The Drum magazine invited the best creative talent in the industry to come up with a host of advertisements that challenged the boundaries of Olympic advertising.

The competition had four categories: The Sprint (Guerrilla ads that would be taken down faster than Usain Bolt can run 100 metres), The Long Shot (Ads which probably should be allowed to run, but probably won’t), The Hurdles (Ads which manage to get around the advertising rules) and The High Jump (Funny ads which break all the rules).

Entries to each of the categories were uploaded to The Drum website and voting took place on its Facebook page with the highest rated ads being shortlisted for each category. The shortlisted entries were judged by Chip Shop Award’s Chairman John Jessop with the top three winning Bronze, Silver or Gold.

HROC’s entry was awarded the gold in the Long Shot category and went on to be crowned the Golden Chip.

Chris Marshall, Senior Designer at HROC and creator of the winning advertisement, commented: “To win our category was an achievement in itself but to be awarded the Golden Chip is a real honour.

“The entry was a team effort and shows how much talent there is at HROC and what can happen when you push creative boundaries.”

For more information on the design, advertising, PR and digital services offered by HROC, call 0121 454 9707 or go to www.hroc.co.uk

Behind every great brand is a set of brand guidelines. These range from an A4 sheet showing how a master logo should look to multiple-volume sets outlining every possible use and global application. Guidelines ensure consistency of use and ultimately help to elevate a brand to greater and more immediate recognition. Brand guidelines are good. Designers (as much as we moan about restrictions to our creativity) like a framework to work within. We like rules, conventions and grids. We like to work with a set of rules that we can challenge and push against. Good guidelines give designers enough scope to develop creative solutions without strangling creativity.

Guidelines should be just that – guidelines. By definition, following a guideline is never mandatory. Certain aspects of brand guidelines should be open to interpretation while other aspects should be ring-fenced and protected. Bad guidelines do not necessarily mean that the brand is best represented. Yes, the logo may be in the correct position and the correct size. The grid followed religiously. The correct font size and leading used. But where’s the spark needed to communicate a specific message that isn’t in the brand bible? A good brand allows enough flexibility to feel both familiar and fresh at the same time.

Have faith in your appointed agency and have the courage to break out of the ‘is it in the guideline?’ mentality. You might just reap great rewards and get the best out of your brand.

If your current brand isn’t working though, maybe it’s time to come to us. At HROC, we do lovely guidelines!

Every few months my brain seems to go through some kind of creative aneurysm and requires an urgent, metaphorical ‘kiss of life’. Is this frequent inspiration bypass a common affliction or is it just my own?

I guess looking for new inspiration is part of any designer’s daily routine, whether that is out and about stumbling upon it by accident, searching the web, magazines or that pitch work you did way back when.

Finding that kick-start is an exciting journey of discovery and something which is absolutely vital for me here at HROC.

Tickling my creative bones at the moment is the work of a UK born illustrator/designer/3d artist, Baz Pringle. His website of personal work on www.g66.co.uk is a collection of vector based, illustrative graphic art. Some of his pieces are shown above.

Now I’m not the greatest fan of social networking sites, but they have their uses. It was on My Space that I first encountered his work.

His urban style, using complex, graphic elements and layers to build up his images definitely grabs to me and certainly inspires.  I love the way he uses parts of other illustrations, photography or typefaces to form other constructs within the piece.

More importantly it is the intuitive feel of the work; sometimes you don’t know why you like it, you just do. Designing using your intuition should play a big part in your work and it certainly does for me. It’s the subconscious; it’s the instinctive thought that drives your creative inspiration.

“The fundamental skill of a designer is talent. Talent is a rare commodity. It’s all intuition and you can’t teach intuition” – Paul Rand 1996.

Roll on the next pitch I say!!

There is countless inspirational material out there, but just a few of the ones I use are listed here:

www.g66.co.uk (Featured. Check this out!!)

www.computerarts.co.uk (Magazine or website)

www.designflavr.com

www.thedesigninspiration.com

In such a competitive industry, you can’t afford to narrow down your options if you want to succeed.

After University, I was dead-set on returning to the warm, familiar bosom of my hometown Cardiff and reacquainting myself with her many charms. Lo and behold, here I am back in Birmingham, my uni city, at HROC. Sometimes, the unexpected and unplanned can work in your favour. Comforting as familiarity can be, sometimes having the rug pulled out from under you can kick-start something you never anticipated.

Consider applying all over the UK (or even further, if you’re feeling particularly bold and have a handy multilingual dictionary). If you get an interview and, upon arrival, decide that Luton/Glasgow/Fuerteventura are not for you, you’ve still gained some valuable interview experience. You’ve nothing to lose… except perhaps travel expenses.

And hey, a few train tickets and a sneaky Burger King are worth it in the long run.

2. Three things that are best peeled: bananas, oranges and eyes.

Never underestimate the importance of good typography. There are plenty of two-bit wannabe designers who know their way around the image filters on Photoshop, or who can oh-so-casually dump a drop-shadow on some text. I think even my mum can do that.

However, the Mona Lisa would look sub-par with inferior typography (she’d look pretty rough under Comic Sans, right?).

What really matters is your eye for detail. Knowing how to typeset and tell the difference between Arial and Helvetica will be the finishing touches in getting you a job and making you stand out as an exceptional designer.

3. Three things that are pretty handy to have: stanley knife, safety pins and confidence.

Without sounding too much like a self-help book – never make apologies for your work, nor include anything in your portfolio that you’re not 100% certain of. If you don’t love your work, who will?

4. Three things to make the most of: a good bone structure, every day and your degree.

Now, I’ll be frank. It’s not like I didn’t enjoy the social side of university, and I’ll shamefully admit to missing the odd lecture due to what felt like acute alcohol poisoning. But, that said, I’ve never understood why anyone would fork out for a degree (because Lord knows, they ain’t cheap), dedicate three years of their life to it and then leave it abandoned, gathering dust; much like that outfit you bought in the sale because it seemed like a good idea/investment/statement piece, when in reality you’d need a dose of gastric flu before you could ever fit into it.

When I look at people from my year who have acquired design jobs, it’s no coincidence that the success rate is in direct correlation to their attendance record. I’m not saying you need to set up camp outside your lecturer’s office, but don’t spend ALL your time in the Union. At least try the pub around the corner.

5. Places where the heart is: your chest, your ribcage and home.

Networking’s not all applying your tongue to unsavoury places and sipping on Margaritas (I prefer pina coladas myself, but hey, I have no taste), trying to rub shoulders with someone who appears to know their way around Photoshop. ‘Who you know’ is helpful in EVERY industry, but one of the easiest and strongest links you can have to a potential job is through your tutors. I got my job at HROC through a recommendation from mine. They’ve worked in the industry; they know what employers are looking for and they’ve got years of networking behind them.

Impress them, and they will be willing to help you out. Use those links to your advantage; and don’t be an idiot – you achieve far more with honey than with vinegar.

One of my other passions is cars (classic, modern etc), and the same rules still apply. If it’s a great design or styling, you can’t stop looking at it, viewing it from different angles and just appreciating all the little design cues that a good design brings. But, now, it’s a beautiful old Maserati or a long anticipated modern car design just arrived in the showroom that’s making the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

When it comes to great car design, one name in particular stands out – Giorgetto Giugiaro. Over the years, he has produced some fantastic and beautiful classic designs culminating with his being named as Car Designer of the Century in 1999. Small wonder as he is responsible for some of the iconic car designs of our time. In his 40 year plus career, he has given us the Maserati Coupé/Spyder, Maserati Ghibli, Ferrari 250 GT Bertone, Ferrari GG50, the Lotus Esprit S1 – not to mention the DeLorean DMC-12 during his ‘folded paper’ highly angular era of the 70’s. Then there are the everyday cars he’s responsible for – the Volkswagen Scirocco, Volkswagen Golf, Lancia Delta Integrale, Alfa Brera,159 and the Fiat Punto.

His sense of styling is unique. Take the door handles, for instance, on the Alfa 159. They’re not just a functional piece of equipment; they’re made to look good too, mirroring their shapes in the side indicator lights and how the circular front and rear lights are sliced into across the top by the bonnet and tail light clusters, all so beautifully well thought out.

But that’s enough about cars.

As I was trying to say to my young son on his recent work experience with HROC, designers should never just turn off their thoughts at the point where their own design discipline stops. On the contrary, we should always be looking around and pulling inspiration from other sources. We should always be appreciating and absorbing other types and styles of design around us, and learning from them. Because you never know when you might be able to incorporate a little of what you’ve seen, and been touched by, in to your next brief.

They said I was gifted when I was a child. And I just loved art. I embarked on my mission – to become a graphic designer. I worked pretty hard – loving what I was doing helped – and it all kind of fell into place.

Now I have two children who are so much more talented than I ever was. And it’s so hard not to get involved in the odd art project – to steer – show them what to do – take over. There’s such a great sense of satisfaction when your child comes top in ‘your’ subject.

And that’s the problem. What happens if they don’t choose to follow in a subject that I love? My daughter couldn’t believe that I went to a place called art college, where all we did was draw and create, all day, every day. I may have embellished how it actually was, forgotten to mention the freezing bedsits, the lack of money and the filthy kitchens that I endured – but I’d do it again tomorrow! And if they choose this path, will I be taking over again, will I be wanting to live my life through them – all over?

The last 20 (odd) years have flown by. This industry has changed almost beyond recognition. Who’d have thought I’d be blogging? The fax machine was pretty amazing back in 1985! Our younger designers don’t even know what a depth scale is – or baseboard artwork!

I have met some great people over the years. Some inspirational people, some real characters, some real talent. From old school repro reps (another unknown for our younger members) and creative account handlers, to talented young programmers, writers and designers. Visualising a final design with marker pens and the wonderful Omnichrom machine was the best part of the job. Every studio had a patch of sticky carpet next to the spray booth and PMT had a very different meaning back then.

25 years on it’s still great – still fun. Technology abounds and sometimes I find it amazing that I can find my way around an Apple Mac, that I’m competent in several programmes and that I set up my own wireless network at home. I still can’t decide between InDesign and QuarkXpress – it’s an ongoing argument (discussion) in the HROC studio (could be my next blog) and I’m invariably shouting at my screen in frustration as a programme doesn’t do what I want it to do. Going to work has never been a chore. I laugh every day – have made friends that I will keep for life – met my husband… And that of course, takes me back to the children.

What if they don’t choose a creative future? Will I be disappointed?

The answer is no, not really.

My point being that I was extremely fortunate to have a great design grounding. For a large chunk of my first year we used just two typefaces, the benefit of which was that we didn’t get bogged down by the vast choice available. We would spend weeks laying lines on a page then building up to type, without the aid of a Mac. We then had the ability and support to develop our learning process through the final two years. Having met various new designers over the years, and of course my colleagues in my early career, I’m not entirely sure designers are leaving university with anywhere near this level of ingrained knowledge.

Of course, we can all make campaigns look beautiful, but we are after all communicators first and foremost. In my experience, it’s the many layers of a design that bring it to life and make it stand out from our competitors. Spending time developing a colour palette, choosing just the right typeface from the thousand we have access to – these are just two of the elements that can really make a difference. In the past, I have worked with designers who had no idea what a Pantone book was or, when asked why they had applied something to a design, simply replied: “Because I like it…”

Of equal importance to my training, perhaps, was the obvious passion of my tutors. This is something I have tried to take forward in my own career over the years, whether working on the simplest of jobs or largest campaigns, and also passed on to new designers I’ve worked with, particularly during my time at HROC. After all, your design knowledge doesn’t begin and end at uni. Whether new designers feel they are getting that level of commitment from their tutors nowadays is a question only they can answer. And whether that design training is value for money is, of course, a subject for another blog altogether.

This was amusingly highlighted recently in an email thread I came across. I can’t remember how it all started but essentially a bunch of digital chaps and a group of graphic design fellows were having a heated debate that involved such acronyms as RGB and CMYK, and comments revolving around 300dpi and 72dpi were rife (And don’t even get them started on the PC versus Mac battle).

It was a fair fought contest with each side scoring their own little wins. Digital guys obviously extolling the virtues of Comic Sans and the fact that it’s possibly the best typeface ever invented. With the design-types wondering whether you needed image sharpening glasses to view all the low-res imagery that the opposition dealt with on a day-to-day basis.

Suffice to say that there really is no winner here. Each discipline will always believe in their own working practices and the qualities that are inherent in their way of producing communication pieces. But let’s face it; you look through pretty much any website these days and you’ve got a PR involvement running blogs, Facebook and Twitter links, advertising slapped all over them and, ultimately, a call to action that invariably says “for more information, or to request our brochure…”

In true Aesop style, I reckon the moral of this story is that, as long as your agency has people who are creative, committed and passionate about what they do…

…long live integrated marketing!

Er, at my age?

Somehow resisting the urge to dispatch the impertinent upstart to the account handler graveyard in the sky with a conveniently close hole punch, whilst at the same time reminding them of my director status and their impending joblessness, I instead found myself recalling a conversation I’d had a couple of years before.

Well, when I say ‘had’, what I probably mean is ‘skirted round the edges of’. During one particularly long internal meeting, just as I was beginning to master the fine art of dozing with my eyes open, I suddenly found myself in the midst of a conversation about breadcrumbs.

‘I don’t like them.’ Someone said.
‘I’m not a fan.’ Said another.
‘Don’t mind them myself.’
‘Take them or leave them.’
‘What the !?!$! is everyone talking about breadcrumbs for?’ I thought.

But on it went. Six people sitting in the same room as me expressing, with no small degree of animation, their respective sentiments towards breadcrumbs.

It took an uncomfortably long time for it to dawn on me that these ‘breadcrumbs’ were not of the small, crumbly, dough-based, invariably-found-down-the-back-of-a-sofa variety. The topic of discussion was, in fact, yet another of those digital terms that had, at that juncture, managed to avoid my radar.

And it wasn’t the only time it happened. As what you might call a traditional creative of many long years’ experience, whose sole remit had been to put large black N60 scribbles on nice clean crisp layout pads, this whole digital revolution had come as quite a shock. I know we’ve seen change before in our industry. Hey, life before Apple Mac anyone? But now, with digital, the pace of change, the extent of the ramifications for our industry, seems to grow exponentially each and every day.

You’d think I’d be more geared up than most for that change. After all, the HRO’C Group is, and always has been, full service, offering the whole gamut of marketing disciplines. Including a digital operation that’s been in place virtually right from the first moment that the world of website and email started to impact on communications. When you’ve got a thriving digital department one small flight of stairs away, you’d think, if only through a process of osmosis, it’d stand me in good stead for the digital challenge ahead.

And yet, even now, a couple of years on, there is still the occasional breadcrumb moment. I suspect that, for some creatives, the journey has been a difficult one with many feeling displaced by the whole process. Left behind. A creative anachronism.

Here’s the weird thing though. For me, the feeling has been just the opposite.

Far from feeling ostracised or like some quaint outdated unwanted advertising relic, this whole new digital revolution has actually given me a whole new lease of life.

How so? Well, the moment you stop fretting unnecessarily because you can’t tell your hashtags from your tweetups, the moment you cease to worry about what that latest digital acronym stands for, is also the moment when you stand back, see the bigger picture and realise that digital is not some inaccessible, impenetrable, esoteric universe.

Digital is, in fact, just another space.

Just another space to fill with a concept. Another space to fill with words and pictures. Another space to fill with a big idea. Just another layout pad to scribble on.

It’s also the proverbial moment of blinding clarity when you realise that our skills, the traditional creative’s skills, are in fact completely transferable.

And my job, the creative’s job, is the same as it ever was. But now I’m just as likely to be doing it for a website banner as I am for a double page spread in a home interest publication. I’m just as likely to be creating a viral film to spider out through the Internet as I am a TV commercial. I’m just as likely to be conceiving an email campaign as I am a direct mail piece. I’m just as likely to be writing for a website as I am for a brochure.

It’s not the technology that matters. It’s the interaction. The ability to move someone, make someone do something. That’s what really, really matters.

Mind you, yesterday I found myself in a meeting where, quite suddenly, everyone became rather heated on the subject of ‘mashups’.

I’d better go Google it.