Is there a better way to promote your product than to incorporate it into a music video with some spreadable appeal? Brett Dominoes’ Justin Timberlake video is a great viral marketing example. Let’s see how it fares for them. We will be waiting for the good news!

It’s that time of year again, the festive season is upon us. For those of you with ‘typographic’ loving friends, family or colleagues, (mustn’t forget the secret santa) a solution is at hand! Below are a few items we have stumbled across that may appeal to the discerning graphic design lover or you may even want to add to your own wish-list.

Checking the time just got interesting. The font clock designed by Sebastian Wrong is a 21st century take on the British 24 hour clock design icon. Twelve different fonts are printed within the mechanism of the clock providing a random, mixed display of graphic language within a single time piece. Available in three sizes.

These typographic pillows would look great in any type lover’s interior. The eclectic designs that make up the collection of Bonjour Mon Coussin are inspired by found vintage documents, postcards or drawn from the creators’ own world.

The latest in the popular series of typography based calendars from Japan. The new Typeface calendar 2010 edition features the Calson 540 typeface, a 1902 variation of the original William Caslon design, considered to be one of the first English typefaces.

If design isn’t your cup of tea, (excuse the pun) this mug might not be for you! The kerning mug is an ideal gift if you want to impress your colleagues on your return from the christmas break, at least for a day or so.

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Its that age old problem, we’ve all been there. A deadline is looming, you’ve misplaced your Pantone swatch book and you can’t seem to find your trusty Rubik’s Cube. Well fear not, there is a solution and it’s called the Rubitone. This clever adaptation of the 80’s classic from Ignacio Pilotto is simply an ordinary Rubik’s Cube with the traditional coloured stickers replaced with swatches from the Pantone colour system.

Sadly it appears that the Rubitone is not intended to be a commercial product. Probably a few licencing issues. The original Rubik’s Cube is rumoured to have sold over 350 million cubes worldwide since its launch. Bit of a shame really, we could see the Rubitone easily outselling the Pantone mugs!

So, if you find yourself in a conundrum and you don’t want to run another algorithm, you could easily give your old Rubik’s Cube the Rubitone treatment with a few left over Pantone chips. In a colour of your choice of course.

The newly launched decision making engine hunch.com has already helped some of us here solve a few long standing personal dilemmas! The site helps visitors make decisions based on how they answer questions from user created data. Hunch claims you only need to answer 10 sample questions for it to start delivering customised recommendations. It also functions as a social networking site, allowing you to follow other users and topics to see how they evolve.

There is an algorithm running in the background that learns more about your personality as you use the site. First, it tries to find a question which will discriminate well among the remaining possible decision outcomes for you – thus filtering the remaining choices from ‘many’ to ‘fewer’. Second, the algorithm looks for a question which can help optimise and rank the remaining decision results to present you with the ones you’ll like the most. It’s trying to ensure that you’ll like outcome number 1 better than outcome number 5. Basically, Hunch utilises information that it knows about you to improve the relevancy of results.

Although not really based on personality, and more of a troubleshooting question, the example below answers that age old question…

Obviously, steps have been removed in getting to the result,
but… it looks like it might be Bakelite!

So, once again a new iPhone has been unveiled, the interestingly named 3G S, boasts much faster speeds than its predecessor the 3G. The name change reminds us of a new trim of car, personally we would have preferred the iPhone Ghia, or the iPhone XR3i, but we’ll have to settle for the S. Obviously there are plenty of other additions to the new model, including voice control and video capture, however once again there is talk of rivals (the Palm Pre) being a significant alternative option. But it’s not an Apple product at the end of the day and is unlikely to convert the diehards.

Sticking with the iPhone, the iPhone apps continue to expand, there seems to be an app for almost anything now with over 50,000 available to download at the app store. The Apple WWDC conference in San Francisco was a perfect opportunity to show off the vast array on offer with a collection of cinema displays mounted together, each one crammed with app icons pulsating when purchased.

The youtube clip below illustrates the huge numbers of apps that are currently being downloaded.

Whilst on our daily trawl through the web we stumbled across an amusing site where you are able to play some ‘Daft Punk’ through you keyboard.

Just one piece of advice, if you are in the office, be careful not to have the volume too high!

Alternatively, you could opt for our approach by cranking the volume up and attempting to mime, thus sounding like a robot, genius.

Why not give it a go, here’s the link, www.najle.com/idaft

As a designer and eternal student to the craft of design, I have taken great comfort in reading “Design Disasters: Great Designers, Fabulous Failures, and Lessons Learned”. The satisfaction in knowing that even the cream-of-the-crop have their off-days, not always hitting the mark every time. I understand the agony of defeat from an idea not coming to fruition as intended. I cringe at the ever so public, humiliating creative mistakes and blunders. But I also appreciate that with every stumble, dead-end and cock-up, there’s a lesson learned and a necessity not to find yourself there again. Without the disasters, there surely cannot be any triumphs!

Dozens of top designers reveal the heartbreaking, and sometimes hilarious, mistakes they have made and talk about how they were able to grow from their experiences. Self-delusion, overcommitment, procrastination…they’re all here. Poor communication, missed deadlines, enraged clients…yes, they’re here too. Read this book and be inspired to find the silver lining in even the cloudiest situation.

Here’s a useful tool for any business owner or Marketing Manager who wishes to understand the meanings of terms such as, ‘Audience segmentation’ in advertising, or ‘Macromarketing’ in marketing. These practices are employed when developing a strong brand, and used to target the right audience for maximum impact.

US brand and marketing agency Kolbrener, have come up with this novel way of displaying these ‘elements’ in a scientific periodic table. They have created it to communicate these terms clearly to their clients, and have used it cleverly as an educational tool.

We just wish we had thought of it first!

Click on the image below, then rollover each of the elements to learn more.

Masters Allen are pleased to read of Leicester’s “potential to be one of the most creative places in the UK.”. With so much focus on London to forge the way forward in design, we are delighted to find that the City and surrounding areas have the opportunity to become a hive of creativity. With some of the larger design agencies based in Leicestershire taking advantage in these uncertain financial times and actively targeting London agency clients, hopefully they can prove that you can get big ideas and good solid design outside of London. Let’s hope it’s the start of a creative revolution!

Full feature story below. Original source Design Week.

Hive of creativity

Designer-maker Andrew Tanner was born and bred in Leicester, but, like 1960s dramatist Joe Orton, he escaped. Tanner ended up in Brighton for 12 years, where he studied and set up his studio.

Unlike Orton, however, Tanner came back. ‘As my work was manufactured more and more in the UK, it was difficult to get to the factories in the Midlands from Brighton.’ At the moment, he’s spending three days a week in Stoke-on-Trent, where his new range for Poole Pottery is being made. What’s more, he claims that the creative industries community in Leicester beats that of Brighton.

He cites the agency Creative Leicestershire, which supports 1500 arts, media and design businesses of up to five people, many of which are based in the city’s West End.

For the past 18 months, Tanner, whose designs are stocked by Selfridges, has been working out of Leicester’s LCB Depot. This collection of 55 studios for creative businesses in an old bus depot was designed by Ash Sakula Architects and branded by Newenglish.

Carl Bebbington tells another side of the Leicester story. He moved from a job in London to Leicester 13 years ago, to set up Newenglish with his wife Wendy. Now six-strong, the consultancy can point out a host of local businesses that it has worked on, from Leicester Tourist Information, the National Space Centre and Leicester Libraries Services, to the Indian restaurant Mirch Masala and fair trade shop Just Fair Trade.

It was a conscious decision for Bebbington to focus increasingly on local clients. ‘It’s really nice to be able to walk around the city and see our work,’ he says. ‘We’re helping to change the cityscape.’

And this city of 300 000 people does seem to be changing. This autumn has seen the opening of Foreign Office Architects’ Highcross cinema and retail complex, Rafael Viñoly’s Curve theatre, and next year the Digital Media Centre by Marsh Grochowski will be ready.

These modern structures rub shoulders with some pleasing Victorian buildings. However, many period pieces have been left to deteriorate, or sit uncomfortably next to 1960s architectural mistakes.

The DMC will have 30 workspaces managed by the LCB Depot people. Peter Chandler, manager of LCB Depot, describes the difference the depot project and these other schemes in Leicester’s so-called Cultural Quarter are making. ‘They’re helping raise confidence in the city. Before the regeneration, this area was perceived to be unsafe, even during the day.’ Because, as Leicester Regeneration Company admits, the city has been suffering from a poor image. Indeed, some vestiges of its former self are still evident, even in the Cultural Quarter. Hence the adult entertainment venue, G Spot, located opposite the tasteful new Curve.

And despite these attempts at transformation, not everyone based there is keen to be associated with Leicester. Checkland Kindleysides, with a staff of 88, is one of the UK’s most high-profile retail design groups. But that’s despite, not because of, its location 20 minutes from the centre of Leicester.

‘We don’t see ourselves as Leicester people,’ says co-founder Jeff Kindleysides. ‘We don’t relate to any other businesses here, not because we’re arrogant, but we have done things our own way. Our work has always been national and global.’

Of course, there are the obvious advantages to being away from high-rent locations like London. While Newenglish occupies a capacious former Victorian Methodist Sunday school in town, Checkland Kindleysides resides in a 2400m2 studio, along with a 2300m2 workshop, where 15 people are employed to mock up furniture and shop environments.

Other developments in Leicester include the ethnic mix – it’s not just the architecture which is eclectic. According to the 2001 census, Leicester’s citizens includes 60 per cent white British, and more than 25 per cent of Indian origin. This second figure ranks Leicester as having the largest Indian population of any local authority area in England and Wales.

According to US economic regeneration expert Richard Florida, such an ethnic mix means Leicester has the potential to be one of the most creative places in the UK.

In his 2003 Demos survey, Boho Britain, the country’s 40 biggest cities were ranked using three creativity indicators: ethnic diversity, the proportion of gay residents, and the number of patent applications per head. While Manchester came out top, Leicester drew second with London.

So it’s not all shoe design and ‘contour fashion’ (meaning underwear design) in Leicester. As Clare Hudson, creative industries manager for Creative Leicestershire, points out: ‘De Montfort University is now strong in product design, and there are loads of printers here.’

And for Leicester-based designers, it’s worth bearing in mind that the city is a mere seventy minutes by train from London.

While society tends to become more complicated, brands seem to become simpler. Whether this is because of changes in taste, or the increasing pace of life, which makes fast identification essential, it seems that design and corporate professionals increasingly recognise that simplicity is a virtue, and that sometimes less is more.

If a brands’ conception has elements that hinder communication overtime without adding anything useful, these elements will eventually be removed for simplicity.

The link below has examples of some of the worlds most recognised brands, showing their design journey from birth. You may even be surprised by the changes over the years.

http://best-ad.blogspot.com/2008/08/evolution-of-logos.html