aspire to enquire

The Girl Effect

Found via swissmiss , a beautiful video with a powerful message.

Isn't today the birthday of Feminism, or something? Not sure how this relates, but a good point well made. Find out more at the girl effect.

Flyer tipping

I can't remember if I've mentioned it before on this blog, but I do a bit of flyering, or 'promotions' to earn a bit of cash through Uni. I've been doing it since September, since you ask.

I think I've generally shyed away from mentioning the actual employer, but seeing as they're complete idiots^± I'm going to go ahead and say that I'm an employee of A3D2 Ltd, who own and manage the Tiger Tiger 'brand'.

I'm leaving in a few weeks, and I've been wondering what I'm going to tell my replacements so that they too can enjoy many happy hours of flyering. I've been comparing the flyer job recently to cleaning up poo, but I think the poo is probably a better job, for a number of reasons:

1. You get a sense of job satisfaction.
2. You probably have more idea of your position within the company and appreciation from your employers.
3. You'll get more respect from the general public. 

  
So, with that in mind, here are my helpful flyer tips:

• Work out what you are going to say before you say it.  What do people want at that time, and how does what it says on your flyer relate to that? And can you say it before they've walked past you? Lines that have worked for me are "£3 lunch today [sir/madam/guys/gents/ladies]?", "discounts at Tiger Tiger tonight [as before]!" and "good evening, there's [offer] tonight [as before]"
• Look approachable.  I can't stress this enough. I can notice the difference straight away when I go out in my branded 'promo team' jacket, for example. Everyone spots you a mile off and swerves to avoid you. Dress like the people you're trying to get in the club at that time, and everyone's happy.
• Make Eye Contact.  So no sunglasses. 
• Take as many breaks as you feel you need.  People really respond to positive vibes. If it takes an extra coffee, smoothie or a pasty to perk you up, go get it and come back refreshed and ready to rule the £3 lunch.
• Enter the zone.  Glaze over and get on with it. This is for two reasons. Firstly, you won't be offended when people tell you to fuck off, grab your flyers and throw them on the floor, assault your colleagues, or just look the other way as if you are nothing. Secondly, once you're in the zone you'll find it a lot easier to say the same thing in all weathers for 4 hours in a row.
• Walking round does not mean you get to more people.  Find a place, get into its rhythm, and stick to it. The flyers will, quite literally, fly out. 
• Pick up the ones people drop on the floor.  Only if it's nice weather though. You can use them again! For me, it's the old idea of people keeping a tidy room tidy. Also, it's good CSR. Not that anyone at Tiger would care about that. 

There's a lot more I could say about flyer design, but if you work for Tiger, forget having even the slightest bit of input in that. So my bit of advice to be would just be to let that go. Tough times.

That's my flyer tips!!

Does anyone else have any?

^±I should say that the Cardiff team have been really good to me. But whoever it is at head office that sends them completely unsuitable flyers and then forces them to use them for months on end, needs to have a think about why the *ahem* numbers on the weekends are *ahem* dropping like flies. And sort the generic map on the flyers out. The club is on the other side of the road to the dot. Start there.

Writing, not writing

Often after returning from show visits I've tried to collect my thoughts for the purpose of this blog. Last weekend should be no exception; I've been inspired by the collective talent of D&AD New Blood, Enlightened by Interesting2008, non-plussed by Free Range, and totally blown away at the RCA Show. But on this occasion, I took no photos, and condensing the amazing work I saw into a few short posts probably wouldn't be fair.

Instead I'm posting some of the work I did when I was at i-D last summer. Only one of these made it to print, in October issue 281, and it was pretty much pulled to pieces. The other two didn't make it, for a number of reasons. Firstly, they're probably not very good. I wrote them in what I thought was the i-D Style, rather than in a manner that was appropriate to myself and the subject. And the subjects probably weren't particularly suitable for an international style magazine anyway. Nevertheless, here they are: Mario preview, Transformers preview, and Louise Bourgeois Retrospective preview.

MARIO’s got all the moves. With a heritage stretching back before 1983, he entered our lives (from the left, naturally) as a character in Donkey Kong, and rose to fame as if he’d jumped on a mushroom. The rest is multinational mascot history – He’s bounced his way through pixel-popping arcade games, the original Nintendo Entertainment System and the Game Boy, to name a few, earning a world record for biggest selling video game of all time on the way. Now he’s fixed up and looking sharp for the Wii this summer. So it looks like this plumber is here to stay.

 

TRANSFORMERS is back after 20 years to join the line of hyped-up films this summer. But it’s not just some retro spin-off – it should have enough tricks up its mechanical sleeve to have kids all over Cybertron hungry for another sequel in 20 years’ time, and the oh-so-collectable merchandising should seal the deal – the super-primed action figures are set to be this Christmas’ must have plaything. As if giant transforming robots from outta space weren’t enough, Billy Corgan’s re-formed Smashing Pumpkins represent on the soundtrack. Not so much doing the robot as blasting it straight into 2007 and beyond… best lock up your toybox.

 

Sometimes subtle, often unmissable: Seven decades into her career, Louise Bourgeois is still proving she’s ahead of her game. This season sees her building on the success of the 35ft spider installation that set the scene for the opening of Tate Modern with a new retrospective there. It’s set to showcase the paintings, sculptures and drawings that have separated her from the crowds since the 1940s, and introduce her to a whole new generation. But reaching out like this is nothing new; In 1982 she was the first woman to be given a major retrospective at MOMA, and having taught at New York’s Pratt Institute during the 60s – the art school that’s nurtured such i-Cons as Patti Smith, Paul Rand and Jeremy Scott – and standing up to be counted for the feminist movement throughout the 70s, she can safely add her name to the list of vital contemporary artists of the last 100 years. Inspiring successive generations to do their own thing, her prolific and varied works are deeply personal, referencing the life of a contemporary critic, wife and mother. 

My two Interesting08 contributions:

Both completely unnecessary, but I'll be taking along some green tea, and contributing a letterform to the Interesting08 font. Can you guess which it is? Pretty obvious isn't it. Go easy, it's my first letter.

Integrated PR

There's been loads of coverage recently of the current 'units' campaign.

I first noticed it on Classic FM last week, it wound me up no end. But it's totally stuck with me, and I've since seen the TV spots, which, in my opinion are much better.

The main reason I'm writing though is because of the little article about the campaign, in campaign (!). It's a 'live issue'...

In a nutshell, the article examines the use of PR alongside traditional advertising campaigns, in order to boost awareness and such. For 'units', they talk about the news release of survey results a few months ago saying that middle-class adults are drinking too much. It also quotes Amelia Torode, who's blog you should definitely check out.

Now that I think about it, I totally remember all that news and how it made me feel about my own behaviour. When the advert came along, it reinforced that undercurrent of thought, and is really making me wonder about how much I drink. Definitely an inspiring integrated campaign. The article talks about Honda, too, so there you go.

I guess a danger could be, if this starts to be more common, that it works against a campaign. If, for example, another study is released and the government later puts out an advert not as well-targeted or well-written as 'units', could the government seem to be being reactionary, and their message losing weight? We've already seen how badly Gordon Brown has led the public agenda over the past few months. 

Ringo Racoon

I've gone and entered the Orange balloon race. Give Ringo Racoon a nudge!

Așa

It's refreshing in this day and age to still get music recommendations from a friend.

Așa is a French/Nigerian Reggae/Soul artist recommended to me by my good friend Jane who is on a short break from her VSO work in Akwanga, Nigeria. 

It's exactly the sort of thing I'd be hearing about if I could still listen to FIP. Truly special.

What would you do

Slightly overdue on the 'my opinion on the Olympic logo' post, but a few events have occurred recently which has made me think about it a little more, and actually have an opinion. Ben Terrett did a really good summing up blog last year, though, that's probably still my favourite account of the whole thing. 

I guess after August we're going to be seeing a lot more of 2012 though, so here goes.

If you were asked to do an identity for a recurring event, I guess you've kind of got four options..

Option One, you could follow an established style, for example Modernism...

Option Two, you could use a style that befits the era...

Although with those examples, options one and two are kind of the same thing, aren't they?

Option Three, in the Olympics' case, you could do some sort of brush / woodcut thing...

... which also includes Greece. I guess this option is kind of the 'establishment' option. We fear change.

or Option Four, do something completely unprecedented, unique, and a little bit bonkers...

That's kind of why I like the 2012 logo, not because it's any good (which I'm in no position to judge, it's entirely subjective) but because it's brave enough and positive enough to stand up there and say "This is London in 2012 - confident, dynamic, fresh, modern and constantly pushing boundaries". 

I don't have any problem with that.

Also, it lends itself to treatments like this, which are rather lovely.

Inhabitat

Inhabitat are "frustrated at seeing an emerging category called 'Green Design' as if sustainability is somehow separate from good design in general" a sentiment with which I entirely concur.

They post regular features on new architectural projects, sustainable transport, housing, and anything else we'll need to adopt pretty soon for a healthy future.

Actually, while we're talking about it, I can't believe that these aren't everywhere already. 

Rep's rant

At the beginning of this school year I was made D&AD rep for my year, which is kind of cool. I wasn't voted in by my course mates or anything, just picked by staff, but still, it's been really nice to get the emails and the student annual from last year. I've also made use of the cheap subscriptions (to Eye and Campaign, since you ask) as well as the President's Lectures earlier this term.

So basically, it's been really good for me. The problem is, the term 'rep' tends to mean that you make it good for the people you're representing as well, and that's been a bit of a problem. Firstly, I was meant to get people to join D&AD, but none of the staff at UWIC really knew that was what I was doing. Fine, I signed a few people up and talked to a few others so at least they know about it for next year.

It was suggested by D&AD that we hold regular drop-in surgeries for students with D&AD questions and stuff in general. What do I know about either.

Reps were invited to the awards, but tickets were like £150 or something.

Fourthly, I've been invited to a few events, but the first one was prohibitively far from Cardiff. So I didn't go, and the next one is next week; a private view at New Blood, and then a feedback and evaluation session the next day with some of the judges. It's basically an awesome introduction to our third year, and it's something I'll actually be able to feed back on to the rest of my year. It looks like it could be the most worthwhile D&AD thing for the reps.

But I can't afford to go. I'm going to Interesting2008 on Saturday (which I'm really excited about) and the prospect of a 4-day stay in London at an as-yet-undetermined location is not making my bank balance happy.

I don't think it's unreasonable, as it's a rep thing, to ask my course to cover at least some of the costs. The response the other day was 'but you'll be there anyway' - I'll be there 2 days beforehand, with nowhere to stay and on a cheap day return... 

I'm pretty much seeing it as a massive missed opportunity right now.

It seems pointless to have reps, for anything, if you're not going to actually support them or at least facilitate their proper functioning. Especially if you're quoted at the top of the University Network page on D&AD. 

This applies to the course reps too, and ultimately, the Students' Union. Everyone seems to see the Union as a bit of a joke, which it is, but without constructive engagement and proper funding it's unlikely to get anywhere, is it?

I'd love to know what other people think about this. Sorry about slight rant.