attention seeking ads…

Here's some food for thought for all the second years with their current advertising project. Is your campaign currently missing something? Does it 'do' enough to sell your product? Does it have a great idea at the centre of the campaign? If not (or even if it does), take a look at this article published by Adweek back in June. It focuses on 10 magazine advertisements that don't just have good looks, or have clever copy and straplines - it looks at ads that do something, or make you do something about them…

You can take a closer look at the article, and all 10 advertisements here.

this thing of ours…

Have you been following the Computer Arts Studio Life series? Well we have, and can greatly recommend it for anyone who really wants to get into the design industry, because it can give you a great insight into what working for some of the bigger names can actually be like. The second video in the series stays down in London but wanders over to interactive media company Ustwo. A bright, fun-looking studio co-founded by John Sinclair and the seemingly singular named Mills. During the interview with Mills, he drops one very simple, yet inspirational statement (at least we thought so anyway):

“The business of design is simple: Do great work…”

Don't get carried away with learning the entirety of Photoshop, or becoming rich and famous… concentrate on good ideas, that produce fantastic work. You can take a look at some of the work that Ustwo produce, by visiting their website here.

You can also watch the whole Studio Life clip here.

a nice glass of red…

Just a little bit of extra help for the second years, who are in the middle stages of their packaging project. For some more inspiration with your designs, there is a really great website called The Dieline that you could check out. It is a blog style website all about really clever and beautiful packaging. It is even broken down into specific areas of packaging, one of them being wine and champagne! Another good website you may want to check out is called Packaging Of The World… hope this helps a little bit and we are looking forward to seeing your finished designs.

You can check out the Dieline website here

You can check out the Packaging Of The World website here

it's the taking part that counts…

the letter ‘A’ generally means only one thing to second year EDGD students…Advertising!! Yes, the advertising brief for 2011-2012 is underway. We are still in the early stages at the moment, the guys have been given their products by now, but it is all still research, terminology and word-play so far. However, one of the first stages is always to test the second years knowledge of advertising with Sue's Big Bad Advertising Quiz. With the quiz came an opportunity to fill up two more slots on our Star Awards wall, by naming and shaming both the class winner, and the unfortunate class loser.

A pat-on-the-back goes to Martin Hay for winning the quiz with the most correct answers, and our ‘it's the taking part that counts’ crown goes to Liam Davis for his unfortunate score in the quiz. It's onwards and upwards from here - good luck to both lads, and the rest of the group in producing some amazing advertising campaigns!!

green with envy?

Our favourite magazine, Computer Arts got a bit of a re-design recently, and with that came some new features. One of these is that the magazine now goes into a different design studio or company each month, interviews the designers and explores the type of work they all do, presenting all this as a video for you to watch with popcorn!!

The first of these visits was to The Partners studio, based in London. While talking to one of the head designers, Jackie Renwick, she discussed what she looks for in a designer, and she said “…some work that makes me jealous, some work that makes me laugh, and good ideas”. Even though technically she mentioned the designer, we all know that the best representation of anyone's work is their portfolio…so we think this is a great little bit of advice for you second years since you will be getting your portfolio's ready for the outside world soon!

So, what are you waiting for? Get started, and make some people jealous… You can check out The Partners, some of their work, or their blog, right here.