The Naughty North

NatWest

2009-09-08T09:40:00.002+01:00

Destroy your brand? On the corner of Clerkenwell Road, this cashpoint has been out of order for well over three months, stickered up and looking quite knackered.

Two email, one phone call, pics posted in the twit-o-sphere.. result nothing. NatWest, what's going on?

Up and running again

2009-08-25T17:36:00.001+01:00

Right, time to get stuff down

Busy bee

2007-10-19T09:56:00.001+01:00

Haven't had chance to post for a while, I'm off to Crayon London - and can't wait for it, they're a nice bunch of folks!

I've been checking out the new Habitat site. Some nice flash and clean layout. I'm sitting reasonably close to my laptop and having a problem reading it. Now I've got good eyesight, so what's the problem?

Typography treatment. In order to dial up the 'cool' the type is light grey on white. Looks quite nice, useless as functional design.

So I've taken the time to run the palette through juicy studio to check the contrast, no surprise it fails miserably:

The difference in brightness between the two colours is not sufficient. The threshold is 125, and the result of the foreground and background colours is 93.

The difference in colour between the two colours is not sufficient. The threshold is 500, and the result of the foreground and background colours is 276.

Colour Brightness Formula
The following is the formula suggested by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to determine the brightness of a colour.

((Red value X 299) + (Green value X 587) + (Blue value X 114)) / 1000

The difference between the background brightness, and the foreground brightness should be greater than 125.

How disappointing.

Challenge a go-go

2007-09-26T11:15:00.000+01:00

I've been working through a visual exercise to convey brand personality. Should be pretty straightforward...

When you're attempting to ask someone to classify their business the usual suspect questions are rolled out - what drink you you be at a dinner party, you know we've all done it.

How about applying the BPS (brand personality scale) - the big 5 to the problem? This is where it starts to get interesting. I've previously looked at Imagini - it's quite interesting, although somewhat limited. You can only select one element.

What happens if you believe you belong in more than one category? What happens if you're looking at one thing but decide to answer a different way.

Quite some time ago I was looking at Dart Motif and how that could be used to help out online campaigns, around the hover time. Could this style technique to used in profiling? It's certainly an interesting question to answering a difficult graphical challenge.

Methodology for methodology sake?

2007-09-14T14:37:00.000+01:00

When there's a whole raft of methodologies and tools at your disposal for answering briefs, the first port of call is to go for the most complex type.

Why? Is it to show off that you have the experience? Believe you will get better insight? Or just to confuse people on purpose?

No matter what the brief is - whether a two day project or a six month programme, the core framework remains the same. There's no need to dress this up in complex terminology - we're all guilty of this.

Do I need a methodology to explain this?

Desirable Apple

2007-09-06T10:12:00.000+01:00

Those folks at Apple have done a great job on the new iPod, well not a massive surprise there.

It's basically a cut down iPhone - great! But the clever part is how they're really showing choice. There's something for everyone, even the basic shuffle is cool.

It's always a challenge to deal with a whole bunch of different consumers - and here the price points are considerably different. You either create segments or build a somewhat diluted proposition that is everything to everybody.

The naming works perfectly. The latest offering isn't iPod 2 or something that simply (sure it will over time) replaces the current iPod, but by adding the 'touch' descriptor it is differentated from the rest in the range, without alienating them.

Integrated - at last an example

2007-08-31T16:44:00.000+01:00

I received my home insurance renewal yesterday, a massive pack of small print, that I'll never have the time to read through. Yes, yes I know it's in the detail that counts, but I'll never get around to it. What I want is the quote price. That's all that really matters.

Think customer - renewing insurance sucks, every year it's a big pain in the backside.

Today, as if by magic I was invited to renew it online and get four bottles of wine for the bother of doing so. This is smart.

It's top of mind - the offline pack reminded me that it needs to be done. I know the price, all the detail is there for when I want to read it, I certainly wouldn't want to attempt this on-screen, there's far too much to read.

The extra incentive caught my eye - had they got clever and had in my profile I drink wine? Probably not. But the entire experience was a good one. Alot of campaigns are so-called integrated, in essence they mean TV, outdoor and DM.

And yes, I will be renewing it with the company.

The big signoff debate

2007-08-30T11:40:00.000+01:00

How can the project process stop that 11th hour 'hold the presses' moment. My view is people don't spend enough thinking time reviewing the strategy and approving it with 100% belief.

It always amazes me that everything has gone well, approved gateways etc then just when you think it's in the bag along comes can we change that please.

As as answer to this, I am exploring the use of a customer model. So when someone asks the million dollar question, the constantly updated model can show that it's not important and been considered. This creates a new challenge of showing that you're : a. clever clogs, b. don't want to do the work or c. don't agree with the client.

Who gives two onions?

2007-08-24T11:09:00.000+01:00

When planning the strategy for an online campaign or communication, planners start at the beginning - desk research, searching for insight...

This is already done and should have a fair amount of credentials behind it. It's the role of the brand manager. They know the audience, what makes them tick and how to differentiate from their competitiors.

To some extent you could end up with two brand propositions. Why? Are the customers different for online? Maybe.

So if this is the case and the experience with the brand is different from online to offline, how does the cross over. I may choose to view/collect information/purchase online but may also interact with the brand in the real world - I am the same consumer!

Digital planners should spend time with brand managers and really understand how the total customer experience can be planned.

The blackness

2007-08-20T09:17:00.000+01:00

Everytime I hear 'Black', I think of the painter sketches from The Fast Show. Its other association is either premium (Black card etc) or death (in the Europe and USA).

So how can black be a force for good - how about saving a tiny amount of screen energy:

http://www.blackle.com/

Just imagine if for every Google search it used black as a background how much energy could be saved without a loss in user experience. What a cool idea!

Even the best get it wrong

2007-08-16T16:30:00.000+01:00

As part of a next generation OS I'm working on I've been taking OS X apart, well dashboard.

After studying the iTunes widget the drop shadow does not match between the view and config views. How could this happen? It's Apple!

Whilst OS X is an amazing piece of software, it just goes to show that the speed we're all required to work at to gain competitive advantage has an effect on quality control - and these type of tiny errors slip through the net.

Shhhh - don't mention IP

2007-07-25T13:37:00.000+01:00

From a buzz word to soaking up large bugets IPTV is a bad word. Why? It's not TV and the quality isn't there yet.

We need to think about how and why we consume TV. Simple - at home in veg mode. Do I want access everywhere - well to some content yes - but not to watch my favourite program, that's where I want the creature comforts - a good couch for a start!

The big gripe - interaction. Just because I can navigate a whole host of menus doesn't mean I want to. In fact, instead of physically navigating to a program (or channel as we do currently) for most of the time a genre would be the better way to display a list of available programs. For instance, when you've had a rough day you just want comedy or a particular type of film to 'empty' your head - not a full on engaging interactive experience

Mood TV - the new IPTV anyone?

More strategic insights: mystery shopping

2007-07-23T14:58:00.000+01:00

The brand proposition sets out the rules to whom, how and why they should believe in a company. More often than not, digital agencies define the experience how we interact with these companies.

So in the digital world everything is great - the appropriate information is presented at the right moment. So what happens when this (sometimes complex) sale moves over to the real world - how are the two connected?

In a brief I'm working on at the moment the truth is not at all. They could be two separate companies. Planners should go undercover and get their hands dirty interacting with brands in the real world and see where consumers want to dip in and out of the digital world. Its not a simple case of they being tarred by the same brush.

Why should Apple bother?

2007-07-19T14:11:00.000+01:00

From an initial crack at a revised layout for the iPhone it's turning out to be more difficult than I first thought. Five keys top row, three middle row and one at the bottom doesn't make for an obvious layout, more work required here.

There's a massive brand opportunity for Apple here - sure they've got an innovative device, it does just about everything you want, looks cool and uses the coverflow technology. But how about making more usual - just to give Nokia a spanking. But they haven't, why? Probably because they've created a product with built-in maximum desirability - there's no need to bother.

Small device keyboard strategy

2007-07-18T10:47:00.000+01:00

Following on from the recent posts surrounding difficult text entry on the iPhone, I've been thinking how to solve this. The logical route suggests placing a number of most frequently used letters with some treatment (either size or colour). There's various opinions as to what these are from Samuel Morse (1791-1872) to calaloging all words in the Concise Oxford Dictionary.

Depending on positional layout (with QWERTY) a select group of these frequent letter (>5%) should be considered for prominence:

E - 11.1607%
A - 8.4966%
R - 7.5809%
I - 7.5448%
O - 7.1635%
T - 6.9509%
N - 6.6544%
S - 5.7351%
L - 5.4893%

I'll post the results from the initial layouts soon for review

Touchy feely social

2007-07-17T14:04:00.000+01:00

I was checking out imagini.net. Good looking UI and an interesting method of creating a profile without entering any of the dreaded personal details. This is where the experience takes a beating. Just as you're getting used to doing things a different way - connecting to others (hopefully with the same tastes!) goes right back to existing methods.

As the experience is visual, it's a shame they haven't though about non traditional message based concepts. Like the Nabaztag - yes it's a rabbit, and it does drive you insane, but I'm sure it's got some pretty cool functionality just waiting to be exploited. Time to reconnect the rabbit to the network and have an experiment!

No logo

2007-07-16T11:03:00.000+01:00

When planners are creating the roadmap for a brand why don't they consider all devices? Sure, some identities may exist in one channel, for now, but what happens when they move across to another - how will the system hold up and will it deliver the right tone?

I've been checking out one of the most important elements of a brands visual identity - the logo. It seems that designers aren't considering or being asked to consider what the mark will look like on small screen devices. For example a fine square typeface appears beautiful and delicate in print, it is completely unreadable on the LCD screen size of 140x120px - the screen has a low resolution and the fine type simply gets lost.

For something so powerful, we need to change the creative process from interpretation to part of the creative brief.

Killer Qwerty

2007-07-12T09:35:00.000+01:00

Like many I believed the QWERTY keyboard layout was designed for input speed. Not true. A great programme on BBC4 explained the development of the typewriter and the keyboard layout - it's simple the layout was designed in order that the arms didn't clash.

This got me thinking. If qwerty isn't the best use of placement, i.e. 60% of keys are typed by your left hand, then it's ever likely the new onscreen touch keyboards as implented in the Apple iPhone are a complete pain in the backside to use. It's difficult to 'get onto' the keys, which results in frequent mis-keying. Fine - the OS learns these mistakes, but that still doesn't help out the user interface. It's worth considering that the frequently used keys should be take larger screen real estate therefore allowing faster interaction, while still retaining the common QWERTY layout.

One for thinking about there. Visit bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/ for more programmes.

The Semantic Brand

2007-07-11T09:31:00.000+01:00

Brand hierachies or maps are straightforward to create. Each element has an intentional relationship and is formed on the basis of desired target, affinity etc. Partnerships or sponsorships are less welded together, but both parties benefit either in sales or awareness.

All good stuff and controllable. This all changes with microformats. I might not agree with Google on their advertising monopoly nor do I want to align any of my services to the organisation. If a user posts a microformatted item of content with geo information for Google Maps. by default I've created a relationship with the brand.

Brand map? You'll need 10 sheets of A3 to work that out!

The B Word

2007-07-10T19:56:00.000+01:00

Well the old site has finally gone. Looking back at 10 years of work I realised most of it was eye candy, some sucessful, others just crap. Instead of updating the site with images of new work on an as and when basis, I've decided to put the world to right and publish my thoughts on branding. Damn it, a blog...