We’ve just completed national press advertising with a Diamond Jubilee twist for Ettinger, our London-based client and manufacturer of luxury leather goods. The brief dictated that the long-established brand should retain its sophistication, steering clear of mass-market merchandising styles. A simple geometric design was realised for the final advert, featuring a selection of leather wallets arranged in a Union Flag configuration, photographed from above. Subtle lighting, a trademark of Ettinger’s advertising campaigns, together with legitimate use of the Royal Warrant and appropriate strapline ensured that the press ad met the brief successfully and appropriately. The resulting advert is now running in a number of prestigious lifestyle magazines.
Outdoor sports brand EVOC’s shock absorbent backpack needed big publicity, with a small budget. Take a look at the video for a clever solution by Publicis Munich, that tested the public’s might!
Today marks the day of Debs’ much anticipated return to the DNA studio from the fuzzy land of Teletubbies and baby bouncers. After a years maternity leave (and one cheeky baby boy later) it’s great to have her as part of the team again – complete with jazz hands (of course)! Welcome back…. now get to work!
This weekend our very own JP put money where his mouth is as he leapt from a plane at 15,000ft for charity! The tandem charity skydive was in aid of Rowcroft Hospice, who provide local care for those facing life-limiting illness. “Free-falling at over 120mph and then gliding in tranquility with views from the South coast to Wales was an experience I will never forget!” and all to raise money for such a fantastic cause. You can still show your support and sponsor JP, donating online here: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/JPsJump.
At first glance the new VW Beetle advertising campaign held it’s own with it’s aggressive and punchy stance… the twist here comes from downloading and using their custom Augmented Reality app to interact with the adverts within their environments. Regardless of interaction/adoption rates, this is very cool. Forward-thinking for the brand, forward-thinking through the product. Take a look.
A question that often arises in the life of a print designer is ‘what mix makes a good, rich black?’ and almost every printer will have a different answer; with warm blacks, cool blacks and the classic ‘shiner’. More often than not, unless you have the luxury of a wet proof you’ll find the production has created an unexpected colour cast. To complicate matters further, the stock used can affect the black reproduction… Step forth DayFold Print with their Little Black Book. This handy tool includes samples of black mixes on both coated and uncoated stocks. Every page of this swatch has a useful black base, printed with varying mixes cyan, magenta and yellow and has inset areas that display comparisons along with examples of key line and type tolerances. A designer’s dream!
Get in contact with Dayfold Print to find out how to get a free copy or you can find the Little Black Book for purchase on ebay.
Emerging technological breakthroughs were once synonymous with lab coats, thick-rimmed glasses and dodgy haircuts. In more recent times, (much like the motor industry) the technology industry – especially the ‘gadget’ and ‘gaming’ sectors – have been promoted through the use of pretty woman, often scantily clad or in latex, hired to give products some ‘sex appeal’ and entice consumers to get up and personal on the stand. The gaming and gadget industry may still be driven primarily by male consumers, but does this cheap marketing ploy still work, and is it acceptable with the ever rising female user-base and woman working in the tech industry? What are your thoughts on ‘eye-candy’ at expos? Tasteless? Harmless? Unrepresentative? Would you rather someone who had more than a one minute briefing demonstrate their wares? Are you offended as a male, to be targeted as being a hormonal schoolboy – won over by a pretty lady, or as a female, that women are used as the products themselves?
Some women at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas have expressed their frustration at the scantily-clad “booth babes” hired by some companies to promote their stalls.
The BBC’s Matt Danzico investigates whether this practice is an effective marketing strategy, or merely a reflection on gender relations in technology.
I recently came across this. It was conducted as part of a brain study to see how our brains interpreted words when written with numbers. If you can read it, you have a strong mind:
As we welcome in another year, so everyone’s favourite software bods, Microsoft wave goodbye to Internet Explorer 6. Web developers the world over* rejoice and we all look into the html 5 driven future with great joy and enthusiasm.
Microsoft revealed this week that less than 1% of US internet users now use the program to surf the web. Microsoft held a light-hearted celebration to mark the imminent demise of their IE6 browser by baking a ‘Goodbye IE6′ cake. Microsoft themselves have been keen to kill off this old version of the browser which was first shipped with Windows XP over 10 years ago. They even launched an IE6 countdown website last year to chart the demise of its usage.
Like an elderly relative, IE6 has been causing headaches for web developers for many years with its blatant disregard for any kind of web standards and it’s frustrating array of display quirks. This milestone has been a long time coming and makes for a very welcome introduction to a fresh new year.
* Based on US usage dropping below 1%. The UK is reportedly 1.4%, but China still have over 25% usage. DNA as a company decided to stop supporting IE6 for new web builds last year, but approach each new site individually, assessing the necessity for backwards compatibility by client and target market.
As Christmas is the time for sharing, we’ve been up in the loft and dusted off our infamous ‘Christmas Gift Grabbing with Louis and Squid’ Christmas Game to share with all you nice folks once again. We’ve added a few new additions this time round to make it even more addictive including a high-score board for those of you with a competitive streak.
To add to the Christmas love, the game now resides within Facebook, allowing you to take our generous gift, extend thy Chritmas love, and share it with all your Facebook & Twitter friends.
I thought I’d take the last of my annual leave and use it to do something I’d had my eye on for a while. Climbing Snowdon (yr wyddfa). Despite no takers to join me on my expedition, I ventured the long drive up to Snowdonia, lodging in the quaint village of Betws-y-Coed for the night before the hike the following day. All was well despite the ominous low cloud cover, but after an hour of walking the Pyg trail, visibility became unnervingly poor and within the rolling clouds came the gale force winds. Against the weather I continued to the summit to be greeted my a misty expanse of white void – hardly the view I was hoping for but it made the journey that much more challenging and has given me good reason to return. The trip back down the Miner’s trail with the wind at my back was more perilous than I had bargained for but beneath the cloud saw beautiful vistas over some of Wales’ finest landscapes before the drive home. Here’s looking to a sponsored Three Peaks in 24hrs challenge with team dna next year!
Tesco’s 2011 Christmas advert has heightened our festive senses here at dna. It features a short but sweet reference within the advert copy, “We’re keeping Torquay in Turkey”, along with a beautiful shot of our sea front. Although quite a few places are mentioned, we can’t help but feel proud of our merry little town getting national coverage!
The dna team have been busy shopping and wrapping, preparing their Christmas boxes. Boxes included some great gifts including toy cars, bouncy balls and plasticine for the boys and fairy wings, dolls and hairbands for the girls, just to name a few. Everyone really enjoyed putting their boxes together for such a great cause. We dropped the boxes off this morning at Quickstore Storage in Torquay, our local collection point. Hundreds of boxes had been left ready to be delivered to children all over the world. Thank you to everyone who supported the cause.
In a campaign designed by the Seoul branch of advertising agency Cheil, Tesco Homeplus supermarket opened a virtual grocery store in a South Korea subway station, allowing users to shop using their smartphones. A large, wall-length billboard was installed in the station, designed to replicate a series of supermarket shelves, displaying images and prices for a range of common products – with each assigned a QR code.
Commuters scan the code of a product they would like to purchase, thereby adding it to their online shopping cart and after the web transaction is complete, the products are delivered to the user’s home later that day.
The strategy makes productive use of commuters’ waiting time, while simultaneously saving shoppers time spent going to the supermarket. (Design Boom).
A clever awareness campaign or just online shopping with pointless posters? What do you think?
DNA have just completed a website design and build for Otone Audio. A growing name in the audio world, Manchester-based Otone works with a team of designers on the continent and collaborates with businesses in China to bring cutting edge technology and sleek designs to its range of PC speakers, laptop speakers and 5.1 surround sound systems. The new website has a flexible content management system and is fully optimised for search. DNA worked closely with marketing consultants The Green Agency and search engine specialists, 3 White Hats to deliver the project on time and budget.
The products featured on the website are not yet currently available to buy in the UK, coming to the market in the first quarter of 2012 and make up just a small number of the full range of Otone products. The site has a host of features that are currently hidden, such as customer and press reviews, downloadable product user manuals and links to suppliers for every product. Check back next spring to see the site in its full glory.
With over 400 luxury holiday cottages throughout Devon and Cornwall, Toad Hall Cottages offer the widest selection of luxury coastal and countryside cottages in the South West – and we’ve just completed their identity redesign and corporate guidelines.
The new design uses a customised handwritten typeface, moving away from the calligraphy of old, to create warmth and informality. Mr. Toad has also had a makeover and has been illustrated in a variety of poses which will be implemented across the up-coming brochure and website that are in development.
We’ll keep you up to date with new developments in the coming weeks.
For the past couple of years I have taken part in Operation Christmas Child, the largest children’s project in the world organised by the Christian Charity Samaritan’s Purse. This is a great cause and it’s really easy for anyone to get involved. This year the dna team is busy buying their gifts and goodies to fill their shoe boxes. The boxes can be sent to a boy or a girl who is 2-4 years, 5-9 years or 10-14 years. We’re hoping to bring smiles this Christmas to some children who aren’t as privileged as ourselves. Every child deserves a gift at Christmas, so if you would also like to get involved please email saraht@dnaadvertising.co.uk or visit www.operationchristmaschild.org.uk. There’s only 44 sleeps until Christmas!
The deadline for dropping off boxes to your nearest location is Friday 18th November.
I was Christmas shopping in Exeter at the weekend, popped into WH Smith and happened to glance at a magazine cover that caught my eye. I have always admired the Economist for it’s bold, simplistic approach to design. Quite often using great creative copy and exquisite typography. The cover that caught my eye fell into this category. Simple, yet clever – playing on the plight of the Greek economy. Let me know what you think.
The dna team were thrilled to be selected by South West based adoption charity Families for Children to work on their latest campaign that was launched this week. The campaign aims to recruit potential adopters and can already be seen on billboards, advertisements and posters placed throughout Devon, Cornwall and Dorset to support National Adoption Week. The campaign aims to encourage those thinking about adoption to find out more and to dispel common concerns around adoption such as adoptive parents having to be married and be homeowners, neither or which are necessary.
Congratulations to our 2011 Pumpkin Queen Sarah Thomson, who took the title with 29% of the overall 134 votes for her super scary carving skills. Chloe was a close runner up with 23% voting her wolf pumpkin as the best in show and Sarah Z took third place with her pumpkat entry. If you missed it you can take a look at our petrifying pumpkin line-up here.
The standard this year was very impressive but we’re looking forward to carving even spookier creations next year. If any clients or suppliers are brave enough to take on this terrifying task and would like to enter the 2012 carve-off, get in touch!
