunce. It is a fundamental part of changing the game. Blind and branded taste tests reveal a totally different perception of the wine, claims Stranger and Stranger.

There is the possibility that the 22 usage occasions may prove to be too restrictive. Will I drink Curious Beasts at a time other than Halloween. Can I drink Schuck’s with poultry?

But at the very least these designs have cast light on the walls of the prison that confines wine label design. It is up to each brand to make its escape as best it can.

Dreams for sale because ‘Reality Sucks’

09/18/12 by Alex Benady

Even before the media started to talk about the post Olympic blues that the UK is experiencing, and how people will pick themselves up from this, the British people and indeed people across the world have been feeling an increasing desire to escape.

Research we conducted back in April found that 54% of Britons agree that the need to escape has become more important to them over the past few years and 69% agree that ‘it’s good to be random or do random things occasionally’.

This is no surprise really given the grim economic situation many in the West have been experiencing, and the over regulated world we live in today where we consume too much, often on autopilot and follow very rational ways of thinking, that leads to dull monotonous design.

In this rather grey world where ‘reality sucks’, we have seen a new trend emerging which we have explored in our latest Visual Futures presentation, ‘Reality Sucks’. Click here for quick snapshot of the presentation https://vimeo.com/49679657

The full report covers how design, products and brands are drawing on the principles of Surrealism to offer consumers alternative realities, such as Cadbury’s Joyville and an Alice Wonderland inspired gym in Japan to escape to. We have also seen absurd design from the likes of Lady Gaga, a rabbit shaped exhibition centre at the Shanghai World Expo and a boat on top of the Royal Festival Hall, just for the hell of it.

The use of Surrealism has not gone unnoticed by the public. Indeed, it has even been attributed to feeding collectors desire for Surrealist Art. In the past 18 months, Surrealist records have fallen like dominoes with Miró’s “Peinture (Etoile bleue),” 1927, fetching £23.5 million at Sotheby’s London in June. It is Oliver Camu’s belief (deputy Chairman of Christie’s Impressionist and modern art) that the growing interest in Surrealism can be attributed to its “presence in everyday media, marketing and advertising”.

NEW REALITIES FOR PARALYMPIANS

Jonnie Peacock crosses the line

However, for me personally the greatest example of how juxtapositions have becoming more accepted and can be used to open our eyes, is the rebranding of people who were once ‘people with disabilities’ as ‘superheros’. There can be nothing more amazing than the sight of Jonnie Peacock on his blade completing the 100m in 10.9 seconds! They have escaped the grim confines of their everyday reality, by sheer determination, dreams and getting people to see them in a new light.

Blog and News

Blog