Month: September 2014

DTW is in the media today, with the focus on our new client The Law Society – we’re delivering a major PR and marketing campaign for it across England and Wales.

The national ‘Use a Professional’ campaign, which is launching across England and Wales this month, is to promote private practice or high street solicitors and encourage people to use their services.

So, if you’re reading this and you need some good service from a solicitor – jump on to the Law Society’s free online Find A Solicitor website, which matches people needing legal advice to qualified professional solicitors in their town or area.

It’s a great project, and the office has been buzzing with ideas and inspiration with #teamDTW spending the summer finalising and testing the creative concepts, travelling around the country shooting videos, working on real-time bidding advertising campaigns and planning creative PR and social media campaigns.

The focus is all about the importance of using a professional solicitor to deliver important services that you need – sounds simple doesn’t it? Yet many of us don’t do it – we’d rather get something done cheap or fast.

Whether we are getting a ‘good’ service is often overlooked.

The legal profession is not alone – as any PR and comms people reading this will already have realised.

Everyone can do PR, right?

Wrong, but professionalism is something that the PR industry is still grappling with. Talk to people at CIPR Council meetings or the more engaged members of the PR community and they get it – we need to be professional in everything we do to deliver a future for the industry – training, evaluation, ethics and professional development.

What we’ve collectively been less good at is demonstrating the huge value that the public relations function can bring to organisations. In an era when reputation has never been so important, we must take this issue and tackle it head on.

That can mean challenging colleagues, superiors and clients when it comes to devising and delivering campaigns that make a difference. We must be relentlessly focused on outcomes, think from a customer perspective and not compromise on quality.

The Government Communication Service, under the watchful eye of Alex Aiken, is doing a great job in showing the way. Those of us operating in the private sector should take note.

Professionalism and expertise isn’t a ‘nice to have’, whether you are getting legal advice, growing your business or delivering challenging behaviour change campaigns, it’s an essential.

Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Dribbble, Instagram… everyday designers, artists, illustrators, makers and doers around the world post their creations online for us to appreciate. While this can often prove a vital resource for inspiration, there are a number of catches when browsing and posting art and design online…

The first problem is that what you think is wonderful (and your mum has reassured you is truly awesome) might just be a bit rubbish. And now the whole of the internet has seen it and anonymous commenters are bluntly comparing your artistic ability to that of a trained chimp. Ouch! Of course the alternative is almost as bad – your work is poor but you get 30+ likes on Instagram so you falsely assume that it’s good. Who are these people who are telling you that your work is ‘Adorbs’ or ‘Sick!’ and do they know what they’re talking about? Take a look at their profile and the sort of thing they post. If it’s all kittens and food, are they really a valid critic? Perhaps not. So, rule 1: don’t just post any old stuff. Look at it. Evaluate it. Post it only if you’re proud of it.

The second problem with sticking all your images online is that other people, less scrupulous than yourself, may appropriate your work and pass it off as their own. Rule 2: if you’re showing professional work that you use to earn your living, it may be better to only show a sneak peek online or to invest in professional watermark services to protect your copyright.

A further problem with looking at the work of talented, skilled designers and illustrators from across the world is the crushing sense of personal failure that can arise when you realize that, even if you quit your day job and did nothing but drawing practice from now until you’re 90, you’re never going to be THAT good. Oof! That can be a harsh blow to your ego but hey – maybe that person can’t code websites or cook a mean linguini or whatever your particular talent may be. So rule 3: don’t let the talents of others knock your self-confidence.

However, the main problem with browsing Pinterest and Behance etc is that we spend too much time looking and not enough doing… Faced with the sheer enormity of stuff available to look at, admire, covet and drool over, it’s easy to waste whole afternoons browsing, pinning and admiring inspirational images but that’s time you could have spent creating your own little masterpiece. So the final, most important rule is: make time to make things. Go on…

(Featured image: Whale  by Sarah Bibby)

After three heavy filming days, confined to the foot well of the cramped car and a less than ideal temperature, my artistic leash was unfastened by my directors. I was set loose around some poignant, cultural and stimulating exhibitions.

I packed up the cameras, notebook and complimentary tickets. I declined the idea of a hot tube and plumped for an on foot foray of optical delights.

London definitely did not disappoint. I’m a little lost on the Southbank and I feel like I have walked into uninvited rave, as I am party to an explosion of neon stripes and geometric revelry.

An impromptu feast of shapes and colourways, these would be my inspirational epiphany. A whole memorised mood board, was being built and ready to pass on to team members for our creative den, which is under construction as we speak.

An awe inspiring construction of typography and multi leveled graphics lured me in to explore. Artists, communities and partners had come together and transformed the Thames side site with installations and artworks (featured in Creative Review).

The artist Morag Myerscough and Luke Morgan, shower me in a riot of bright colours, a place of celebration and love for humanity to conquer hate – something we could all do with right now.

I had no choice but to smile and be happy, with an energized spring in my step, The images are captured and stored to help influence styles and ideas within the office.

I turn around the corner to find a random lonely chair, perfectly placed in the most contrasting setting. Swaddled in street art and placed in the center of the skate park. How did it arrive? Where is it going? I place my self on the seat and take in the messages, stories and statements.

This is the height of using visualisation for clever communication, albeit smelling of p*ss from where the homeless sleep every night, it seems to add to the social impact and impact of the political messages being spoken through illustration.

Each of my senses are heightened, as I have eaten my visual starter before I head off to the Tate for my mind filling, main course.