Fancy winning a grooming box from Men Are Useless?

Men Are Useless (MAU) are steadily gaining a great reputation being the UK's leading online male grooming pack suppliers now offer a quarterly sample box. This box offers a selection of grooming products from familiar brands and the box fits nicely through the letterbox; so no hanging around for the postie or having to go and collect it from your local Post Office depot. I have worked with paul for several years and designed the branding for this company and it is great to see it grow from strength to strength. Click here to order your sample box.
Why not try your luck and win a box for free here, via Chap Blog.

McDonalds latest viral ad

Have you all seen this great advert by Sean Click, it can go anywhere for free and is illegal to dig up in California.  It may be the world’s most effective form of viral advertising and it costs virtually nothing.
The interesting part about this campaign is the flowers which are used are California Poppies (the state flower), they are illegal to dig up, making it impossible for land owners to remove the “ad” unless they want to hide it by planting more flowers.


Genius!

Latest Work: Motorcycle Website

In December I was commissioned to design the branding and website for a new online Motorcycle Store, I have now completed the designs and here is an preview of the chosen concept.

Design or Strategy

I have been involved in a lot of interesting conversations recently regarding design and strategy. As a designer I feel design or creativity is just as important as a comprehensive marketing strategy but in some agencies I have been into recently it appears design or creativity often takes a back seat and more attention / budget is applied to the strategy and planning. This never used to be the case, when I first started out in design industry the word 'strategy' was rarely used and everything was about the creative process and how creatively you implement certain ideas, of course there needs to be a plan and a strategy in place but I think there needs to be an equal balance so design doesn't suffer as a result of a budget being poured into the strategy. It seems a lot of agencies have the same strategy they provide all their clients, what happened to thinking creatively for each client and seeing what new ideas unfold before providing them with the strategy?

I follow a leading marketing agency on Twitter called DNX and whilst reading through the news archive on their website I noticed an article discussing a similar subject: http://www.dnxmarketing.com/was-i-wrong-about-creativity/. This video explains more vigorously the conflict between creativity and strategy or science as they put it. Due to the experience I have working in design agencies and integrated design and marketing firms I found this video really compelling.

A project for a friend

A friend of mine who is talented DJ and Promoter based in Southampton asked if I could design him an album cover for a new album he was putting together. His plans are to launch a series of limited edition EPs that can be distributed locally or downloaded online - Below is the artwork I created for him, free of charge I may add - Dan you owe me a couple of pints I think.